Looking Up

This time of day, when the eyes of the sun become soft and her lids begin to droop, one can see the hidden violet that lies in hiding in the furrows of fresh-plowed fields. The red in children's cheeks, the fir cone jewels hanging near heaven, the glowing bark of cliffside Madronas, all come out of refuge and present themselves to those who have the eyes and are unhurried.
This time of day, when the march of the clock is suspended for a blessed time, when breathing becomes an experience, when magic descends on wings of foregiveness, this time is the precious time.
All day spent in preparation is not wasted. Routines broken, hunger endured, television forgotten---this time, the last light of day, is the magic time. This is the last stand of the day.

I am being taught to look up---.

Rows of Poplar trees rake into the sky, marking the farm house oasis; islands in the vastness of the flat, fertile valley. I imagine they tickle the soft bellies of low clouds as they hurry to empty themselves into rivulets and streams born in the foothills and mountains. In summer their leaves rattle collectively; a moaning rustle driven to frenzy by the teasing wind. Undressed for the night of winter, they hum an unknowable tune, the wind blowing through their branches, transforming the long rows into massive, natural pipe organs. To me they look sad and bare boned. Skeletal fingers of a hand rising from the same ground that gives life to the bounty of potatos and cabagges grown in this valley.
At their feet I stand, looking at a clear blue sky fractured and framed a thousand times by criss-crossing branchlets. The early sunsets of winter transforms those trees into a reef of rose gold coral, with birds instead of fish swimming there. Perched at the top tips, swaying in the current, slowly rocking to and fro, the birds sing the last songs of the day; a good night lullaby to the fields and sky. The blue of that sky is changed, transmuted, by the alchemical color magic of the golden trees. The vibrant violet can be seen above, as well as below, in the furrows of the fields.
The warm end-day light seems to shine from within each branch, a tall lantern wall glowing in a blue night. In the east a ghost-cloud round moon rises above the dusk green hills. The slight knowing smile of the man in the moon beams down understanding; a wink of the eye, like a secret code. He and I are the holders of a sacred trust.

The Still Hawk

Once in a while we get to see something remarkable. It may come as a lesson or a consolation. I had been tossing internally with an emotional storm raging. This is what I saw that afternoon:

It was the third day of a vicious storm. Trees furiously flung their branches about; roaring, raging. The storm clawed at all that stood, whipping rain into confrontation, pelting the roof of my car. My car shook and trembled with the gusts.
I was smoking a cigarette, parked on Myrtle street, by a friend's house. Through the windshield I looked passively to the edge, where the last houses hunkered; next to the open, winter bare fields. The wipers were grunting the rain off the windshield, barely keeping up. Through the rain streaked window, I saw a large bird, perhaps a Hawk, hanging nearly motionless in the sky. Subtle wing adjustments kept it in a precise place, slipping through the gusts, unaffected by the wind and rain. The hawk was using the energy of the wind, accepting what he needed, elusive toward what might force him out of place. He stayed there, as if glued to an invisible post, fifty feet off the ground.

Seeing that, I thought about this lesson from nature. To me it felt as if I was given this experience to illustrate an attitude that I needed to just get through the storm inside of me. Unfortunately, I still am not able to weather those internal storms. After all these years, I still get tossed like salad when in turmoil. When will I learn? However, it was a comfort, back when I had noone to talk to about my troubles. For that I am grateful.

Hunting The Jaguar

This I wrote for a young man that I mentored for a couple of years. Though many people were concerned for this young man, it seemed to be a waste.

The Jaguar hunts at night. He hides during the day, sleeping. The faintest light is enough for him. His sense of smell is superb. He is at home on the ground and in the trees. He has only one enemy; Man.
To hunt a Jaguar, a man must become like the Jaguar. He must develop new senses and heighten the existing senses. Even the sense of taste is important.
The Jaguar, at ease in his body is ten times more ferocious than the average man. To hunt and kill a Jaguar, a man must become like the Jaguar; totally at ease in his body, fully aware, fearless and patient.He must call the Jaguar to him. This calling is soundless, it is done like a prayer. The man prays and the Jaguar comes.
Absolutely still in the night, fully awake and aware, fearless, the man calls the Jaguar. The Jaguar comes, slowly pulled by the man. The man, in his prayer promises the Jaguar a new life. He tells the Jaguar that he will eat his heart and that the Jaguar will live in the man's soul forever.

I gave the young man a Jaguar statue and this metaphor. Perhaps someday, I too will learn to hunt the Jaguar within.

A World Apart

The distance between my burrow and the bench where I now smoke my cigarettes is a world apart. Just a few steps, yet a world apart. I was sitting on that bench and marveled at the beauty of the morning; my garden in a state of demoralized neglect, wind tossed, now still; beautiful. The fresh light on the eastern bark of bare trees. My nostalgic memories of mornings in Mexico, tell me that a peaceful satisfaction, a sense of Home, has risen in my heart......
The feeling of completion; of satisfaction with what is; of the perfection in the imperfect. All those mistakes, errors and neglects for given. Given, in a brilliant moment, the redeeming Nod of Approval by God. In that moment, I died. Died and reborn.
Who am I today? Who is it that notes the difference, that weathers the storms? Who remains unaffected by the variabilities of my mercurial emotions; the damned depression and the flips to happiness? Who remains when I wish to crawl out of my skin? Who?

Your Secret Name

I think I wrote this about ten years ago:

Anticipation is my constant companion
And it whispers your name.

I am so close to you that I move
In you and I feel the world through
Your soul.

I see myself through your eyes
And am blinded.

