Practical Questions

Diamond sun rising inside small black pyramids. 4 birds or 5? One-bird looks forward Standing under understanding… Practical questions measuring the distance between trees. One-bird looks back… thickly through painted blue… Keeping the Book of Wishes. And on this first day of a New Year, wishing all of you a year fulfilled […]

Bird’s Children

Children born between words holding jeweled feathers. Left facing ruby suspended… a bird’s eye view of rec-tangled flags hanging on a wing and a prayer.

the door

Either you will go through this door or you will not go through. If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name. Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen. If you do not go through it is possible to live worthily to maintain your […]

heart flowers

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator. In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings. The kookaburras, pressed against the edge of their cage, asked me to open the door. Years later I remember how I didn’t do it, […]

A nicely burning home

April Dream Last night my house was burning. Could not find one precious thing to grab and find comfort in. And when the torrential rain hammered out the flames, I was angry with its self-righteous interference. My house is still burning. And where it is whole, I have not found all the rooms, closets […]

care (full)

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams […]

Land and Water

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as […]

home-keeping heart

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest; Home-keeping hearts are happiest, For those that wander they know not where Are full of trouble and full of care; To stay at home is best. Weary and homesick and distressed, They wander east, they wander west, And are baffled and beaten and blown about By the winds of the wilderness of doubt; To stay at home is best. Then stay at home, my heart, and rest; The bird is safest in its nest; O’er all that flutter their wings and fly A hawk is hovering in the sky; To stay at home is best. “Song” by H.W. Longfellow: Keramos and Other Poems 1878 As Longfellow says “to stay at home is best”. But is it? It feels great to be in a place that feels safe, protected and predictable. This is the land of […]

Unsinging Bird

silence .is a looking bird:the turn ing;edge of life (inquiry before snowe.e. cummings

Lost and Found

The Little House of Lost Play (Mar Vanwa Tyalieva) by J. R. R. Tolkien We knew that land once, You and I, and once we wandered there in the long days now long gone by, a dark child and a fair. Was it on the paths of firelight thought in winter cold and white, or […]