Category: Poetry

  The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you: Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want: Don’t go back to sleep. People are going in and out of the door where the two worlds touch: The door is right there, look, it’s wide open! Don’t go back to […]

  At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened? […]

    Conjure something glowing Take this day You were born with hands for spinning Talent for dreams and making them real Roll the hours like yarn Spin something that makes you feel full And big and open to talk Make this day your own square In your own life quilt So shining it brightens […]

  EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing; And I was fill’d with such delight As prison’d birds must find in freedom Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight. Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted, And beauty came like the setting sun. My heart was shaken with tears; and horror […]

    sadness, goodbye but hello again you are the writing on the ceiling you are the writing in her eyes sadness, sadness, you’re not that bad I can eclipse and cloud you with a smile welcome, again you are the body of love you are the power of love love’s uprising beyond the body […]

    when a child leaves the breast for solid food it does not look back it grows the seed is nourished by earth then spreads towards the sun so: taste the scarlet sky open towards wisdom hide no longer in yourself you came here like a star that had no name enter the night […]

    The dawn light. A light rain. I hear it on the treetop leaves. Then, the mist. The morning wind blows it and the clouds away. Now colours deepen, and a sense of grace: the presence of water. And then, across the landscape the smell of morning rain.   Du Fu (712-770 AD)

  the day is remarkable luminous, joyful so easy, to live with the taste of colour love makes me laugh and, at the last moment, I open my eyes.     Paul Eluard, Serie

    Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations. Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper […]

  I’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster As you might try a jewel in your hair. I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of luster, Alone, or in one ornament combining With one first-water start almost shining. I put it shining anywhere I please. By walking slowly […]

  The point is the seeing, the grace beyond recognition, the ways of the bird rising, unnamed, unknown, beyond the range of language, beyond its noun. Eyes open on growing, flying, happening, and go on opening. Manifold, the world dawns on unrecognizing, realizing eyes. Amazement is the thing. Not love, but the astonishment of loving. […]

 He said, I am with you always. That means, when you look for God  That God is the looking itself,  Yes, and the thought of looking And the you that thinks the thought Always, already, all of it;  There is no outside.    A white flower grows in the silence  Let your speech be that flower. […]

     Let the immeasurable come.    Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.    Let the wind turn in the trees,    and the mystery hidden in the dirt    swing through the air.    How could I look at anything in this world    and tremble, and grip my hands over […]

    All the others translate: the painter sketches A visible world to love or reject; Rummaging into his living, the poet fetches The images out that hurt and connect. From Life to Art by painstaking adaption Relying on us to cover the rift; Only your notes are pure contraption, Only your song is an […]

  this blessing God’s love calls us to that elsewhere world which only lovers eyes alight, eyes aflame can see at all. only those who have self surrendered: once, they were flecks of fire; now, they are the radiant sun.   Rumi

  The beauty of the heart is what will remain: it brings to your lips the water of life. in truth, it is the water, and the jug that holds it, and the lips that drink. All three become one when your talismans are broken. This is a oneness you won’t know by thinking about […]

  When despair grows in me and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into […]

    Poetry reveals that there is no empty space. When your truth forsakes its shyness, When your fears surrender to your strengths, You will begin to experience That all existence Is a teeming sea of infinite life. In a handful of ocean water You could not count all the finely tuned Musicians Who are […]

    All that there is, is love. Nothing else is, but love.  Love is the force that fires the stars,  that drives our lives from seed to sepulchre,  from edge to edge, from end to end.