Category: Meditation
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Be it ever so
The light that morning came through a crack in the ceiling with me squatting over a pool, fed by some endless spring running far under ground, unseen, always present. The water made images of our faces flat with shadows, asked us to pause, fed us with wonder, perplexity, confusion, hope, disconsolation. I rose as always…
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From the contemplatives
From silence doors open — sometimes far off ringing, sometimes mute throbbing, sometimes rambling voices of ancestors, or strangers tapping at my window wondering, sometimes a tree in its final unleaving. Drawing my ear down, I pick up the thread, hold it just so before it trails away, and listen, listen.
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Nobody knows any more than ever
Why do you think it is necessary to visit me here, in my place of origin? Do you think I cannot reach you wherever you are? Must you believe in talismans? I admit doubt. I have wandered all over, as have you, and all I know is inside me, not here in this cave or…
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My Cro-Magnon friend responds to William Stafford
Catch and let go, leaves take the light. I let them wander into my hand, praise the breeze that flits them away. Miracles abound. Last evening by the fire, light flecked the walls, throwing shadows, picking them up, dancing them onto the ceiling. It is a miracle. A simple thing, I think, light must be,…
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I heard the screen door slam
I heard the screen door slam in my head, not angry, just lazy — the workaday world suffocates in the forest, rootless, unable to press itself on its inhabitants. Hearing the slow creak of the rusted spring echo up to higher branches, mix with the bluejay’s caw, one might guess early morning, perhaps dusk. What…
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Roman ruins lying off a square in Arles
Muscles of stone hold fast one on top of another, watch time slip by in tiny packages, endless streams pouring forward, memory perfect. When did this corner round off? How did this carving waste away? You needn’t ask; it is known. Rough-hew blocks exhale their millennial sighs, add rhythm to time, note each breeze with…
Poems from in between 