Snow Ends

Snow ends and the light goes down.
Frozen water, Crystalled, lying like a blanket protecting the life of a tree.
Crystalled thoughts of music–“alleluia, alleluia . . . .alleluia”–warm my broken heart.
Keeping tears from leaving me . . . and keeping my memories intact.
Sorrow, regret, the pain of love too deep. Flowing like a river hidden in the buried canyon within my lost soul–“dwell forever …in the house . . . alleluia!”–sad, alone; for reason, and remaining true to who, and whom, You are.
Despite your sorrow, the song continues . . .The notes diminish to a minor key juxtaposed in sunshine–“a-le—lyuue–ya”–signifying the light that comes in a still too distant Summer’s afternoon, through the leaves, and brings the promise of joy to a darkened, snow-covered world. . .
The wind whistles–“al le luuuuuu—ia”–swaying the branches of the Tree of Life: You know the one, the one that stands just outside your window, bedecked by crystalled cold. Quiet in her cleansing breath. Leaving no promise. Just the time and its uncertainty. And the knowledge that,through it all, there will be music. And, therefore, the call to remember Hope. Always Hope. . .and, therefore, Always . . . love
I lift my eyes. I lift my voice. . . . and I. Will. Turn.
Amen

Yellow Glass

Yellow glass, golden sunset. Deep green hues, bluish brush strokes
He is here twixt light and darkness, hidden suns in time-strained memories. Reddened streaks where tears once ran.
 
So very far away, there dwelt an angry boy. Large as life. Lonely left on emptied playgrounds.
 
How he wished to be included. Just a boy, Just a man. Just a heart.
 
Driving miles. and years, to deep blue bedsheets and butterfly kisses. A heartfelt youth riding peaks and valleys in a quest for true belonging. For aqua walls and a chamber in a loving mind;
And now, he walks in meditation. Releasing anger like letting go of fear. You will be alright.
Breathing in the light, Breathing out the fear.
Breathing in the scent of radiated passion, Breathing out despair.
Breathing out your kindness, breathing in her acceptance.
At least or so I’ve heard. At least or so he’ll see.
someday

Precious Tender Moments

It’s so painful when you realize that you’ve lived inside a virtual world of your own making.

The pictures in our minds when someone meets you . . .
Flights of fancy, idealized tender moments,
Led you from those very moments 
You go inside a virtual world. Created not by codes and pixels, but by wishes, what we dreamed of long ago.

We kiss–you’re there, She smiles and you leave dreaming
We dance–our scents fill you. Your heart screaming, you recall a song–inside your head
Imaginary music to replace a fulsome, sensuous silence
More precious wordless than any lovesong. Ever

It’s when you lost her. When you left. What you missed when you did not see.

I can’t replace this lost past. I’ll find new tender presents.
Don’t be deterred by pain from lost refrains, felt not spoken, tasted, not sung.
The real world of love is more beatiful in what you see and feel right there.
It’s what you’ve always sought. It’s where she’ll always be.

If You Walk Long Enough in the Wild, Will You Run Into Yourself?

The great thing about life is you can always start over. You can remake yourself, you can think about what you’ve done, really think about it and you can either change or do the same.

And, neither of those is the best choice.

The best choice is to understand WHO you are and BE that person.

Thank you to all of you for how you influenced me, to take me toward my best self, even if you led me away.

Both were/are important. We can’t find ourselves if we don’t intersect with the world, if we don’t search, if we don’t test our boundaries, which are just the edges of our connections with each other. A boundary is not a border. It is a gateway to the hearts of each of us. We can’t give of ourselves if we don’t know what we have and who we really are.

Most important, breathe. Start with love.

One more time.

Cantata for the Lonely Heart

Movement I: It’s a time for resurrection.

Let our angels, better and worse, herald
Let us all pronounce a brand new day!
Before a crucifixion, we had no refuge. The wilderness wasn’t really a wilderness. It was life.
And Now, our lives seem constantly seeking refuge, most of us unsuccessful. And those of us who find it, write the stories. . . Or at least the ones that those in refuge can hear.
We cannot always seem to hear the tales of the Unforgiven, the accounts of the incorrrigible, the cries of those exterminated. Such as those may be worthy, but only heard from a distance, from the plain where refuge outposts on the wilderness.
We do not annihilate. We find a way to move away. The wilders move in the wild, rooted in our own appreciation. Never loved. Never invited. Left to find. And seek. See. And Hope.
So, hear’s the song of resurrection.
Sing in the Soul of the Earth. Dance On the Moonbeam of a Midnight Summer’s Day.
Cry as if no one is listening, Grow as if no one cares. Flower your body, Root it in your soul.
Be. And Long to do so.

