white clouds blown by wind
losing shape to become one with blue—
what a soul can do
Posts Tagged ‘soul’
One Inspiration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, dissolution, sky, soul on February 11, 2023| 2 Comments »
What the Peach Knows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, development, fruit, peach, soul, sweetening 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?
Stoic Threads
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged color, marcus aurelius, soul, stoicism 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.
Beyond Touch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, fire, soul, tetrameter 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.
Hymn to What’s Bare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emptiness, fall, poem, poetry, soul, wind 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.
Two More Haikulings Inspired by Rumi
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged equality, poem, poetry, soul 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)
Brush
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eternity, mortality, poem, poetry, self, soul, unity 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.
Real Love Starts Then
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poems, poetry, relationships, soul on April 7, 2012| 6 Comments »
The first things to break
are made of glass—
tumblers, vases,
window panes—
then the wood,
how it snaps,
the floors, the counters,
the entire frame,
and even the metal—
the stainless, the iron,
the rings,
it all shatters, collapses,
everything,
and it takes a long time
for the shards and dust,
for the wreckage and the whole ruined lot
to become what it is,
just a heap of stuff,
not what we are made of,
not at all what we are made of.
Would I Sing More?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, poems, poetry, soul on March 7, 2012| 6 Comments »
At dinner, I heard
about those in a tribe who,
as they die, will tie
around the dying one’s finger
a string long enough
to reach the sea. The other end
is attached to a boat
to carry away the soul.
I have wanted such a string,
not for when I am dead,
but for when I am alive,
something to secure me
to that most intangible part
of myself, as if it could be lost.
Perhaps the string would be less tether
and more reminder
that that distant land
wherever it is we go when we’re gone
is a lot closer than I think,
close enough that it’s probably
even now touching where the soft frayed ends
would be dangling so near my finger tip.
The Process
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged couplets, lace, letting go, process, soul, tetrameter on November 11, 2011| 2 Comments »
Soul, you are the empty space
honored by the maker of lace,
you the holes that are always there,
and we the threads that frame the air.
You the gap, the empty, the naught,
and we the ones cutting away the cloth
to arrive at the nothing that links us all,
unweaving, unbraiding, elated, enthralled.