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Friday, August 26, 2011

YOU ARE CHERISHED

These faces belong to each of us as we are connected through the ribbons of time. And to each of my friends-- know we each belong to the other.


You Are Cherished

Inside my heart, there lives a place
ferocious as the ocean, loyal as the
land, gentle as endless oxygen, as
pure as a fragrant red rose blooming,
and there is where I know you as I

know inside of my soul;
I will be your roof in storms,
shoes for your bruised feet,
found breath under a turbulent sea,
and safety in the bones of ruins.

Inside my heart, you are my home.
For you and for me, simultaneously
balanced in the eternal worlds, connected
by invisible cords, faultless lips speak
no words, each word, trusted words to each.

I cherish you, as I know inside my heart,
I will be here for you and you for me.
We are sheltered on our spiritual path,
my breath flows over history to your lungs,
your blood inside the veins of my purpose.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

ALMONDS IN THE ELEVATOR AT THE SEAVIEW INN

“Earthquakes move mountains. But so do imagination and ingenuity — when
matched with implementation."



Almonds in the Elevator at the Seaview Inn


We are where we are for a reason as I navigate,
traveling north up the coast from Virginia, August of 2011.
I cannot forget the dropped almonds in the elevator,
an odd touchstone of our journey as we left room 392.
We are where we are for a reason.

I push the round button reading star-1 until it glows white.
A tall man sharing our elevator stares into me,
eye to eye, (the first true elevator was invented in 1850.)
Side mirrors reflecting rippling pictures of our cab ride,
reliving an identical message, we are the same as ripples
in each layer of time. We all look down to the almonds,
a broken cluster of oily fruit, the same brown as the wood floor,
next to an inlay of a compass rose. We ride the dependable elevator,
which moves up and down between four historical floors in
a hotel established in 1914. I capture the 45 seconds
dive through the shaft, the suspension of our drop in
a shared pulley system in lieu of steps, we are all
locked in a conversation of the proper destination of an almond.
The bronzed doors open and quietly disappear into the pockets
of the lobby walls, perfectly fit layers. The man says,
”I will not forget the almonds in the elevator,” and we exit.

I won’t forget the concrete porch of Fred and Ethel’s
Lantern Light Tavern moving, magnitude 5.8, from the
shifting plates of our earth’s mantel, back and forth,
mirages of heat waves, a reverse faulting,
(the last quake in Virginia was in 1875,
leaving broken windows and fallen chimneys.)
The rippling cement is tricking the nature of reality;
our water glasses are trembling. Am I confused or
am I imagining as the hidden layers of the earth are colliding,
I think I am dying. I ask my daughter, “do you feel it?” I feel like

a lost ship deserted in a desert pining for its ocean, knowing
bone
dry
sand
is not my oxygen. It struck me,
the entire eastern shore is shifting, an earth quake, and
within 45 seconds the earth’s plates settle.
The ground is stable. Is it dependable?

Was the man who said he would not forget the almond on the elevator
wondering where the woman with the three children was while the earth trembled?
We are where we are for a reason.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

DAUGHTER OF THE OCEAN

I found PEACE written on a wall in Philadelphia months ago and believe finding peace in the midst of chaos is truly for the one who can decipher it. In Daughter of the Ocean, I write of watching this elderly woman sleep in peace in an overly populated Starbucks and I ponder if she knows something we do not. She sleeps among the company of strangers is a defining line for her and how peace is somehow mixed into the air we breath or the visions our universe offers us.


Daughter of the Ocean

A year to the day in August, for the second time
I recognize an elderly Indian woman’s abode.
She is honored in an over-sized brown leather chair
at Starbucks on Ocean Drive, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Warm jeweled skin, silvery hair feathered
with black streaks pulled to a quiet coiled
bun, a straight cane propped beside her;
she sleeps among the company of strangers.

No hissing espresso maker, no release of steam,
no calling of orders touch her sense of peace.
The stillness is what she breaths in at the coffee
house, a silky blanket of noise in the midst of chaos.

She appears anesthetized as racing nerves surround her.
The eager retire in beds where she departs through a third eye.
A bed, lying prone, a husband and wife converse of
growing kids and lists of plans to mantle their time alone.

A bed obsolete to a place of love, a sanctuary where music,
high definition television, and internet infiltrate intimacy.
A bed shy to the relationship it holds, life’s trumpeting words
filling the empty space, lectures litigating long forgotten devotions.

The time passes with ripened understanding; the Indian woman
belongs in the coffee shop more than the tired relationship of
communication. She prays to a trillion stars, intently listening internally,
not contemplating opinions, her chest rhythmically rising and falling.

She meditate back through the culture of her mantra--
the elderly in loll, a husband in a bed of denial,
a wife frozen in missionary, a woman standing alone in society,
a naive girl who is beginning her lessons, the birth of her bequeath.

Today, a statuesque Indian goddess balances the notes of Vedas
against her recycled paper coffee cup, a circle with neither
start nor end, neither male nor female, an eternal peace. It is
what most seek-- what lies between the crust and core of being.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

HER EMOTIONAL CAPACITY IS ZERO

If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But up close a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. Ursula K. Le Guin


Her Emotional Capacity is Zero

Breathing, she slips away into her dark,
into the place where she doesn’t feel,
rare colorful times flood the streets laughing, she
is walking; she thinks like the inside of a rock,
one could say that is her concrete history,
the silent heart spread on the earth.
Once, war used a rock as a weapon,
to build a fortress, to cause a lesion.
A rock turned into a tombstone marking
the beginning of an end to a person, and
lilies were placed on a grave to transcend death,
and a part of her died as she remembers her history.
A rock to her is the foundation of church,
the intimacy of being, the sacrifice of words,
the bond of a crystalline friendship, and core meaning.
She slips away to a place where
laughter is eroded, trust is the talc on a face,
where cries of ancient bricks are heard and
haunt her insides cursing her far away ashen eyes.
She slips away into the closing of today with an iron
burden, taking hundreds of hands to bury a story;
she slips away, she slips away.

Friday, August 5, 2011

HE PLAYED FOOTBALL ONCE, #76

The oddity of a football floating up to me as I ponder on the dock of the bay is a sign. I can't ignore the idea the universe is continuously sending clues for us to pay attention to directions, truths, choices, and messages from the spirits.

When each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
The Alchemist



He Played Football Once, #76

Fate leads me to the dead-end
of Fern Street. I am drawn to the
morning sun as it glistens off the bay;
I climb the wood railing and sit.

Oddly, a football floats towards
me and remains as my buddy,
bobbing back and forth causing a tiny
wake inside me, whispering some lyrical music
docked on the lacing of its play.

Questions arrive
of tactics, of patience,
of teamwork, of challenge,
of water left under a bridge,
of death, of life, of forgiveness,
of change. The ripples leave one answer,
nothing remains the same.

I feel the sun on my shoulders,
my breath filled with summer salt,
the warmth comforts my heart;
I bow my head and thank Sunday
for blessing me with chance.

There is something solid about the
wood railing my hands grasp,
I imagine
the black undercurrent of life
which can leave a paralyzed pain,
the peace of seeing what was,
feeling what cannot be seen,
and the freedom of white seagull wings.

The ominous brown football still dances,
for what seems like hours, misplaced in water,
on the moving bay in front of me.
My father still lives in my veins, I internalize.
We say hello and exchange only what
the past can remember or a hand can hold.
I find patience for the next passing sign.