Gold
this love is gold light in wild flowers and bold skies beauty everywhere
(haiku 5-7-5)
Tag: poetry
landing
~a short meditation on flight, four~
Flight, for all its exhilaration and glory, always comes home. Every bird lands, eventually. And it is this very moment of landing—a touchdown full of sweetness, which gives flight its freedom. For without landing, the sky would be abyss. Without landing, flight would be exile. It is the inevitability of landing which gives wings to dreams… to our wildest, our sweetest, and our most beautiful dreams.
flight is an embrace of sky wings spread wide caressing wind as it streams by flight is a love of the sky song whispered in tendrils of crimson clouds and golden light and flight is the heart’s journey home weaving dawn and dusk into luster love and soft landing
freedom
~a short meditation on flight, three~
When you see birds flying in the sky, does your heart not also soar?
love is
love is deeper
than the deepest ocean
which, in the end
has a bottom
a finite place of rest
and love is brighter even
than the brightest and most brilliant star
which, although still visible
billions and billions of light years away
will twinkle out
some day
love is more beautiful
than even the most beautiful red rose
which, held too tightly
pierces the heart
thorns sharp and steep
searing
love is love
which, has no end
no void
and no restraint
love is
infinite
boundless
and like birds flying into the wild blue sky
free
we are all angels
~a short meditation on flight, two~
Who does not dream about flying?
Although our actual physical bodies are essentially tethered to this earth, it seems that flight is somehow intrinsic to our souls. Somehow, I really do know what it is to fly, in this human body… I can feel it in my bones, and on the surface of my skin caressed by wind—my entire being buoyed by its light power. Soaring.
Do you? Too, like me, know flight?
Does your heart lift, with the first rays of sunrise—taking you out beyond the horizons? When the birds circle overhead, can you meet them up there in the blue sky—seeing eye to eye, and the dancing tree tops below? As the soft pads of your bare feet sink into earth, gently with each step on the path, are you not also drawn upwards and a little closer to those not so distant cloud bottoms? And at night when the stars twinkle so invitingly, do you dance there too among all the glitter? Gloriously?
Maybe we are all angels, after all?
We’re just walking this earth awhile—for the grand adventure of it all… for dreaming dreams, for the thrill and for the mania, for sleeping and awakening, for creating something beautiful or fantastic and then reveling in it too… But above all, maybe we are here for love—simply, to love and to be loved. Love.
the sky beneath your feet
~a short meditation on flight~
the sky beneath your feet
gravity moves in two directions, and
falling into earth has its own
fleeting
transcendence
the sky is not always overhead, but
when we do
fly up and skywards
we push down first, and then
suspend
in a heartbeat
we are birds, soaring everywhere there is space
and into the strong arms of wind we go
twirling swirling tumbling
landing
just when, the ground rises
it is a love affair with light
it is surrender and a prayer
and dreams surfacing into day
it is the sky beneath your feet
Source
Who can tell me, what is the source of love?
Not the whos nor whats which we love, not our dreams nor passions. But like rain from the clouds, rivers from the high mountains, song from morning birds, from where does love come?
Like this body made up of trillions of cells, and cells made up of biomolecules, and biomolecules made up of… ah, um, let’s just skip right to the part where matter essentially breaks down into nothingness… where this body is nothing but empty space.
And what of love? What are its elemental parts and particles? Like the body falling into a microverse of emptiness, into what space does love fall, eventually? Like trying to locate physical origins of consciousness itself, trying to locate the same for love may very well be futile—an endeavor best left to the poets among us.
(It is apparent, yes, that science is not my forte!) But surely, there are no grand laws of physics, quantum physics, or other physics for that matter, which can tell us how love arises into our hearts and minds, and bursts so brightly, into our souls.
So let the poet in me humbly suggest a theory.
Love, like light, comes from the sun. Yes, that’s right. All those millions and gazillions of stars out there? They are actually love-generating furnaces!
It makes sense does it not? Physical matter breaks down into emptiness, so we are actually bodies of empty space being filled with light. Or is light only a result of a collision of particles and waves between the sun and our vastly empty bodies? I think that light too, like love, cannot truly be contained in the mind.
These uncontainables, and these apparent immaterials… are like wind which can only be seen in the swirl of desert sand. Or water, in the long and slow curves of canyon walls. Sound, in the reverberation of strings.
And love, seen in the light of a smile or felt in a remembered birthday, arises in the betweenness of things. In relationship. A mother and child. A butterfly and an irresistible flower. Shimmering rainbows of water and light in the sky. A spider and her web. Love is light. Like how we come to see the sun—in the collision of particles and waves. A reverberation felt in the deep space of the heart.
In the photo above, do you not see the heart shining out from the sun? I offer you this, my empirical evidence that the source of love is indeed, the sun.
So the next time you gaze up into the starry night sky, perhaps you will feel the overwhelming presence of love shining everywhere there… And your heart, your one precious heart, flooded with light.
wild flower
today i found my heart
in the spirit of a wild flower
wrapped around
this love
this singular and this sweet love
delicately
and yet, and yet, and yet
and yet ever so
inextricably
What love courses through every fiber, cell, and mitochondria of your body?
