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Posts Tagged ‘soul’

On the Street in Lancaster, Ohio

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 8, 2025| 10 Comments »


 
 
I like your costume,
the woman said, and I said,
Thank you. Thing was,
I wasn’t wearing a costume.
I was dressed as me,
a middle-aged woman
in tall black boots,
black yoga pants,
a long gray sweater
and my dad’s gray hat.
It wasn’t till after she left
I laughed, delighted
to be called out on
dressing up as myself,
a person I’ve been
trying to be my whole life.
And where, I wondered,
does the costume end?
Does it include my hair?
My skin? My name?
My stories? My resume?
My voice? All of it
a costume of self
worn by whatever
is most alive inside.
This human frame
is just some get-up the infinite
has slipped into for a time,
even as it slips into other
costumes, one that looks
exactly like you. And hey,
I like your costume.

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Spelunking of the Soul

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 2, 2024| 8 Comments »


 
 
I woke in the cave of my heart,
a slim shadow nested inside
an unbounded shadow,
and there, after decades of chatter
and prattle, I found you, silence.
Or more truly, after my clanging
and crying, my praising and soothing,
silence found me.
Quiet comforter.
Place of no promises.
Infinite cradle. Infinite womb.
An endless invitation to wake
forever.
I woke in the cave of my heart
being tuned to join a song I knew
but had never been taught,
a song ringing inside every cell.
Whatever I’d thought
was my own voice was one silken thread
in a warp made of silence,
a weft made of song.
I met there all the beauty I could bear.
Is it here even now as I sit in my room
with the low hum of lights
and the long list of things to do?
I close my eyes,
empty my pockets of certainty,
listen for what is real.
 

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What the Tuner of Souls Knows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 5, 2024| 5 Comments »


 
 
The quiet is best. Then
one might hear what is
strung too loose, too tight,
how the voicing is not
quite right. Not so long ago,
the tuner brought
this same instrument back
to true. But there is no failure.
that the instrument
went out of tune.
That’s is simply
what instruments do—
go sharp, go flat,
they waver until
once again the temperament
is set and then
song is what a life does—
we feel it the change
in every note—
oh the bliss of being in tune
with ourselves and
with every other instrument.
Then no matter how old
we are, we are new.

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One Inspiration

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 11, 2023| 2 Comments »




white clouds blown by wind
losing shape to become one with blue—
what a soul can do

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What the Peach Knows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 4, 2022| 7 Comments »

 
It is night
that keeps the peach
from ripening too fast,
 
the cool of the dark
that allows the sugar
to develop, to grow—
 
oh soul, is it any wonder
I have started
to pray for longer nights?

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Stoic Threads

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 10, 2020| 10 Comments »

            after Ruth Stone, “Train Ride”

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.   

     —Marcus Aurelius

The soul is stained,

is stained with red

from wishing things were different—

dark plum of longing,

burnt umber of craving,

the rubicund ache of desire.

Is it true, the soul is dyed

by the color of its thoughts?

Or perhaps the hues

are shed like veils,

shed like flimsy gossamer shifts,

and the moment we see

that they are thoughts,

they drop away

like robes that have lost

their clasps, yes, drop away

like silken shawls

that slip from naked shoulders.

But of course it’s true

the soul is dyed with the color

of its thoughts—takes on the blue

of avarice, the sticky green

of fear. Becomes the shining

golds of bliss or the navy folds

of loss. Or is it this—

the soul just seems

to don a colored dress,

like the pale rose wrap at dawn

that’s here then gone,

and the sky itself is clear.

Sometimes I feel soul stained

through and through.

Sometimes I shed even

the darkest hues,

like veils, like gossamer shifts.

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Beyond Touch

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 7, 2020| 6 Comments »

And if a cheek should find a chest,

and if a tongue should graze a lip,

and if a hand should meet a curve,

and if a hip should stir a hip,

then we might know the flesh as kindling,

know the skin as eager spark,

know the lover as the flame

that helps unthaw the frozen dark.

But if a heart should stoke a heart,

and if a soul should fuel a soul,

then we might know the self as unself—

ravaged, ardent, blazing, whole.

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Hymn to What’s Bare

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 21, 2017| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Last night’s wind scoured

the trees and stripped

their boughs—

it is easy in today’s calm

to wish my soul had been out

in the woods last night.

Emptiness reveals more

than all the gold, all design.

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Two More Haikulings Inspired by Rumi

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 19, 2014| 1 Comment »

vase of dried flowers—
why keep sniffing that dust?
all around us, souls in bloom

*

in the mirror
of the divine, every face
the same face

(Divan xiii)

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Brush

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 10, 2012| 2 Comments »

The rose petals are gone.
No way to know now
what color they were.
The only perfume here
the scent of November.
The rose hips are dried,
splayed into brown stars.
I once thought that I
could bloom forever.
In our hands the leaves
crinkle and crush.
This is what we were born
for. To grow. To fall.
To know ourselves as dust.

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