Tag: ocean

gems

.Reading time 4 minutes.

here i am
or so it seems
on this rocky sea bed
strange fish swimming by stare
impolitely
at me
i would like to, crablike, crawl
deep into hidden crevices
and seek counsel
from the wise octopi

Honorable Octopi,
i seem to have sunk down
quite gill-less and un-finned
uh, rather hapless here
a mere, terrestrial, mortal in these depths
Could you please perhaps advise?
As nearly everything seems to have gone awry.

five large octopi
pulsing, and
floating gravity free bobbing lightly
look at me
and then at one another
and then at me again

(i anxiously regret every takoyaki i’ve ever eaten and consider
this may not necessarily end all that well
for me)

five pairs of eyes narrow, and
i don’t know how many long flowing tentacle-like arms start
unfurling around my face
landing soft inquisitive pokes and jabs
then suddenly
one arm like a flash of lightening
hurls a small sparkling stone behind me
and i swivel
ready to run away but am stoped by the five octopi

What are you doing, Tako? I ask, both nervously and annoyed
We are not Tako…
But in Japanese…
NO, not Tako!
Um, Yaki? I laugh, unable to stop myself.
A flurry of arms move the water all around sweeping me off my feet,
and ten eyes narrow in on me…
We are the Honorable Consortium of Octopi, we are
Your High Holiness the Grand Octopi of the Deep!
I squirm. All ten eyes seem to burrow into my soul, leaving no stone
unturned
And my long laundry list of woes out of the water surface
bubbling up one by one
bobbing, floating, gravity free
just like
The Honorable Consortium of Octopi

like rhythmic gymnasts, these five octopi begin playing with
and dancing,
twirling and tossing, spinning and balancing
all my woe ball bubbles
around!

You terrestrials take everything much too seriously
said the octopi, laughing
at me
All these woes of yours… what are they really?
Look, look closely, very closely, carefully…
they instructed while holding out one particularly large woe ball bubble
to me
resting it lightly in their long sucker-lined arms

and as i looked, my so-called woe ball bubble was shining softly,
like a crystal ball
drawing me further and further into its round sphere
where memories and emotions slid around shifting like sand
like a kaleidoscope
new patterns continuously emerging into view
one after another, each one
special somehow, beautiful, and entirely unexpected
mesmerizing
i was spellbound

tap, tap-tap…
an octopus tentacle on my shoulder
snapped me out of my woe ball bubble turned crystal ball kaleidoscope reverie
See? Terrestrial, it’s infinite, like mirrors mirroring mirrors
an endless parade of possibility
a playroom, perhaps
or a dance
a gem

and-just-like-that—
poof!
The Honorable Consortium of Octopi
disappeared,
all but right winked out of time and space…

Your High Holiness the Grand Octopi of the Deep,
i whispered
into the watery silence around me,
Thank You.
And, um… No more takoyaki for me. I promise. From now on it’s tomato-yaki.
but, The Honorable Consortium of Octopi
had vanished
without a trace

i take a deep breath and am about to push off this sea bed
to swim back up to the surface
but then i spy
a small sparkling stone
and i see it is not just any small sparkling stone
it’s a gem
smiling, i put it in my pocket
and i know

we’ll be alright

[Image by Erik Tanghe from Pixabay]

evolution

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

here, out on the shore
teetering on edge
i need the warmth of your hand
holding mine
my chest, burning with the ash and smoke of yesteryear
rises and falls,
swells with deep ocean waves

i want salt on my tongue
the grit of sand in my mouth
as i plunge
into the unknown
into this darkness
descending
further and further down
to the very
rock
bottom

to the fissure where
lava meets water
steaming
and hissing like snakes out of nowhere
out loud
screaming
where this primordial earth is churning
and grinding
the bones of my ancestors
into diamonds and pearls
into gold
into the fiery horizon
of new day

and at the break of dawn
hand in hand
we fly

the journey

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

as haiku:

seven thousand miles
step by step and side by side
this journey of life

as free verse poetry:

in the middle of the journey
neither shore can be seen
in the middle
the deep unknown rises to the surface and stretches
seven thousand miles in every direction
and becomes
horizon

in the middle
there is no forwards nor backwards
there is only this journey itself
step by step
and life, like a siren to the soul,
is salt and honey
and the waves crashing

but even here, in the middle, in the deep endless blue
you stay
everywhere with me
like an angel, or
an immortal dragon—guardian of my heart
and together, side by side, we see
a bright shining light
polaris
of the night

an invitation

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

somewhere
there is an ocean of beyond
an ocean beyond good & bad
beyond light & dark and love & hate
and black & white
beyond, there is an ocean of rising and falling
breathing
in and out
an inhale and an exhale threaded, soft, and
connected
together
inseparable actually, and
one

this ocean of beyond is beautiful—wide and deep and infinite
will you meet me there?