What is the one precious love you hold on to?
sunrise in the land of the forgotten
On my path two white feathers nestled together like lovers—one bloodstained and the other not—give me pause. What unseen shadow is trying to come into light? Searching and searching and searching for something, weights seem to pull me down beneath busy surface waves, but my flashlight finds nothing to shine on. Like the great wall of China running beyond horizons east and west, the veil is endless and the sun refuses to rise, in this land of the forgotten.
Like the dark side of the moon, mystery is for earthbound dwellers only. How might i drift to the other side? Might it be a perilous voyage, or pleasant? But shadows only exist in the light, disappearing as they do, into the darkness. How to find them there? Futile, is it not? Chasing shadows in the dark!
It seems i must, rather, coax them into the light. Not into the full glare of noontime, but into the gentle and warm glow at dusk—the between times in which worlds come together. Holding hands, light and dark dance together and shadows are set free to spin and to twirl without worry, without blame.
Here, on this light red ribbon between earth and sky, the forgotten might surface softly into the welcoming arms of the soul. Into a love-lit world and shed its amnesia quietly into the sea.
But dreams crashed by despair, innocents violated, curses cast by exes, love gone astray and betrayed, bodies beaten and bloodied… these shadows are not light. Their exile into the land of the forgotten might often be the one thousand armed goddess of mercy shedding tears. Without release, without respite, they are like ominous clouds haunting the horizons, bound to erupt into fire storms and broken river banks.
ash repressed memories explode like stale fireworks past their expiration date up into a void and blanked out space the embers fall, slowly drifting down through this bitter smoke-filled sky and choking, i shed my body like skin in the aftermath of exposure to flames let the ash float twinkle out and extinguish in an ocean of darkness and finally, i shall rest in peace on a soft seabed of amnesia
The seabed is not so soft after all. Rocky, dark, cold, unforgiving, and lonely. Grave diggers will find no jewels here, no chest full of treasures. Where is my heart? It seems to have scattered somewhere—singed and scorched—in the smoke filled skies.
Where is the way out? Where is that red lifeline, umbilical cord like, to the round curvature of mother earth? Can i surface from these depths and cry loudly into the pink light of dawn, my love and my light—memories intact? My heart, intact? And my soul, free?
Somewhere in the darkness i hear a heartbeat and a whisper:
Look, look my love, over here.
The sun, all crimson for you,
ties this light red ribbon tenderly
around your heart.
Hold my hand and we’ll fly,
spinning and twirling together now
up into the sun
dancing
into a beautiful
beautiful new
day.
in touch with the world
When a poet brainstorms, writing somewhat stream of consciousness for an essay, it turns into an essay-poem or a poem-essay! What genre is this?! It is, a meditation on touch.
in touch with the world touch, is the fundamental sense the connective tissue between inner and outer worlds bringing the faraway full moon into spectacular view and the sweet sound of a loved one singing straight into the heart waves and particles crashing and colliding connecting childhood memories to the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking, and fourth of July sparklers burning, bright like the sea to coral reefs, or the sky to rainbows touch is the universe materialized made sensate and knowable, tangible to the heart and mind alike to fingers, toes, and taste buds the abyss is touch deprivation soundless, sightless, without taste or smell senseless love itself an unknowable abstract intangible void in touch with the world we are caressed by the flight of butterfly wings the dance of sunlight the soft fragrance of roses the song of the ocean the sugar of honey in touch with the world our hearts are moved by kind words and thoughtful gestures by the bravery and boldness to connect to other hearts in touch with the world with your hand on my heart mine on yours together we are healed in touch with the world together with one another we discover our selves beautiful holy
dancing for the dead
Dancing for the dead is not macabre.
Dancing for the dead, we celebrate continuity, community, and life itself.
In Japan, Obon is a traditional celebration in which the ancestors are remembered and honored. Family altars are cleaned and special offerings are placed in front of photos of the departed. Those living in far away cities return to their hometowns and to their families. Indeed, it is said that our ancestors too, return to our homes during Obon. For the living, there are gatherings at local festivals with music, folk dances, and stalls selling food and games. Bon-odori, folk dances performed during Obon, are usually done in a circle and the movements are simple and repetitive so that everyone can enjoy dancing together. In the commemoration of “the dead”, we join together as a community and culture—vibrant and sustained.
The stars do not cease to exist during the day simply because we cannot see them. Likewise, the souls of those who have come before us do not suddenly cease to exist at the end of their days. Rather, death is like night—a passage of time between skies full of light. And like the stars, our ancestors dance among us.
do not be afraid do not be afraid in the quiet blanket of nighttime do not be afraid dreams come alive and love shines in candlelit cascades of whispers and caresses it is darkness which makes the stars visible guiding us home unveiled and holy do not be afraid to cross deserts windswept wildflower fields seas and mountain rains the open blue of day welcomes you warm outstretched and just around golden pink corners
(photo taken six years ago at an Obon festival)
