poem – Page 2 – The Kingdom of Enough

The Untrimmable Light

The waning moon has sunk into the sea,
and the leaves of the fig tree tremble
in the zephyr come to rustle
the darkness from this mild winter night.
All across this mountain,
through a sunny autumn
and into a dry December,
leaves cleaved to their life-sustaining branches
beyond all reason,
but now,
now a storm is coming.

Raindrops patter on the roof
like the footsteps of exiles,
but then retreat.
Not yet! Not yet!
For a moment the wind holds its breath.
Hills and coastal plains thirst in silence,
and fading leaves await the fateful tug.

All day long clouds flirt with the sun,
and sometimes their private laughter
spills showers from above,
but the deluge does not come.
Instead, across sky and sea,
past fig leaves fluttering in the afternoon breeze,
through the window of my cell at New Camaldoli,
a sunbeam finds my notebook and me.
Leaf shadows dance a mad jig on the wall,
but a poet’s in the spotlight:
the page aglow tells it all.

Title from the poem “Mindful” by Mary Oliver.

Your Mirror

From root to crown

the oak tree gives You glory,

in sap and leaf

on branches

where squirrels play

and the bluejay squawks his morning joy.

Light becomes food,

water and sugar into sap

and acorns,

autumn harvest for

crow, squirrel, human,

and a gift to the earth

that may sprout a seedling in the spring.

A pair of doves build a nest here,

make love, make eggs,

chicks hatch,

fledglings test their wings,

and seedlings grow

in the shade of their mother.

Leaf,

star,

woman

looking out her window at dawn –

what do we have in common?

When the body becomes Your mirror,

leaves drink light,

and I make it into a song of praise.

(Title from a poem by Mahadeviyakka)

Summer Solstice 2017

After the long winter of seed-soaking rains
when the driest taproots drank their fill,
the privet and the bougainvillea
revel in inebriation,
besotted roses plaster their vines with blooms,
and even the stately redwood indulges
in tipsy explosions of baby green at every needle tip.
Now comes a feast of light
for the leafy exuberant ones.
Deep in their cells they remember
the way they thirsted in the drought,
but this memory is just a gilt edge
on the solstice invitation to summer.

The prodigal stretched-out days ask,
how big is your we?
Does it include
this velvet yellow petal,
an extraterrestrial guava blossom,
the courtly redwood?
Oh come, my darling,
it’s the summer solstice –
lift your glass to the light,
and dance with the whole shimmering forest!

We the People

On the day a bully takes office,

the rivers roar out a lamentation,

and the sky sheds frozen tears.

Even the marble statues weep.

In graves that the earth

had finally folded into healing arms,

the ghosts of slaves stir

from too short a rest.

But on the day the women march,

parchment rustles in glass cases.

us-constitution

We the people

Are created equal

Molecules vibrate faded ink into quivering.

Life

Liberty

The pursuit of happiness

On the day the women put on the armor of light

and march into the streets across the land,

on the day we claim our right

peaceably to assemble

and remind the bully

Congress shall make no law respecting

an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

or abridging the freedom of speech,

or of the press,

the lady in the harbor will lift her torch.

On the day the women resist hate

because we are all created equal,

no matter our

gender,

age,

color,

creed,

or sexual orientation,

the earth will answer our stomping feet with jubilation.

On the day the women demand

care for the planet,

health and safety for our brothers and sisters,

we will wake the country from its Trump-induced trance

and across this hazy land the wind will blow;

on that day the words in the National Archives will dance.

We the people do ordain it so.

Words in italics from our Charters of Freedom: the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Image of United States Constitution courtesy of Jonathan Thorne through a Creative Commons non-commercial license.

Winter Solstice 2016

One hundred steps to the center of the labyrinth,

and light enters the world as gently

as the pilgrim making her way to the center.

Can you tell the moment when the foxtail

takes shape out of the night

and the pine needles assume their points?

In the pause between

breathing out

and breathing in,

the last star fades into the brightening sky,

gone to the place you journey in your sleep.

I watch my thoughts dart off

like a startled flock of sparrows

in twenty directions.

I have written ten thousand words

that don’t mean a thing.

Now the solstice calls me to the labyrinth,

and my feet long for the one hundred steps.

The Murmurings of Roots

Will your cravings ever leave you,

lifting like a startled flock

from your naked limbs?

Will your mind finally come to rest,

one ordinary morning?

What might you hear in the sheer silence?

Your heartbeat –

and the squirrel’s,

the secret language of the garden,

what the earthworms say to the roots.

You were waiting for the voice of God,

and here in the cave of your heart

is the alleluia of the blackberry

at the moment it plumps into perfect ripeness

and the Deo gratias of the squirrel

as it plucks the berry from the vine.

Attune your breath to the cedar’s sigh

and rise from your cushion now

before the diamond dewdrops

on the sourgrass dry.

The Channel

Hidden in the hills,

a spring spills its secrets –

milk and honey from the womb of the earth.

Seeking its course through forest and vale,

water calls the banks of the river into being –

Find me!

Listen,

within you plays the song of the stream.

You are the banks of the river

and its bed

that give the water a place to go.

Unbraid your hair now, and

let the oncoming tide dissolve

your holding back.

Where the moon marries salt to sweet,

may your gathering waters

flow out to the sea.