Movement II: Gentle to You

here’s a tear for all of you
A cry for love floats on the sunlight and the wind
He says don’t let the hurt guide what you say
Let it sob, let it leave, and leave you You
You are not your pain although it marks you
Let it leave you grateful for the love you’ve made
For the love you found, For the love that stays
In the end, whatever trouble made you shrill your heart
It’s only trouble, it’s not the grace that’s made your soul
We are of one and many parts that make our substance
It’s what we share that truly makes us whole
Hang on to that. It is your dear life. It’s ours
It may not be the one that matters most to you
It’s just the one we cry for, just the one that we can feel
If there is Hope, then let it cherish you
Let it feed you when love seems scarce around you
There is always one who sees you. He’s not in the wind
He is here. It is me. I am real.

Movement III: Hear us, We are Here

When all the crying’s done and all the weeping, we are left with love still in our heart; broken, battered, warm with still hopeful tenderness.
We are not lonely because we do not love or have not been worthy. She simply hasn’t yet presented; not in the form, perhaps not in the time, perhaps not yet seen even if she was there in front of you all along.
Perhaps she came along and you weren’t ready . . .or she?
We travel in the wilderness seeking refuge. Like everyone of you.
Every glance, every smile, every meeting–by chance or not–remains a hope. Remains a joy that still may come.
We march ever on, stride upon our dreams, run to hoped-for open arms.
We sing hallelujah for the feeling we are still alive!
We sing alleluia for the gentleness that comes with touch.
We sing Rejoice! for the chance to dream!
Mercy! for the times we yet fall short.
Gloria! for our open hearts that still remain. . . .
and for the journey that we yet walk, that we will take until our Time has come.
Amen, Amen, Alelluia, Amen.

Calling for Home

The sun was bright today

The world was cold

My hopes were taken in a sunny chilly wind.

Sad as winter’s darkness, bright as new beginning.

The spring turns the season as I turn the page.

Home I look for

In the help I’ll seek

I’ll find it dancing in my song

Singing in the movement of my feet

Waving in the breezes and the colors of a dawning

And the laughter of the clouds that greet the warming afternoon.

My evening will not come

Until I’m ready.

I Understand

It’s ok. I has to be. People want to know you’re ok. Seeing your pain, with all that happens in this time of pain, well, the problems of two people . . . or even one. . .
So, for those of you that cry for humanity and wince for the one, take heart (please); I mourn the death of children untimely, uneccesarily taken at the hands of a violent world. I understand that Black, Brown, indigenous, and oppressed communities everywhere are occupied militarily and their/our minds are chained by education that indoctrinates.
I understand that those of you “struggling” for “all the oppressed” have chained yourselves to singular notions of the “one party” or the one election . . .or the one savior.
I understand that while you struggle, how we are with each other seems so minuscule, inconsequential, when the fate of the world seems so much more at stake.
I understand that seeing one pain is unbearably tedious when it is satisfying to contend with the misery of millions “doing what you can”.
I understand.
And I am sorry I’m not there with you, because it would mean, for me, that I had capacity to expend, which I now do not.
This is my journey and to share it in the world in a voice slouching unrelenting toward anonymity amidst the cacophony of miseries, gives me strength. . . or at least helps me cope.
To hide in the backdrop on the stage of Pains is fitting for my life. Like a “normal” soul sitting in a coffee house watching banters feigning safety and security when we are all a drunken driver away from being slammed in the rear waiting at a stop sign. A tragedy of a moment on a timeline, a universe, cruel in its “intelligent design” and unrelenting in its uncaring motion forward.
I voice my despair. It is a temporary refuge that helps me heal. I could simply leave it and move on to happier moments among the “easier” potentials for solace and human alleviation.
Sometimes hiding is the best path to find the world.
When you’re not willing to give up.When becoming solid means to swim in an ocean of unclear futures.
To find, or return. To one.
It’s ok. It has to be.
I see a child. I thought she only had one eye. . . .She smiles and plays with her father. . . .