Whoever you are and wherever you are, I hope that your path and your days are grounded in peace. I hope you find in the outer world around you, beauty that brings solace to your heart… and in your heart, an inexhaustible wellspring of joy.

i came here

.Reading time less than 1 minute.


i did not come here just to love you
i came here
to be love
together with you
to dance
and in one another
come home
breathlessly with these deep sighing waves
eternally and endlessly
like stars
i came here
to be together with you
in love

with the water

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
i step
into the water
cold tingling
my toes
ankles
the backsides of my knees

swirling all around
submerged 
with the water
i run
twisting and turning
wind like
through wild summer prairies 
and snow-steeped tundra in winter
i run
falling and flowing
light like
through slot canyons
gorges and ravines
i run

with the water
i run
cascading and streaming
over and down ever onwards out ahead and forwards
i run
i run to the ocean
to the magical ocean of my dreams

Nagoshi no Harai* On the Beach

.Reading time 1 minute.
   
   into these salty cold
   yet saline warm waves
   i plunge
   i meet the full weight of these giant sea swells
   with my one body
   my body that tastes this world through skin bare
   skin exposed to light and to winds
   through soft bone marrow
   steeped in the red soil of this earth
   my body that loves
   with its small fist-sized heart
   pounding ceaselessly still—like these deep ocean currents
   inside this unfathomable depth
   inside this unnameable mystery
   inside this place of darkness where light cannot reach nor enter

   i meet the full weight of these giant sea swells
   i plunge
   i surrender my one body
   to life

*Nagoshi no harai 夏越の祓い is the name of a mid-summer purification ritual conducted at shrines in the end of June in Japan. We walk through a large circle constructed of grass and make a pattern in the shape of the number eight, or the infinity symbol.

postcard from the seashore

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Dear Human, 

in my round body
this hard and heavy world rests
carefree and content

Yours truly,
Rock

beginnings

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Some poems seem to take on a life of their own. Apropos perhaps, I do not remember when I wrote the first version of the poem below—only that it was a very long time ago—and it seems also to have no end. I’ve come back to it multiple times, tweaked it here and there, but its completion is forever illusive. Like snake tracks in the desert sand, it evades capture. This poem of beginnings and endings, has neither. Maybe we are all like that, without beginning nor ending, in reality… and our essential self too, like snake tracks in the desert sand, evades capture.

beginnings

In every beginning 
there is death 
and in all death, there is rebirth.
Do you remember your beginning? 
 
We are a continuum, of 
eternity & nothingness 
polarity & unity
a quivering consciousness sometimes shackled
by words.
 
Freezing bits of existence 
into b/l_o.c+k-s tumbling 
from our mouths
we trip 
in the rubble of our own expression.
 
Until weary, perhaps
with splintered and twisted feet
we lay down, seeking 
nothing 
other than earth
and sky.
 
Here we find, an infinite desert.
Here our hollowed self, shimmers 
alive
reawakened 
in an instant of eternity.
 
A single drop of rain    falls 
into the soul 
and the membrane of each cell shivers 
shedding itself 
into currents of grace 
flowing and
flowing like blood into 
crevices 
and over rocks and into ancient 
ravines
 
returning devoutly 
inevitably
to firelit waves of a primordial sea.

Do you remember
                                      your beginning?

hatsumode on the beach

.Reading time 2 minutes.

One of my favorite rituals at the beginning of the new year is to visit a local shrine, a practice known as hatsumode in Japan. Shrines in Japan are places of quiet beauty where nature’s sacredness is honored and the sanctity of life itself is celebrated. Often steeped in many hundreds of years of history, they are as rooted as the ancient trees on the shrine grounds themselves, encircled with shimenawa. In the air, light dances and shadows sing, softly. 

With no way to any shrine at the beginning of this new year, I went instead, to the beach. On the ocean’s shore, there are no shimenawa nor torii to announce sacred spaces; there are no basins for ritual cleansing nor altars to thank kami and pray for the new year nor omikuji and omamori to buy. Indeed, there is nothing on the beach, of human-made design. But sacredness and sanctity are present—in abundance.  I find that in the absence of shrines nonetheless, my soul dances and my heart sings, still.

Could I, in an aching heartbeat I would, fly to a shrine in Japan for my new year’s hatsumode… pour cool water over my hands, caress the wrinkled skin of those trees, carefully perform the correct way of praying at the altar, fold my omikuji with childlike delight, and bow deeply before it all. But I cannot. 

Rather, I dive into this ocean. And immersed wholly in its freezing water, my body surprisingly warms and suddenly it feels good simply, to be alive. Like the waves, I breathe deeply. And gasp. We are beautiful—an ocean wild and free. Like the waves we are—a ceaseless love. We are the shrine. We dance and we sing.