Tag Archives: mindfulness

Hail

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hail


Hail

My hands know the sadness of rock,
of unfinished lines and rough

sides tapering to sharpness.
The shape of solitude, turning.

Now the stones fall as water,
a woman lets down her hair

and laughter chokes through silence.
Into this dream I ascend.

 

rock

“Hail” first appeared here in September 2016, and is included in Indra’s Net: An International Anthology of Poetry in Aid of The Book Bus.

All profits from this anthology published by Bennison Books will go to The Book Bus, a charity which aims to improve child literacy rates in Africa, Asia and South America by providing children with books and the inspiration to read them.

Available at Amazon (UK) and Amazon (US)

 

The Bitter Celebrates

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The Bitter Celebrates

Mention gateways and mythologies
and I see openings to paths
better left unseen. No choice is

choice,
but preparation leads us astray as well.
Take this bitter leaf.
Call it arugula.
Call it rocket.
Call it colewort or weed.
Dress it with oil and vinegar,
with garlic and lemon.
Add tomato, salt.

Though you try to conceal it,
the bitterness remains.

But back to gates and myths. Do they truly
lead us out, or do we
circle back, returning
to the same endings
again
and again.

Remove the snake, rodents return.

Seal the hole.
Take this leaf.
Voice those words.
Close that door.

 

“The Bitter Celebrates” first appeared in Amethyst Review in December 2018.

 

Apricot Wood (with recording)

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clouds

 

 

Apricot Wood

I built a frame of apricot
wood. This was for you. The clouds float
through it even as I sleep. You wrote
once of wild herbs gathered and brought
to a lovely girl, an offering not
of passion but of some remote
desire to hear a word from the throat
of the Lord Within Clouds. I thought
of this as I chiseled the wood.
Last night it rained. I listened to
it from my bed by the open
window, hoping that the clouds would
not leave. This morning two birds flew
by. It is raining again.

 

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Originally penned in the 1980s, “Apricot Wood,” is included in my 2015 chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform. It was first published in 1986, in SPSM&H, a publication devoted to sonnets, and was featured on Autumn Sky Poetry Daily in March 2015. It’s interesting to look at my writing from this period. Some pieces seem to have been written by a stranger, long ago and far, far away. This one somehow seems closer. 

 

 

April 1 Online Reading

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I’m looking forward to participating in an online reading with 12 other poets, including Charles Darnell, Martha K. Grant and Stephanie L. Harper, on Thirsday, April 1 at 7:00  p.m. US Central Daylight Savings Time.  The reading is sponsored by the Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, Texas, and is free, but you must email Robin Stauber (place Miracles in the subject line) at stauber@boernelibrary.org to obtain the invitation link.

The reading should last somewhere between an hour and an hour and fifteen minutes (we’ve been asked to read for no more than five minutes). In case you’re wondering, I’m the 11th reader and Stephanie is the 13th. If you’re able to attend, we’d love to see you (if only virtually).

 

Cyclops

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Cyclops

Boundless loss, hemmed at the edges.
Another mended hole, wasted mornings.
Unwound, I towel off, extract loose hair.
Look for messages in the clouds, see
only deceit. I am sick with
joy. I no longer sing. My goats
shun me. Where is the love,
the missing fact. An albino
squirrel skitters up the oak.
I think of blood, of bone fragments.
The pleasures of rendering.

 

 

“Cyclops” first appeared in September 2019 at Recenter Press, a publisher “dedicated to sharing work that is grounded in both the spiritual and the material.” Many thanks to the editors for taking these pieces.

 

 

 

Because You Cook

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Because You Cook

You know the pleasure of
hunger, of patience
and a task well done.

Dice onion, peppers – one hot,
one sweet – saute them in olive oil,

fold them into an egg
cooked flat. Add
crumbled goat cheese, basil.

Look away.
Morning ascends, then declines,
but night drifts in, confident,
ferrying these odors among others.

Accept what comes but choose wisely.
Light the candle. Shift the burden.

 

* * *

“Because You Cook” first appeared in Ristau: A Journal of Being in January 2018. I am grateful to editor Robert L. Penick for taking this piece.

 

The Stone Remains Silent Even When Disturbed

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image

 

The Stone Remains Silent Even When Disturbed

In whose tongue
do you dream?
I fall closer to death

than birth, yet
the moon’s sliver
still parts the bare

branches and an unfilled
trench divides the
ground. Bit by bit,

we separate – you
remain in the earth,
recumbent, as I gather

years in stride.
Even the rain
leaves us alone.

 

image



This first appeared in December 2015.

 

Rain Forest Bridge

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bridge

Rain Forest Bridge

To cross
you must first
trust the strands

to hold.
The second tentative
step precedes
the next,

each successive one
gaining strength:
here to

there, now
to then, a summoning of
entreaties
within
one’s faith.

Vapor meets cooler air,
forming droplets,
clouding the far side.

I have feared endings
and the strictures of the unseen,

but here
in this vast
swaying,
I know

one line
bisects the void.

* * *

“Rain Forest Bridge” first appeared in Four Ties Lit Review in August, 2014.

rope

March 14 Online Reading

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I’m looking forward to participating in an online reading with other poets from the anthology No More Can Fit Into the Evening on Sunday, March 14 at 12:30 p.m. US Central Daylight Savings Time.  The reading is free, but you must register to obtain the link.

Also reading at this time are Richard Brenneman, Cynthia Jobin (read by Julie Murray), Mike Orlock, Albert DeGenova, Redwulf DancingBare, Sharon Auberle, Ralph Murre, James Janko, Ethel Davis, Tom Davis and Standing Feather.

The reading should last somewhere between an hour and an hour-and-a-half (we’ve been asked to read for no more than five minutes). If you’re able to attend, we’d love to see you (if only virtually).

You might also check out the anthology reading on Saturday, March 13, at 11:30 a.m., featuring John Looker, Annette Grunseth, Nick Moore, Anna Mark, Tori Grant Wellhouse, Jim Kleinhenz (read by John Looker), Estella Lauter, Maryann Hurtt, Ina Schroders-Zeeders, Nathan J. Reid, A. Carder (read by John Looker), Robin Chapman, Terence Winch and Kimberly Blaeser. Register here.

The book is being distributed by Ingram, and should be available (if not in stock, through special order) through bookstores in the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It’s also available through Amazon.

 

Snow Country

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Fuji

Snow Country

desolate the reach
of space a
curved line of

white empty as
the loneliness one
feels the tone

is different on
a day like
this she says

unaware that her
words fall like
snow in the

mountains soft quiet
in the roar
no one hears

 

* * *

Another piece from the eighties…this first appeared here in November 2015.

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