We stood huddled in a semblance of a circle,
leaning against our neighbor or standing alone together,
honoring all that had died in her passing.
Rain wept from a gray shrouded sky,
and though we thought we were protected
beneath the thick canopy of maple and hemlock,
there was no solace to be had.
Heaven’s grief still reached us
with heavy drops touching shoulders, thighs and stone.
We were a mess.
Eyes blazed red.
White tissues were soaked with salty tears and mourning snot
or were twisted and wrung to keep fingers busy.
The world cried with us as we spoke to her,
to each other,
to ourselves.
Reluctantly, we buried a part of her with overturned trowels.
A small hole for a large spirit.
Finishing what we never wanted to start,
the circle tightened.
Hands and hearts and hips touched.
Heads bowed.
No one alone.
Singing of her gifts,
her spirit reminded us of our own wildness, courage, tenderness and presence,
and planted a seed in each of our hearts
to nourish.
The circle unfurled and we lived on.
poetry
Humans are so loud sometimes
Humans are so loud sometimes
Our billboards, notifications, LED lights
HDTVs, brand names, addictions and consumerings
Our cars, trucks, guns and houses
Our street lights, our highways
Our airplanes and airports and cities
Our poverty, pain and avoidance
Our wealth, desires, longings and emptiness
Invisible in their glaring audacity
Silent in their cacophony
Like the summer fan we no longer hear
in the relentless heat
Like the air we breathe
When we’re able
Like the soundtrack of our lives
thrumming in our speakers, headphones and earbuds
Drowning out the world around us
Insulating us
Imprisoning us
All this we choose
It makes the quiet hard to hear
Hard to find the still spaces where all things emerge
The beneath it all
The ground that's always there
Patient
Alive
Ready to sit with us
Walk with us
Run and lay down with us
Laugh and grieve with us
Love and be with us
Reveal to us
Our place in this dance
This song
Or at least the next step or breath to take
Let us sometimes choose this
To listen to the beneath it all
and see where we end up
Instead
Grandpa, when I heard you wrote love poems
Grandpa
When I heard you wrote love poems
Something inside
Deep and secret
Rejoiced
You were funny
Loved to get into tickle fights
Wore a mischievous grin just like mine
or was it the other way around
You survived the violence of white men
Whose ignorance and fear tried to destroy you
Doctors thought you'd die
Then that you’d never walk again
You showed me the scars in your arm
Where screws held bones together
Looking at you
Walking around just fine
You seemed indestructible
I heard of your golden gloved fists
Skillfully a fighter
Prized and respected in the ring
Later I heard of these same fists
Brown and bloodied
Keeping your mother and siblings safe from your father’s violence
My dad told me our fighting
Was always about protecting
Family
Community
Beloveds
He told me another story
Of you arguing with Grandma
And walking out so as not to bring your fists to bear
Instead you walked
And found other men to fight
To hurt
So I learned a confusing path of manhood
This confluence of love and violence
Men fighting men
To protect women and children
Men fighting men
To not beat women and children
Grandpa
When I heard you wrote love poems
Something inside
Deep and secret
Rejoiced
Maybe there was more to our manhood
More to our hearts
Than hardening ourselves for the violence
The hurt
The isolation
The rejection
That’s also here
Compressing it all in
Balling it up
Tighter
Like a fist
Seeking release
Seeking something
Anything
To match the depth and volume of that pain
Instead
Maybe
Our manhood
Our hearts
Could reveal something deeper
Our courage
To feel
To be open
To find the words to rejoice at the wonder of this precious life
To voice our love and tenderness
Even as the conditions of violence try to tear our flesh
And break our bones
This blessing of manhood you also left for me
To continue the story
Of our lives
Our loves
Our courage
Our tenderness
Our wonder
Tired
Tired
Another day
No insight
No clarity
I want to know why
Sad
Another day
No insight
No clarity
I want to know why
Heavy hearted
Another day
No insight
No clarity
I want to know why
Pressure
Make it all better
Do something
Say something
Don't be dragged down
Be positive
Help others
And so on
And so on
All the things
All the tired and sad and heavy things
All the pressure
And somehow
Don't worry
You don't have to figure it all out
Like your simple and sacred breath
It’ll all come and go
Don't worry
You’ll be alright
There is a shakiness deep in my bones
There is a shakiness deep in my bones
As my feet touch the soil of my homeland
There is a press of ancestral bodies
Pulsing against the boundaries of my flesh and spirit
Crowding to feel into this life and time and place
And the River calls to me
Here I am
You know me
Don't be scared
You have been here before
Not in your dreams nor in places of dark fear
But in body and heart
Flesh and spirit
In your wholeness you were here
Let the reality of this place touch you and remind you
You are always home
Be here
Be bright
Let your spirit and being shine
In your fullness and love
Let words come and go
Let stories come and go
Freely and courageously
Naming fear and pain and violence
Naming care and connection
Of a love so deep
And a hurt so sharp
All in the same breath
All in the same touch
Let the yearning and longing flow freely my friend
Like the river
The one you come to again and again
The one who sings
Roar and be calm
Release and receive
Sing with us
With all the Rivers
These are our reminders of who you are
Storm clouds curl over dark green mountains
Storm clouds curl over dark green mountains.
