Hafiz and I were standing on the side of the world letting our hands air dry beneath the stars while spring water fell from our chins– a delicious, plateau gestated high mountain snowmelt with hints of blue giant and juniper that rolled around on the tongue like flute music and made breathing a bit of a mad dash through a brisk rain, when I happened to see the moon hanging there like a street lamp […]
I believe a lot of interesting things, things I’ve collected along the way. I have pages and pages of notes. Scribblings. Arrows and half-thoughts running up and down the margins. Ellipses and question marks. Coffee stains. My life is a draft copy full of edits. I’m always circling back– leaping from one passage to another, sifting through my notes, strengthening the narrative, discovering what was and might have been. We are revealed in the living of […]
I’m still learning the lesson of the birds. The one about sitting in the cover of spruce needles wearing the colors of fire and not questioning my birdness. Just letting it happen. Not questioning the tides of daylight and nightfall that inhabit me, that rinse my memory clean of silt and jagged edges and leave me singing about sitting in the cover of spruce needles wearing the colors of fire. I’m still learning that lesson […]
I take the pack of index cards out of my shirt pocket, slide the rubber band off, and lay them on the table. Hafiz has prepared a few placards and set them up at credible intervals. They read, “No Way, José,” “I Sure Hope Not,” “Why, Of Course!” “Prepare Yourself For Tears,” and “Jesus Christ!” I take a breath and shuffle the cards. Place them in a neat pile on the table. The first card […]
My plan, Hafiz, is to start a movement. A beautiful groundswell. It will involve festivals, of course, local chapters, iconic images, bylaws, speeches that change everything and people who don’t bathe mixing happily with those who do. Food stands. Woven hats. And yes, a cool logo. It will have green in it for sure. The thing is that it must be worldwide— everywhere that people are. And some places they’re not, too. How great would […]
Love came for me the other night and took me in. She placed me on her tongue, in the darkness, and let me dissolve until there was nothing left, and she whispered to me all the while about every true thing until I remembered I was the blood in her veins. I would say to whomever would listen, never forget we are the blood in Love’s veins. We nourish every part of the great body, […]
I came in the door grunting like a bison with four empty stomachs and a calf at home with a head cold, dragged a toe on the threshold and nearly sent five half-shredded bags of heart healthy fruits and vegetables two bottles of heart healthy wine a heart healthy dark chocolate bar and a glass bottle of the most perfect most heart healthy cold-pressed olive oil Mother Nature could produce shooting across the floor in […]
Our pain is bound up in our memories. We don’t see what’s in front of us, we just see strange reenactments of our past. It’s not really our past even, just the things we concluded from our past. Our conclusions travel with us wherever we go. This is what Jesus calls learning. It’s our loyalty to all the stuff we made up. We keep these little statues woven to the inside of our coats to remind […]
This is the part we’re at. This one. We want to ask if we’re there yet, but it’s not clear who we should ask. Who should we ask? These days it feels a little like if you’re asking the question, you’re probably on the list of people most likely to give a decent answer. And what do we mean by there, anyway? Anyone? My favorite part of all this is that we know exactly what […]
The dream is unobtrusive, glowing where no one can see it, following beside me but deep in the ground, visible only by looking straight down through the center of myself, from the inside of my senses. It’s a thought immune to the semi-annual dental check-ups, the unsolicited catalogs that arrive in the mail, the bouts of automotive repair and immune system reconfiguration, and the dangerous lines of cars queueing behind plow trucks that plod along […]
Embracing Forever 