Sunday, September 30, 2012

when i fall





when i fall
the distance
between
here and there

i want to feel the space
clearly defined

i’d like to hold the process
to somehow contain 
the transition
to know
what i have wondered
all my life

and when i land
wherever it is
i’d like to feel
and think
about it

just enough
to make me wonder

just enough

Saturday, September 29, 2012

the simplest wealth



at an intersection
of wood and stone
the purest paucity of excess

the simplest wealth

Friday, September 28, 2012

forest floor





my students love creating with branches and leaves and rocks . . . 
here’s a piece by two of my boys and one of my girls.

they were especially excited to create spaces in the sky when you lay on the ground and looked up.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

purpose


it was the unlikeliness
of the entirety of green
that filled this space

its form
its structure
its organization
that held me
as i struggled to grasp
its purpose
in
growing
on these crumbling rocks

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

worn


there is
something
deeply intimate
in running my fingers
along and inside
the smooth striations
of wind and
rain
worn rock

Monday, September 24, 2012

the small secrets




rising
softly
in silkdust packets
that whorl on tiny thermals
escaping from pursed mouths

the small secrets
of the forest floor

Sunday, September 23, 2012

how is this



you crossed
the every which way
of altogether
unlikeliness
and left me
hovering
in the thin skittering space
of emptiness
pulling and tugging
at the weft and warp
of time
and wondering
if this ever togetherness
we called home
could skirt
the diversions
and possibilities
of the real world

Saturday, September 22, 2012

please


please

please grant me
the simple beauty
of this leaf hung up on a twig
dancing
to its own brittle whispered
wind kissing words

Friday, September 21, 2012

this beautiful chaos


this beautiful chaos

so like the entanglement
of the dreams i have
when i nap in the afternoon

Thursday, September 20, 2012

the fort in the woods


when i was a boy
my friends and i discovered a tree

of course
as is often the case
with places that contain more than
their fair share
of magic
this was no ordinary tree

you see
when
it had fallen
it had somehow
taken on the shape
of an equilateral triangle
with one vertex of the triangle
raised some ten feet above the ground
as it rested
its broken body
on one of its sister’s bodies

of course
the tree didn’t know that
and truth be known
neither did we

we called it our fort
and stole plywood sheets and bricks and nails
from a nearby construction site
to enclose the space
the tree had defined
as it fell to the earth
following
a long ago lightning strike

and when the fort
was more clearly defined
we took matches
from our parents

and made small fires there
and dreamed boy dreams
that were especially vivid
because we were in our fort in the woods

and when it rained
and we needed to survive
and we shared our rations
and we huddled
under a tarp stretched
taut with frayed ropes
we became lost
in the magic

in the possibilities
of the truth of the tree

and it was during one of these rainstorms
as we huddled closely together
that we saw
what we believed were viking runes
gently
even lovingly
carved into the body
of the trees exposed trunk

and so we allowed our dreams
to extend back into time unimaginable
redefining history
creating a story
that lives within each of us
to this very moment

(dave, steve, marty, robby   i miss you
and think of you constantly)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

the unexpected


i crossed
the skyline hills
under skies
unlit, scored, cross-hatched
 and sacred

so when i called her name

why was i was surprised
at what came running out of the forest?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

the long fingers of the future


the fingers
reach down
to the earth of me

and i feel each of those fingers
filled
with the juice of life
 ripe
with nerve-endings
crackling and arcing knowledge

details
as fine
as precise
as pure
as rain

so that when i laugh
and when i cry
and when i sin
and when i whisper
my wishes
into the ears
of those i love
those slender fingers reach out
and through our bodies
and pull the threads of us
ever tighter

Monday, September 17, 2012

moved!






later this week i get internet in my new home! 
this will make a world of difference
to those features of my world that i share with you
and that you share with me!


Sunday, September 16, 2012

words (v)


"people also leave presence in a place even when they are no longer there."

andy goldsworthy

Saturday, September 15, 2012

words (iv)

“one of the interesting things that happen if you look at your hand and you consider it – not as a number of bananas on the end of some sort of flexible stick but as a nest of relations – is that you’ll find that the object looks much prettier than you thought it looked. now this means that with a correction of our epistemology, you might find the world was greatly more beautiful than you thought it was.”  gregory bateson

Friday, September 14, 2012

like breath



so unlikely
so fleeting
so necessary

Thursday, September 13, 2012

words (iii)

"why do our schools teach us nothing about the pattern which connects?” gregory bateson

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

keep on knocking



keep on knocking
‘til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who’s there

rumi

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

confetti



i love that moment when you peer through the branches 
and little flecks of colour and light appear 
like so much confetti!

Monday, September 10, 2012

words (ii)

"life is only real, then, when i am." gurdjieff

Sunday, September 9, 2012

words (i)

it is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering.   j.g. bennett

Saturday, September 8, 2012

passages

i will be gone for the next two days . . . the first break in the history of the golden fish . . . this being the 2,140th consecutive posting . . . . steven

Friday, September 7, 2012

this flower



this was the way
this was the essence
this was the start 
of something
that led to
something

you see,
this flower
tells a story
of the flowers that will follow
and then too
it says
something
much to be admired
it says 
"i am simple
i am complex
i am beautiful
and here for a very short while.
no need to judge me
no need to admire me
simply experience
my experience
and learn so much more"

Thursday, September 6, 2012

at all costs



bend
arc
at all costs continue
while moving on

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

three nights ago



the evening sky
expresses itself
so subtly

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

back to school . . .

i am so excited to be with my class again . . . !!!


image courtesy "old picture of the day"


“that old september feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”

angle of repose

Monday, September 3, 2012

leave it any way except a slow way




“i have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.” 


Sunday, September 2, 2012

hope is a thing with feathers




hope is a thing with feathers
that perches in the soul
and sings a tune without words
and never stops at all.

and sweetest, in the gale, is heard
and sore must be the storm
that could abash the little bird
that keeps so many warm.

i’ve heard it in the chilliest land
and on the strangest sea
yet, never, in extremity
it ask a crumb of me.


emily dickinson

Saturday, September 1, 2012

the ochre wall



"i could seize that forgotten bicycle
left propped against an ochre wall
in the midday square, ride off to find
that track passed some time back
where the road bent round and the shadows
were cool and black in the light."

excerpted from "a private life" by beatrice garland