Their soft ridges inked with evergreens and summer leaves.
Thunder rumbles, rambling over their edges and crashing into the valleys splayed out below.
In the distance, sheets of water rain down,
dancing and swirling,
making strands of beaded curtains dangling over the forests.
Closer still, a red tailed hawk circles gently on the shifting currents,
spiraling higher and higher over the expanse of golden tipped grasses.
“Over there is its nest.”
My friend stretches his arm and points across the field to a stand of spruce trees
The sky, and all of these beings, pull me from my thoughts that strain and tighten my brow.
It's so easy to get stuck inside.
But sometimes it's just as easy to soften and open, to look around and listen deeply,
remembering that my life also exists outside of my head.
Lightning Bugs
Lightning bugs swoop in the humid night air
Bursts of bright green light-trails curl in the thick wetness of summer
Echoing fireworks
Rockets and bombs bursting red glare
That left trails of smoke drifting in the dark
Covering a city
A forest
A mountain
In yesterday's celebration of our so called Freedom
Today it was hot
And the air humid and thick
Sweat just sitting and soaking on my body
Making everything sticky to the touch
Flesh to flesh, foot to floor, hand to railing, belly to shirt
But the sun wasn’t one to be left out either
Beating heat down on my shoulders and neck
Anytime I went outside
Finally though it set
Letting dark skies and a cooler breeze drift in
I sat outside in relief and looked up
Cloud cover hid the stars but were suddenly illuminated with other flashes
Other rumblings
Thunder this time
Nature's fireworks
Is Sango celebrating this so called time of independence
Does this orisa care for our country's ideas of freedom and victory
Does he rejoice in one colonizer overthrowing another
Or is he demonstrating a larger
Deeper power
Laughing at our little bursts of reds and blues
Our petty explosions in the night air trying to recall the glory of battles won
He plays across the vastness of the heavens
With his bolts of brilliance dancing across the sky
Cloud to cloud
Cloud to earth
Dancing as the air cracks and splits carrying
His laughter rolling across the treetops
Across the city
Across the mountain
Across the ocean
And what do these fireflies
These lightning bugs
say to it all
To human and nonhuman echos of light in the night
A night that for them is
Steady
Consistent in the summer’s dusk to its deep dark
Their fiery dances will continue
Long after the smoky haze drifts away
Long after the summer thunderstorm streams through
What do they notice in the skies above
Do they see our celebration
Our godsesses
Maybe their own
Do they reach upwards in ecstasy
Longing to be reunited with the greatness flashing above them
I don't think so
I think they
As we do
Orient to those who speak a language we understand
Lightning
Lightning bug
Fireworks
Firefly
Those are our words for them
Light and Fire
But what do they call themselves
They know their people just as we know ours
Yet can we be open to this fire and light on their own terms
To listen and see in their language
Enough to come together in relationship as siblings
As partners
As elders
or more likely
as juniors
In this life
They may not see our fireworks as wondrous
Though they may wonder at them
They may not see lightning as their god
But still relate to its presence
Or not
As dark deepens I close my laptop
Letting this light and my thinking rest in the wonder of the dancing that surrounds me
More life I have lived than remains
This body aches
Turns out what the elders speak of is true
Bodies creak and moan
In this new soundtrack to life
Mornings are hard
Stiff joints and tight muscles
More work to keep steady and healthy
Or some notion of healthy
Than it used to take
Running just to stay still
Is how it feels sometimes
Though I'm clearly not going out running
I remember my wife’s Oma, her grandmother, saying years ago
“Getting old is no fun”
And I see bits and pieces of it now
I feel the shifting and the transitions
It's like a video game when a vehicle or city or something needs constant maintenance to run
