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At Last
In the Joy of this peaceful Wednesday morning,
a kaleidoscope of emotions and thoughts,
floods my soul like sunlight through the clouds.
It gives me just a glimpse of the crystal blue sky that lies beyond the gray.
A blue that waits patiently for me to notice it is there.
But when I do, my desire to hold onto that blue sky, that glimpse of joy,
becomes my downfall.
The sky-blue joy is not meant to be held or captured.
Holding it too close would be to smother it, diminish its power.
Instead, I learned to move with it, become part of it,
no longer wishing to become its conqueror or controller.
So now, over time, I have come to realize and understand that only by letting go
can I feel the crystal blue joy deep inside my heart,
welcoming me back home…
At last.
Winter Loneliness
Stars swirl in a midnight winter sky,
and the forest tiptoes through the darkness,
aware only of itself.
My owl friends have returned.
Their voices give life to this night’s deep darkness,
while in the distance a fox barks back to them in welcome,
his winter loneliness forgiven.
My Turn
At 68 it is now my turn.
You have taken care of me since I was formed in my mother’s womb in darkness.
But the darkness didn’t last, and you became my friend and love.
You loved me though the baby stages, the reckless teen years,
the trials of using you to produce more of me,
the times of struggling with weight, too much or too little.
You only thought of me and I, in my arrogance and misunderstandings of your propose,
treated you as a second-class citizen.
As someone with no rights, and no thoughts for yourself and
For my arrogance, I am sorry.
I am sorry for all the times I didn’t pay attention to what you needed,
what you cried out for,
what you wanted,
what you cried in the night for,
what I didn’t give you.
But now, here we are.
We are still here together but
the tables have turned and it is I who
must take care of you.
I who must finally listen to you,
give you what your need,
respect your sacrifices,
your hurts and sorrows.
You have carried me all these years so now
it is only right that I should carry you.
I watch you struggle daily with things that used to be so easy for you.
So easy that I never gave them a thought.
I do now.
I see how unbalanced you are and wonder when that happened.
I guess I wasn’t paying attention.
Your shape has changed.
That too is my fault.
You have done nothing wrong but are failing anyway.
Time is now your enemy,
The way of nature dictates your future regardless of what I want.
So now it is my turn.
My turn to give you all that you need to keep going
until your time has expired, and I leave you.
When the time comes, I will leave but not without sorrow for you because you, my friend,
have been the best body and friend a human
could ever have had.
I have been blessed to call you mine
and will take the memory of how well you have served me
on my next journey, wherever that may take me.
I will never forget you,
And when the end comes,
I will thank you and send you back to the earth in peace.
Rest well there my friend, rest well.
Haiku (1-5)
-1-
My arms can’t hold him
My heart cannot let him go
My soul feels empty
-2-
My love has not left
In hides deep within my soul
It can’t find his heart
-3-
The rain stops – silence
Earth smiles in gratitude
Clouds fill with promise
-4-
Soft warm summer night
Stars are blurred by humid air
Frost will return soon
-5-
Blue skies lie to me
Nothing is ever the same
After the rain stops
I Wonder Where He Is
I feel him,
taste his mouth,
smell his skin and feel his touch.
He is strong and kind,
passionate and silly,
lighthearted and honest.
He holds me in the night and kisses
my eyes awake each morning,
as our souls mingle in the soft warm darkness of early morning sleep.
Early morning is a special time where yesterday and tomorrow meet and
blend together into the now.
I know I have known him since before time existed.
There is no separation between he and I
as we are two halves of a whole.
He is my Anam Cara, and I his,
my soul mate, my life.
I wonder if he exists…
From the Inside Out
When I take the time to look inside,
instead of outside,
I find miraculous things.
Things I never have seen before,
feelings I never have noticed and
rules left unfollowed.
Oftentimes they are rules I have imposed on others
but never have followed myself.
Those others, whom I say I know well and in my arrogance convince myself that I know
how they think and feel, always turn out to be not who I thought they were.
A disappointment, but the fault is mine.
Through wisdom that only comes with age,
I have finally realized that it is only me who I can ever really know…
but only from the inside out.
Wind and Chi
This field, our place of wind and chi.
Big sky – distant mountains and
wind, always the wind
pushing the chi into our souls,
filling every cell of our bodies
with its energy.
We were together.
But now… he is gone….
and I am left here alone.
The silent soft sadness surrounds me and
when my body can hold no more
seeps from my fingertips and
the corners of my eyes.
In despair I sit, just sit with
my hands and feet in the grass,
my head in the clouds and
my heart in his hands.
This place, this field, is a crack in the veil
between the worlds
where the bodhicitta flows.
The Earth’s life force that exists here swirls like smoke around my feet
and echoes in the bird song
that fills the spaces between the trees.
Sun light is filtered in ever changing
dappled patters as the wind ripples
the grasses in waves that travel through this wind-chi place.
His essence lingers in this thin place and
even after so many years have passed,
it is here, but only here,
that I still feel him beside me.
I hear his voice on the wind,
see his smile in the bird song, and feel
his love in the sweet softness of the grass and
whispers of the evening mist.
When I am here, time moves slowly and
each moment osculates freely in this place
of wind and chi
where forever is cradled in the
blooms of the milkweed.
In memory J
I Had Forgotten
His words float like jewels in the darkness and quiet of my heart.
We live in the warm and soft darkness together,
A darkness that is not sad or lonely, but strong and free.
I hear my heartbeats echo in the soft darkness that holds us together.
A place of emptiness but bursting with truth and love.
I would tell you more, but it is not my truth to share, it is his.
His is the only one that works.
His pointings have taken me back to a place I never left,
But a place I had forgotten existed.
Thank God it had not forgotten me.
Helpless
In my dream I held her.
She was tiny, crazed with rage.
She beat her little fists against my words,
as if brute force could keep the nothingness away.
I was sad but I told her it was ok, that all would be well.
I said I would take care of it and of her…
But I lied.
I couldn’t.
I was just her friend with no power to stop her disease.
I felt guilty.
But there soon came a time when it really didn’t matter anymore.
She didn’t remember me.
I don’t remember her being so small…
It must have happened when I wasn’t looking.
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