I Write of That Journey

I remember how my mother would hold me.

I would look up at her sometimes and see her weep.

I understand now what was happening.

Love so strong a force

it broke the cage, 

and she disappeared from everything

for a blessed

moment.

All actions have evolved 

from the taste of flight; 

the hope of freedom

moves our cells

and limbs.

Unable to live on the earth, Mira ventured out alone in the sky - 

I write of that journey

of becoming as 

free as

God.

Don't forget love; 

it will bring all the madness you need

to unfurl yourself across

the universe.

Mira 

From:  Love Poems from God

Daniel Ladinsky 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

dew light

Now in the blessed days of more and less

when the news about time is that each day

there is less of it I know none of that 

as I walk out through the early garden

only the day and I are here with no

before or after and the dew looks up

without a number or a present age.  

W.S. Merwin 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

No Path

There is No Path that Goes all the Way 

Han Shan

Not that it stops us looking

for the full continuation.

The one line in the poem

we can start and follow

straight to the end.  The fixed belief

we can hold, facing a stranger

that saves us the trouble 

of a real conversation.

But one day you are not

just imagining an empty chair

where your loved one sat.

You are not just telling a story

where the bridge is down

and there's nowhere to cross.

You are not just trying to pray

to a God you imagined

would keep you safe.

No, you've come to the place

where nothing you've done

will impress and nothing you 

can promise will avert

the silent confrontation.

The place where

your body already seems to know

the way, having kept

to the last, its own secret

reconnaissance.

But still, there is no path

that goes all the way,

one conversation leads 

to another, 

one breath to the next

until

there's no breath at all, 

just

the inevitable 

final release

of the  burden.

And then, 

wouldn't your life

have to start 

all over again

for you to know

even a little 

of who you had been? 

David Whyte

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone, 

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark 

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The  world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone 

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

David Whyte

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Love After Love

The time will come 

when, with elation

 you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from  the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Photo:  Peter Bowers

For The Senses

May the touch of your skin

Register the beauty

Of the otherness

That surrounds you.

May your listening be attuned

To the deeper silence

Where sound is honed

To bring distance home.

May the fragrance

Of a breathing meadow

Refresh your heart

And remind you you are

A child of the earth

And when you partake 

Of food and drink, 

May your taste quicken 

To the gift and sweetness

That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye

See through the surfaces

And glean the real presence

Of everything that meets you.

May your soul beautify

The desire of your eyes

That you might glimpse

The infinity that hides

In the simple sights

That seem worn

To your usual eyes.  

John O'Donohue

Photo:  Peter Bowers

still here...

My dear octogenarian father looks at me from across the restaurant table with those eyes, pregnant with a lifetime of reflections, and says, "Strange how it all ... turns out... so unexpected..."

"How do you mean, dad?"

"You go through life, doing this and that... you have children, they grow up... you work, you make money, you lose money, you retire... they take everything away from you... but... well... I'm still... we're still... here... aren't we, son... ?

Still here, dad.   Still here.





Jeff Foster