And just as one piece is cared for another needs attention
And sometimes you let one thing get really bad cause there just isn't enough time or resources
And then you rush to care for it,
To catch up
And sometimes you're successful
And sometimes not
It can feel like too much
Like maybe it's easier to just lay down and let it all unravel
Let it all spool out on its own til it comes to its own conclusion
Not winning the game but not playing by its rules either
And just letting the end come
As it will for all of us
But that's no fun either
Sure, less attention on the upkeep
But more attention on the breaking down
And that breaking down aint pleasant either
So I guess it's trying to do the upkeep while enjoying the ride
Maybe that's a thing to focus on
It's so easy to push and push and say I need to do better
Look at them they're so in shape and healthy
And sometimes I feel bad and ashamed of my body
My too big and soft belly
My sore and injured ankles
My wrist that pains me
My back
Oh now it's my back that needs all the attention
Hips and abs and glutes and joints
So many joints in my lower back and pelvis
Pelvis to sacrum
Pelvis to itself
Pelvis to hip sockets
Sigh
Such a sacred bowl and it's calling out to me
Hey
Down here
I need you too.
Don't forget that I'm central to all the ways you want to move in the world
All the ways you want to walk and dance and sit and crawl and play
And bend and twist and
Simply be
Honor me
Attend to me
Strengthen and stretch and help with these connections
I look there and see there's so much holding
Holding tight and scared
Holding firm
Holding it all together
Keeping it all under control
But this holding is burying something too
Buried fear
Buried doubt
Buried curiosity and possibility
Buried expression
Buried acceptance of my size and fluidity
Buried being seen and beheld
Like a great Rainbow
Or a giant Iroko tree
Hidden deep within
Just being themselves without fanfare
Without rolling thunder and drama
A tree
Not to be confused with any other
Just growing
Firm and strong with deep ancestral roots
Expanding to the broad wide open sky
Sacred and reaching towards the light that is life
A rainbow
Reflecting and refracting sacred light
Arching beautifully across the sky
After a storm or summer rain
Radiant glory and color
Look in the direction your shadow points you towards
And bring your gaze upwards
There you will see the rainbow
Such instructions
Let your shadow lead you to the brilliant light show in the sky
Upwards and outwards instead of down and in
Maybe that's my time now
Up and out
Leaving the inwards gazing
of winter's reflection to the shine and glory of summer
The desire to plumb the depths of that shadow
Diving inwards
Following a well worn trail delving deeper and deeper
Falling into the morass of self doubt, self loathing, fear and shame
Of the shouldas and couldas and wouldas
A path of grinding the pain deeper
To simply feel something
Anything
As I live in a world guiding me to numb out
to consume
to feel anything else but who I am
Maybe to learn something in order to live better
Maybe
But maybe it's more important now to simply look up
To remember that the point isn't to get lost looking into the deep dark of my shadow
but to notice the rainbow quietly arcing above me
To be the rainbow
And maybe like the great Iroko tree
To draw strength and nourishment from my roots
Letting them secure me to this life
A life full of joy and sorrow
of pain and peace
Of all of it
While extending outwards and upwards
Reaching towards light and life and possibility
Letting this growth energize me too
To look towards hope and beauty instead of towards the hurts and doubts
May I hold dear and close the tender excitement and wonder at not knowing
The activation of the seed planted in the mysterious darkness
Whose purpose is to extend upwards into the light
Rooted always in this mystery,
Grounding it
Yet seeking this other wonder
Beckoned upwards and outwards
Looking up to the sky
Open and accepting
Of this life
And what is still possible
Let's do this instead.
Healing & Liberation Counseling 