Finding Root

when you have found your root
you need no longer 
the gardener's care
like wild ones grow tall
in the forest untended
you are held safe
in earth's embrace
and you are free
to walk among the stars

300

Sorrow's Knife

sorrow's knife
paring skin
leaving behind
sweet succulence 
wrapped around
the indestructible
promise of seed

299

Fallen Tree

the sky of my awakening
is blue
wiped clean by a gentle hand
only the fallen tree
leaves sodden 
roots reaching upwards
bears witness
to night's mayhem

298

stranger

stranger
in your eyes
something moves
speaks without words
reminding of shared beginnings

and somewhere in me
an ancient slumber
stirs in reluctant awakening

297

Love's Manuscript

love's ancient manuscript
inscribed on bodies
that turn to dust
read in undying
light of souls

Garments Of Love

cut from same cloth
stitched by longing
holding within
one luminous body
we
garments of love

296

Thread

nameless, wordless, timeless thread 
that binds 
a book of stories 
I am

295

Topography Of Pain

as she searched far and wide
for lost love
tawny desert made home in her eyes
salt ocean eroded her bones
topography of pain
rearranged her being
and she could not find
though it was right there
the ancient well of eternal life
where all lost things go
to be found again

294

Dreams Are Bridges

when night flows dark velvet

dreams become bridges

away from cruel daylight

free from all shackles

we run across separations

and meet

in pure spaces

292

I Sing Of Darkness

I sing of darkness
because darkness is mine

night rain drumming on my roof
when the light sputters out
I live in dark embrace

so of darkness I will sing
until someday somewhere
the light claims me for its own

Changeless

A racing cloud seeks its reflection in the running river.
And so I seek myself in you.
We who change each passing moment
must know
that only the changeless in me
can hold hands
with the changeless in you.

291

Fossil

that something between us
that throbbed, breathed and lived
that something we never dared name
that now lies buried 
under layers of silences solidified 
somewhere I had read
fossils found eons old
still hold within themselves
traces of suppleness
traces of life

290

fullness

my solitude brims over
and yet seeks your solitude
the way moonlight lies quietly
on tranquil dark waters
neither mingling nor dissolving
yet together in fullness
my solitude seeks yours
in holding of hands
for reasons of heart
are difficult to fathom

289

Swallowed Storm

I met on my path
a wayward storm
and swallowed it

and now I sit
in open peace
of broken walls

cradled in my heart
the storm sleeps
all fury spent

288

Death Comes Visiting

some day
or maybe night
announced 
or unannounced
death will choose 
for itself 
a fancy name
and come visiting

holding your hand
it will open the door
and in welcome rush
of freedom regained
you will leave behind
without a backward glance
the broken old dream
of bondage

287

Tombs

fear baked
in fiery kiln
brick on brick
we build walls within

sorrow created
love denied
we live in tombs
before we die

286

Don't Tell The Way

don't tell the way
words are false signposts
nothing are they 
but shifting sounds
of desert inhabited
with borderless thirst

don't tell the way
for stubborn longing
in silence will burn
its own meandering trail
to plenitude waiting
in oasis within 

285

Bodies Of Clay

bodies of clay
formed and dissolved
in river of time
immutable one 
amused
by games of change

284

I grow too quick

“Please don’t, above all, plant me in your heart. I grow too quick.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets To Orpheus

I grow too quick
I must be wild
born of scattered seed
not sown with care 
in softened soil
by loving hands

I grow too quick
I must be wild
fierce roots
break hard terrain
shoot stands defiant
in furious storms

I grow too quick
I must be wild
flowers wither
fruits ripen and fall
unseen unplucked
I do not grieve

I grow too quick
I must be wild
anchored by earth
watered by rain
from open skies
I seize my life

283

Moon's Love

slipped from heavens
in her loneliness
the moon hangs
infatuated
with her mirrored lustre
in dark depths of water
waves of love
arise and die

282

Last Night

last night
in half dream half wakefulness
the moon and I
swapped secrets
on losing and finding wholeness
with lovers
dark capricious

281