Portrait Sketch III

You ask me about biking
because recently you became a bike rack advocate
without riding a bike
not since high school
by speaking out at a meeting

I admire your doingness

You tell me about your work
a program for young men with Asperger's
your brief was to teach them social skills
but you find yourself instead
helping them unlearn that they are bad
for not following society's patterns
first they must believe in themselves
to go out into the world
and you are their frontal lobes
their executive functioning

You have found your niche

Portrait Sketch II

You love Rumi
You found him when you were 13
on the shelves of a Minnesota library
You are fascinated by the beautiful Persian woman
until she claims him as her own
To translate is to collaborate across borders
across centuries
I comfort you
Secretly I wonder what resonated
maybe falling in love with a teacher
with someone of your own gender
Poetry is universal we both agree
tapping into the root
You say you journal in verse
or write poem notes on journals
but they are no good
I say the audience is unimportant
For work, you help students
embody their ideas in the community
actualize themselves
Your words are poetry
I wish I could remember them
You moved here from the bigger city
but now you want to socialize
you talk about how hard it is to maintain friendships
how brave I am to come out on my own
I think like me it is easier for you
to love than to be loved
I love you Sunshine

Portrait Sketch I

We meet in a trendy urban bar
with graffiti art on the brick walls
You shake my hand and introduce yourself
fascinated by my suburban existence
wondering if I am part of the group
of energy activists who met there before
You long for a community
where everybody knows one another
yet you have lived in cities
all your life
and I imagine you moving
to smaller and smaller towns
in a reversal of our cultural evolution
raising a family among green fields
tilling the soil
talking to flowers
after the apocalypse

American Injustice

Fifty years ago the freedom riders
risked their lives and sacrificed their freedom
sitting in a Mississippi jail
facing mobs and fire bombs
with non-violence
to ride side by side
black with white
in the segregated South

If we cared enough today
poor people would not run from the bailiffs
dying of preventable diseases
experiencing the pain of malnutrition
even as their bodies sag under the weight of cheap food
like feed-lot cattle
pumped with Big Pharma drugs
abusing or neglecting their own children
into compliance

Did you know that
if we all worked 5% less
and took two more weeks vacation
and a 10% cut in pay
(which research shows is too small to reduce happiness)
there would be enough jobs
to go around?

Think of the health benefits
of all that leisure
the time to build communities!

For it is indecent
that people lose their jobs
for taking time to see the doctor

Nobody should land a lifetime of debt
for cancer treatment
to enrich corporate shareholders

We too should board the bus
and ride beside the poor
their freedom is our responsibility

On the Way

Walking Meditation

Emptying out and recasting

Emptying out

Bring to mind all your expectations
about your walk
the feelings, hopes and fears
and cast them away

Do it again

When you are ready
get up and start walking

If your mind becomes filled
with thoughts
stop
and do this again

Recasting

As you walk
notice the sensations in your feet
in your legs and your hips
your spine and fingertips
notice your breathing
and all the other rhythms
in your body

Begin to pay attention
to the sensations on your skin
where it touches the air

Notice the sounds around you

Notice what you see
and if you notice something beautiful
hold it in mind
and carry it back with you

If it goes away
don't worry
do this again

Caveat

People
have thanked me for this
but their memory changes it

I don't know what I'm looking for
I often find beauty on the way
and I feel blessed

To Go

The young man
stares at the blank page
pen in hand
as though the cosmic traffic light
had told him 'Wait!'

Behind him
over the leafy hill
the tops of people and cars
cross slowly
cut off by the horizon

The man
puts the pen behind his ear
takes his coffee
and leaves

I am not alone

Blue sky
I am not alone
Brown dog
I am not alone
Blossom on the tree
I am not alone
Train flying by
I am not alone

Something Wrong

What looked like coffee cups

were conches

and the machine kept pouring

I shelled coffee from one to another

about to serve you when I saw

sand inside

The flight attendant changed my ticket

for a later flight, showing me pictures

of his daughters and hillside home

his wife's grave in the garden

or was it his mother's?

His stool was at eye-level

writing on a counter

way over my head

You turned away from me

and zipped up the fabric of the Universe

and I wasn't sure if you were zipping

me out or in

We sampled perfumes

you thought I should have

something rich and musky

but the one I picked 

was light

with a fragrance of roses

We both admired

the old woman

engrossed in her daily

perfume ritual

Without Words

I dreamt of the 'Alte Sachen' man
his tired horse straight out of Chekhov
drawing and repelling my gaze like two magnets
weepy eyes surrounded by flies
back sagging, ribs protruding
impossibly drawing a cartload of furniture
rocking chairs, televisions, washing machines
I lie in bed between languages
six years old
conferring with my imaginary sister
'What does it mean?'
'Bring out your old things.'

