Walking in the sweet honey
and musky scented woods,
I keep searching for what smells
so good, until finally I let
myself be content to walk
in the woods with a honey scent,
and I give up for a time
on naming the world,
and let a step be a step,
let a scent be a scent
and know only I am lucky,
lucky to walk in the musky woods,
the air so refreshing, so sweet.
Posts Tagged ‘unknowing’
Letting Go of Knowing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forest, knowing, nature, scent, unknowing, walkiing on June 13, 2023| 14 Comments »
About Conviction
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, conviction, nature, poem, poetry, unknowing on October 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
So much to learn from the fallen leaves,
the barren trees, the still green moss,
the skittish deer, the unturned stone,
the smooth gray limbs of loss,
fog hung like garland in the woods,
a secret spring, the brittle grass,
the yet unfurling truth in us,
the path that forgets it’s a path.
Revelation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged holding on, poem, poetry, revelation, unknowing, words on October 12, 2018| 1 Comment »
Perhaps when we don’t know what to say
we have at last arrived at the one true thing—
and in our thrill to share it with words, dilute it.
It is like the seed, perhaps, that in sprouting
at last understands its purpose, only
now it is no longer a seed.
How easy it is to lose revelation.
Not that it is ever gone—more that it
drops its petals, and we are left
holding an empty stem, trying
to remember how beautiful it was,
failing to see how beautiful it is.
The Wayfarer Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Hieronymus Bosch, love, poem, poetry, spiritual path, The Wayfarer, unknowing on October 7, 2018| 2 Comments »
written after viewing The Wayfarer by Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1500
I have learned to love the broken world,
the holes in the roof, the shutters unhinged.
I have learned to love the tapped out barrel
and shattered panes and the stench of men.
And I, I love being a man, which is why, I suppose,
even now as I walk toward some new life,
some life as yet unknown, I turn.
I turn, but do not stop. I turn to see
the life I’ve loved, my home, my friends,
my ochre lot. And trust my feet to lead me,
trust my hidden heart. Trust the bird outside
the cage who guides me through the dust.
And though I know there will be struggle,
though I’m lost to where I’m going,
I begin to fall in love again, this time
with the unknowing.
Chapter Two
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged narrator, poem, poetry, unknowing on September 8, 2015| 1 Comment »
So when the narrator of my life
told me she needed a vacation,
what could I say? She was tired,
she said, and wanted to get away
for a while, preferably somewhere
with a beach and no children,
no poems, no dinners to make, no
lawn to mow. And oh, by the way,
she said, when I come back,
my rates are going up. Of course,
I said, wondering about the present
rate, and just how much I already owed.
Oh yes, she said, and while I am gone,
keep it straight. Present tense only.
No highfalutin’ language. Just the facts.
And spell everything correctly.
Even since she’s been gone, I have
this strange feeling that nothing’s
ever happened. And nothing ever will.
And that I am some stranger I’ve never
met living in a place I never knew.
What Was the Question?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chosen, inquiry, knowing, poem, poetry, unknowing on March 11, 2014| 2 Comments »
in the sweets shop
standing in front of the shelves
unable to choose—
realizing that I am the one
who wants to be chosen
*
unable to see
the mountain at the end
of the clouded valley—
never once doubting
it is still there
*
choose me, choose me,
choose me, I say to the world,
but of course I mean
choose me
the way I want to be chosen
*
outside, of course,
preferably in the sun, far
away from all
other eyes, an inchworm takes
all day to measure one lily
*
all day asking
myself, what would be lighter,
and even lighter
than this, all day I land
more softly
*
who is the one
who thinks she wants to be chosen?
leaning into the
infinite whatever it is
that notices her wanting
On the Way
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, unknowing, willingness on January 29, 2014| 2 Comments »
The evening decides to walk in the door.
And by evening, I mean me. And by walk
in the door, I mean to go home. And by home,
I don’t know what I mean. A woman
thinks she knows who she is and then
she is not that who at all. There are ravens
in her hair. There is a snake in her side.
There is something untamed in the night.
It tugs at all colors until they dissolve.
It scrubs away all shapes, all names.
And by night, I mean a different shade of love.
And by shapes, I mean these old thoughts.
And by names, I mean all these labels
we’ve learned. By untamed, I mean
I am ready to walk through any door.
F Equals
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceleration, laws, physics, poem, poetry, unknowing on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »
At the campfire, Sam’s father
tells me that Newton’s Second Law
is not always true. I add it to
my growing list of rules to not
depend on. Let’s say in this equation,
the woman is the mass. This is,
of course, a private joke, and
she can laugh about how inconsistent
the mass might be. Fix her to a moment, then,
say that Sunday morning when her kitchen
smelled of apples simmering whitely on the stove,
the steam of the giant canning pot filled
the room with warmth. Let’s say the force
is the voice of the man as he says
the words he knows she hates to hear.
The force is soft spoken and low. Then a equals
the increasing rate at which the woman’s heart races
then runs from the room, though her body still stands
behind the green counter, stirring the simmering fruit.
And a is the increasing rate at which her tears fall.
And a is the rate of the wind as it moves the storm closer
to the walls of the house where the kitchen is warming.
And a is the rate at which the mass learns yet again
that she must be her own bliss.
And what has happened to value m? There is less
of her now than the equation might suggest.
I believe you, I say to Sam’s dad. The fire
snaps between us. The leaves rustle
in the wind. In a perfect world, I could
measure them. In a perfect world, I wonder
what happens to the force.
Rich Beyond Wishing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ee cummings, freedom, poem, poetry, unknowing on October 7, 2013| 7 Comments »
(though love be a day
and life be nothing,
it shall not stop kissing)
–e. e. cummings, Thy Fingers Make Early Flowers
Make me then a flower
that is unashamed of blooming.
And make me a river undammed.
Make me a leaf that surrenders to death
but surrenders even more in life.
And make me a dawn that keeps
unfolding, a book that has no last chapter,
a phone that rings only love.
Paint me rose and then unpaint me.
Make me the door that forgets
how to latch, and just in case,
make me the skeleton key.
Make me a black wing that gathers
the light and gathers the wind,
and make me the light as it breaks on the wing
and make me the homeless wind.