I see you in everything.
Everything carries locked inside
Your secret name.

The Last Show

This I wrote today:

The intro to winter maple trees
Stand lonely sentinels on the boulevard.
Flame red and dew moist fresh
Blazing into the pale blue sky.

I admire their years' end show
A brilliant finale
A final stand
The last bow.

My heart flutters wild applause
I am the standing ovation
I am the curtain drawn
And the anonymous night,
The darkness safe
From prying eyes
And even the softness
Of candle light.

Rabbit Hunt

Another poem from the past:

Rabbit Hunt

He flickers like a candle flame
Coming to end.
The wild rabbit, wire snared.

Attempts to escape
Bring him closer to death.
His ebony eyes mirror my arrival.

I see his heart laboring in his chest
Livid flecks of blood on his black nose.
He knows nothing of wire
Or of me.
I know nothing of him.

I am not hungry, just
Playing, as he lies dying
I wish he would die, so
I can stop feeling
Frantic and so damn helpless.

A Treasure of Red Jewels

From a journal (wonder who I was so in love with, then?)

Beneath bare branches of a sleeping apple tree
A treasure of red jewels lies held
By frosty fingers of green grass.
Winter's first storm stripped
The last leaves and lingering fruit.

Instead, flitting sparrows
Hopping through branchlets
Jittering and chirping
This crisp dawn
Wane sun, cold blue sky
Exhaled breath visible.

All the sparkle of Christmas
Can not match the flashing twinkle
In your eyes nor
The satisfaction of our
Wordless witnessing
This early morning miracle.

The Apple Tree

My favorite apple tree lives close to me. If I want an apple, I cross the street and search for the treat in the jungle thick mass of leaves. As with most things worthwhile, one has to uncover layers to find the essence.

The apples are snap-crunchy and dam-bursting juicy. A delicate tartness married well to the sweet flesh.

We had our first frost and her leaves are dropping. I think of a woman; a silk dress and that dress sliding down her body, resting around her ankles. All year i have waited for the sweetness of the apples. Every day I rode by and admired her. I was hungry.

From My Journals

In the middle of a near-empty journal, one I started and dropped for some reason, I found this piece of writing:

How can I say "no" to you?

Can I say no to my own birth
Or say stop
to my beating heart
Easier to stay the rising moon
Or a raindrops' fall,
Tell the birds
to not love the wind
And still their song.
That babes should never cry
For the warm arms of their mothers.

How can I say no to you
When love rests in my bones
Can I turn them inside out
And scrape away your memory

Can I say no to melting snow
And stop the growth of trees
Dam rivers with my will
Or ask the stars to flee.

The There There

In the evening, I go to the channel to see the water, when the sun sets and the danger time; when the dark Empty hunts me. I go there for end day reflection. A ritual preparation for the long hours to come, a prayer for safety and sanity. Sometimes the vigil lasts all night, all long empty damn night. Sometimes, I can nearly hear It, scratching on my door. A slow scrape like the caresses of a hard-cold corpse. There is no refuge, only the escape of oblivion, sleep in snatches or stupor sold at sad cost. Even in the company of good friends, when my brightness burns bonfire hot and I am animated and quick, large, sharp and penetrating, It comes; taps my shoulder and reminds me that I do not belong here, that I have no home to go home to, that I live at the end of a leash; held by the dark Empty.

Looking over the channel, I spotted the rock-still Heron. He blended so well with the darkening that only by his reflection, his shadow on the water mirror, from the last-light sky, did I notice his presence. Some things can only be seen by their shadows. Unmoved he stood, as if he had been there long before and long after to come.
I like looking at water. It always fascinated me. The patterns of playing wavelets, the ripples and ruffles. The tiny whirls, water dervishes spinning languid, in and out of time, appearing and leaving. The long undulations of waves born by boats. The flow of deceptive tidal currents, fast and insistent, or the held-breath stillness of a silver-sheet surface-hush. I wonder of the hidden landscape that shifts the flow and causes these effects on the impressionable body of the water. Some things can only be seen by the effects they cause.
The water is my mind and my mine. I dig here for the lustrous glimmers from which my writings are constructed. Weavings of ruby hopes and diamond insights on a gold thread cloth of words and metaphor. Some things can only be understood by metaphor, never directly, but by the long, long way around, with the gaps as necessary as the There there.

Eyes of the Seal

It is a good place for writing. Bright and airy. The windows look over the channel. The water. The mystery of it. Water accepts everything. Boats, birds, trash, fish, runoff and thrown rocks, all benefit from it. Water asks for nothing in return. Just to serve. Today, ruffled lace dress with strong currents below. Other times, mirror smooth and reflective. Turbulent when pushed by storms. It demands nothing of the world. We've learned to respect water for this reason. It's acceptance is like the openness of a grave. Saint or sinner alike are held close by the grave; unquestioned, unjudged. As a lover, water calls us to join; to blur distinctions. We can flirt, dance and even hold close but for those not born of it, her children, this love can be deadly.
A seal surfaces. From the depths a round face with three black dots. Nose and two teary, world wise eyes. Slowly the seal turns my way. For a long moment our eyes lock together. My heart jumps in unknowable recognition.Those eyes, though jet black are soft and receptive. Of the water, like the water. Two deep black obsidian gazing globes, sent by the deep. My demanding, analytical focus softened by that accepting child-wise gaze. The water takes those eyes back into the deep. Though I breathlessly search for a returning, it is not until evening that another seal sees me. I like to think it the same as the one that morning. A lover's rendevous, at days' end.