Ephemeral Stream

This is the way water 
thinks about the desert. 
The way the thought of water 
gives you something 
to stumble on. A ghost river. 
A sentence trailing off 
toward lower ground. 
A finger pointing 
at the rest of the show. 

I wanted to read it. 
I wanted to write a poem 
and call it "Ephemeral Stream"
and dedicate it to you
because you made of this 
imaginary creek 
a hole so deep 
it looked like a green eye 
taking in the storm, 
a poem interrupted 
by forgiveness. 

It's not over yet. 
A dream can spend 
all night fighting off 
the morning. Let me 
start again. A stream 
may be a branch or a beck, 
a crick or kill or lick, 
a syke, a runnel. It pours 
through a corridor. The door 
is open. The keys 
are on the dashboard. 

by Elizabeth Willis

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, 
And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 
And loved your beauty with love false or true, 
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 
And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 
And paced upon the mountains overhead 
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 

 ~W. B. Yeats

Burning the Old Year

Burning the Old Year
By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

For a New Beginning

This year I am not so moved to write a poem every day in April, as I thought I'd be. I celebrate my creativity! Five poems in a month is way more output than usual.

I want to share this beautiful poem I discovered today, which resonates so deeply in my soul that the connection between all beings is once again more deeply affirmed to me.

For a New Beginning 
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue ~
from To Bless the Space Between Us

cinque - para la jaguar

every hair an antenna
every signal a flame
listening is not an imperative
she's
a slinky walk
a sharp-tipped recoil
a flaring strike

then sinking back into darkness
murmuring in the loud silence
receptively quiet amidst whirring life

she knows every ripple on earth
human minds call her a god
her knowing is deeper than mind
wider than body
longer than soul

all the waves connect and convey
through her blood stream
every choice to move
aligns with the whole of life

her blackness again 
submerges into the shadows
her golden eyes 
glow with fire

quatro

the circle divided 
into four pieces of pie
spins with a whirled balance
and sends up the divine pillar

so why do we divide our world,
ourselves, our bodies, our energies,
when the process of inner life
is to bring together what's been fragmented?

just in being what the Great, Loud I thinks,
those very ideas are automatically shattered 
from the great, mysterious whole

yet, how separate?
really? how can the universal experience
be condemned, in its beauty walk to truth
not for the truth lacking, but for the walk full?

and so I sing up high to the sky
and groan down low, press my toes and cheek
into our mother's heart, or into her bloomings
all around us

and praise and groan to the north,
east,
west, 
south,
and then some.
Above, 
below,
within.
To all my relations and all I forget.
To all I name and all the unnamed and unnameable.
The four directions frame my heart compass
and don't contain it.
In gratitude and beauty
may we continue to walk the human pilgrimage.

las tres hermanas

the three mountains rise from the mother
undulating sisters, each one a goddess breast

the balance of three is a dance of life,
much as the four sacred directions
cross the circle in balance,
the seven energetic centers
whirl through the human body 
and emerge from the earth's surface

the balance of three dances the tension and release
the three points leaning away from and into each other
the pelvis bones pulling out the triangle's edges
to arrive at a point through which the beginning of life travels

las tres hermanas
trust, remember, empower, support
find an odd way into a duality mind
find an abundant path for the one
looking for only its other one
find what's always been there
in a sisterhood of three