My Poetry

I’ll be periodically posting some of my original poetry here, so be sure to subscribe to receive word when new poems are added.

The River Knows

The river knows
its way to sea by something more than gravity,
how to make
its way toward home
where it will be
embraced.

Bees find their path
to blooming flowers not by worrying for hours,
but by dancing with their
kindred souls,
unjudged and free
of fear.

Sunflowers don’t need
to learn to trace, with their nubbled, seedy face
the arc of light
that daily rises,
passing pale across
the sky.

Bears don’t doubt
that they belong on mountainsides, amidst the prong-
horn antelope that graze on grass
that thrives right
in the place it’s
planted.

Migration, too’s,
a mystery, yet fragile birds cross endless seas
to meet and mate and leave
for distant lands
that beckon without
pause.

Worry over
what to do creates a paralyzing glue
that holds us back from all that
nature tells us
we were born
to be.

We only need
to learn to trust the wisdom that was set in us,
the seed that sprouts
when watered with
the healing rain
of love.

Ajahn Chah Never Surfed the Web

My mother’s stoneware mug,
the one that caressed her lips
and caught her sighs each
afternoon at three slipped
suddenly from my soapy fingers.
It was no match for the waiting
granite and shattered, supernova-style.
Shards skittered like light-shocked
bugs across the mottled plain.

The Buddhist master taught us
non-attachment. “The cup,” he said
“is already broken. Because I know
its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and
now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.”
Despite this wisdom, I cry for
all that’s lost behind
the KitchenAid and blender.

But the master never surfed
the web, and I, within a week
have a clone to set in its place
of privilege amidst the
other, honest memories.

This replica does its yeoman’s
job; it poses well in heft and
guise. But it holds no past
that I can claim, no clouds
my mother’s breath exhaled,
no imprint of the hands that
cradled me.

Understudies inevitably disappoint
because they’re not the stars
we paid to see. I know this now,
and know more, too.
My mother’s cup is gone indeed.
I must, I see, make this one mine,
that in a distant, future year, when it
slips from my daughter’s hand,
she will, with love, remember me.

Still Life

A clutch of apricots in slanting light
nestles in a stoneware bowl.
Four glowing eggs, washed in sunset tones.
Their brilliance brags of summer’s ease,
and savoring a lover’s kiss, whose taste
long-lingers on the lips.

But what about the bowl itself?
The simple dish that cradles these
raucous globes with unobtrusive ease?
Graceful, yes, but modest, too.
It strikes an unassuming pose.
Not the actors, but the stage
on which the play unfolds.

How much we strive to be the sun,
the lavish fruit, at least a waxing moon.
What if, instead, we sought
to be the bowl, all quiet strength.
And – humbly, daily – invited
Beauty to find a home in us.

Autumn Light

I wish I could write poems
with the soft autumn light,
with words of ochre and umber;
vocabulary that slants through
streaked afternoon windows,
glowing, contented.

Phrases that rustle and crunch
like spent, brittle leaves
that have done their duty;
that, in their season,
nourish great living things,
then go out in a blaze of glory.

Verses that litter the yard
like acorns, seeking purchase
in soft, yielding soil;
that burrow deep and wait,
with patience and mystery,
to sprout in spring’s imagining.

Stanzas that are bound up
like sheaves of golden wheat,
standing, at ease, like soldiers;
there to be gathered and threshed,
ground to a satisfying meal,
the chaff a gift to the wind.

I wish I could write poems
with the soft autumn light.