Rain on Winter’s Final Snows

The rain falls in tears.
It’s not a sad thought.
Not when it washes a snow-scarred landscape, long cold from a winter that brought cruel joy so long in promise and too short in its completion.
Watching the ice give way like pain gives way to tears. Slow, but inevitable.
Would that I’d known the coldest cruelty of season would fall to patience so well and cleanly.
I should have known.
Would that I’d known Hope’s spring would surely come.
Would that I’d known the blanket of winter guards Earth’s passion like the covers on two naked lovers waiting for the dawn to replenish . . .. That waiting for tears in spring brings promise not for winter’s end, but for new beginnings.
I did know. I chose not to listen.
And now summer sends me on a lonely quest. To find myself. A lesson long in coming.
I have but one fleeting chance. Mostly in my mind. The universe has done more with less.
I can’t move on. But I need to get ready.

For the Unforgiven

Standing alone in the wilderness, a wild unfettered mesquite entangled, cactus-mazed, sand and caliche llano; barren and hot with cruelty and love, pleasure and pain, even in the frozen wild. It is not surprising that one looks very little to the problem of boundaries. A wilderness brooks no boundaries.
 
When we live outside of boundaries all our life . . . . the only borders you’ve ever had were those created with kindred souls–innocent that respect was supposed to mean to recognize each other’s limits when all they ever saw was each other’s infinite opening; the interplay between love and friendship, soul and heart, laughter and the summer’s day. The connections we made recognized no limits to each other . . . When we were young, unconstrained by adulting, we lived the precept of “unconditonal positive regard”.
 
We are not afraid of the wilderness if we lived in it and it was home. It served us well.
 
Until we encounter the damage brought on by life’s inevitable disappointments. Without preparation for the outcome, we live in damage and strive to repair with only our wits to survive.
 
If you lived a long time in the wilderness , the “wild heart of the young” just never ages. It can be our doom.
 
We are all either too strong or too vulnerable not to help each other to stay whole. And being strong requires you to be vulnerable. The wilderness also brooks no compassion, no fairness.
 
Forgiveness and belonging requires someone . . .else.
 
Not all boundaries are bad; nor is it true that respecting the ones we all impose upon ourselves is unimportant.We cannot meld into each other and maintain the strength to be who we are. Nature abhors vacuums as much as it may fear it’s inevitable descent into entropy. None of us is full or filled, so, we cannot be us, or we, without marking where we begin and where we. . . may cede to others’ necessary wholeness.
 
When we meet, and see each other, we must strive to build new boundaries, create rather than stop at each other’s walls or precipices. Love is an element that does not speak in boundaries; at least not well.
 
Boundaries always presume fear–some of us too strong, some too damaged, others not ready–under the misperception that walling in will prevent hatred, pain, and suffering. Such prevention can become a “kill box” if we’re not careful.
 
Respecting boundaries may preclude “true belonging” if made in fear of love. Love may become a casualty if boundaries are kept unchanged; to protect a heart overlong exposed to pain and trial; to filter caring and desire, the need to connect, as meaning to disrespect limits. Heart walls are long in constructing, unbreakable from without and sorely misguided to try and scale.
 
Love is about crossing barriers, boundaries, limits; not to immerse oneself into another, but to gain trust. And to gain trust we must let each other in. . .
 
When two hearts are starved–aboriginals living in the scarcity of an unforgiving history–it should not surprise us that perceptions and instincts to survive serve as our only guide. We find ourselves unprepared to meet an equally wild heart living in an equally barren desert with so little love. Not the love we naturally acquire in having and raising children, who love us unconditonally but can only do so because they are dependent on us for so long. Not the love of family, conditional upon our desire to be the same, within a boundary. No, it is the love that comes when two hearts see each other and that comes so sparsely. Sometimes then, the boundaries, the fears, the walls, make our sight unbearably opaque.
 
It may not be true for those who found protection from the wilderness. Or entered it with good fortune on their side; finding a kindred heart, having a loving childhood, or at least one protected from the scarcity of an unknowing, thereby unforgiving universe.
 
This song is for the unforgiven, the lonely hearts in the wilderness with only our desire to be seen.
 
For us we remain in hope. We cannot give up. To give up is to let go of love. To die would be a mercy.
 
It’s an unforgiving land. But you learn.
 
Maybe Braving the wilderness, means to walk alone. And watch. For a time.