Mindscape

A splash of yellow paint
folded over, opened
and folded again
crosswise
to make a butterfly

Blue sky behind

The sun in one corner
in another, a rainbow

Palm trees far below
a hammock rocking between
a beautiful woman asleep

Ocean waves curling like dolphins
to the distant horizon

The green ribbon of a river
I tie in a bow

So much easier
painting in words

For My Father

You said no to earrings
not because God said
we mustn't wound one another
or even ourselves
but because we bless Him
every Day of Atonement
for forming us
out of spaces and cavities
nooks and hollows
the way that we are
and I thought of our ears
and our lungs and our nostrils
like so many dark caves
carved by God, fully charted
and even our guts
twisting round, twisting round
but in the end
it is mostly redundant
though you lie in the stars
as much as the ground
piercing my eyes
like titanium barbells
with cubic zirconia
pierce my ears
after so many years
facing my freedom
and they don't hurt at all
they look pretty
and I take how they shine
like your stars as agreement
for we form around spirit
and spirit flows through us

Shell

You have to understand that
years of disappointment
have formed a hard shell
around me and I'm pretty
self contained now

But I'm thankful for
your X-ray vision

Clouds

Clouds, snow capped mountains
lurking outside my window
oppressing the sky

Birthday Pen

I was always the one
who made surprises for others
Big bright '40' candles for my mother
when I was eleven
Walking down Oxford Street
pregnant and pushing a pram
at twenty one
'You must really love him'
they said and I did
Booking magicians
pizzas and pool parties
Bar Mitzvahs

So I was charting new territory
when you hot and colded me
to the Unknown Island
and I feel strangely moved

On Being Born

Buddhists say we choose our own
parents.   Who would choose ours?
Imagine my spirit coming down
to Earth, 'The grandmother's crazy
the dad, he will die young'
(Do they know that?)
'The mum is a bundle of nerves
but they'll love you
and need you.'
(Do spirits want to be wanted?)
And I love them
and you love yours

We are not
the Royal Straight Flush
but there are so many hands

If I were a spirit
coming down from the stars
I would hold onto us
because friendship lasts

Cal Day

Krystal's 21
drinking mimosa from a flask
I give her red wine and a corkscrew
I fly her upside down
from my feet twisting her round
to see the halo round the sun
say you get younger every day
from now just look at me
tomorrow I turn 41

Cafe Milano

A wavy blond guitar neck
sprouts from a vase
Notes hang on its clef strings
echoing the wavy hair
of the girl reading below
as she plays with her fingers

I do the same writing

Painted dreams

in jungle wood frames

The impression of bricks

embossed by grout

Brown hands cut bread
garnish salads

The smell of burnt cheese
rises to the open sky
between brown rafters

Bright young minds
fill the air with conversation
between open laptops

Outside, a bright yellow crane
a palm tree, a satellite dish
rooftops and power lines

The human atmosphere
itching with hope

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was silence.
Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound
when there is no one to hear?

Then there was breath
and the plants and the animals danced together
in the circle of life
feeding each other

Water swam around the Earth
infusing everything
quenching fire and thirst

We listened to the rain
and thought of Death

We built towers with our words
constructed Gods and Money
to outlast us
but they tricked us into believing
in happiness
when there is only the dance

In the end there will be silence.
Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound
when there is no one to hear?

Fertile Ground

The rose garden houses
the potential for roses
and sometimes their smell

We sit on the sunny bench
as roses sprout buds around us
pondering sicker inner growth

Keeping our distance
close enough to hold
body and soul together
in the April breeze

I too was young
I carried my criticisms like a kite
ready to fly

Now I backpedal a unicycle
arms crucified on balance-pole wings
strung across the sacred valley
between coffee and comprehension

where roses lie like houses
and you wonder whether to die
or to give birth

I'm On Your Side

I'm on your side
says the moon
to the sun

stretching across
a giant pine

I will wait for you
'til the end of time
she replies

The moon sinks
like a nail clipping
in the hottub

It will be a good night
for stars

Snow Doesn't Fall

Snow doesn't fall like rain
it meanders

The drifting snowflakes
settle my mind

I will fall
I will melt
I will rise again

Why hurry?

Each one a perfect
accident of nature

Their silent voices
rise a capella
like an endless scale

Snow Haiku

Snow falls on snow
I watch the pine feathered sky
and hear birds' wings flap

Constellations of Meaning

Science doesn't really answer
any of the important questions
we are fortunate enough
to be able to ask
like, why are we here
and what should we do

The story of our descent
from bugs and apes
doesn't explain
the pyramids or the Mona Lisa

But we can't all be
Mozart, Shakespeare, or the Dalai Lama
so I guess we each must find
our place in the dance

projecting our divine fantasies
onto distant galaxies
and arbitrary stars

Signs

I
Every winter the buffalo
leave Yellowstone in search of grass
ignoring the signs
that mark the park boundary
and are hunted

Hillbillies and hippies on skis
camp out in the snow
herding them back

II
According to Navajo legend
a hunter slept with a beautiful woman
not knowing she was White Thunder's bride

He ate a sheep with lightning tattooed on his horn

A voice in the storm bid him 'leave your weapons'
he did and the lightning blasted him to shreds

Magic put him together again

III
We follow our rules and laws
Gods we created
or maybe they created us
trapped in our comfort zone
never leaving our thoughts behind

We are tempted by grass in the barren snow
beauty and domesticity

Who will pick up the pieces
and read us the signs?

Night Plane

I watch the night plane fly across constellations
tracing the sound through closed eyes
as we touch feet
I wonder what the stars would say about us?

Always flying in opposite directions
leading our lives in reverse
but when we meet
I love you so much.

Travel Gods

I wonder what the Gods would think of all this waiting

Greeting is so human

People traveling have their own Gods
Time
Place
Baggage

As though the Earth weren't good enough
We jostle around
To make meaning

Imagine the trajectories of all the people
Over the whole of time
Crisscrossing the Earth like a crazy rubberband ball

We travel further these days
Yet most return

Ah the joyous anticipation
Because who knows where we have been
Where we will go

This moment of coming together