Serpentinarium

2009-06-13T11:55:00.003-04:00

Allah Hoo

We sing of Allah who is here and love, always.
The chant rides on the harmonium keening its chord.
We blend and the words, Allah hoo, God is here,
Touch me and the tears run as my voice cracks.

They say who is being sought causes the seeking,
Still I believe in no god, Allah or other.
The universe, vast and amoral embraces us all.
We are stardust and dung because they are each other.

Yet I long for the holy; would I know if it came?
My path seems neither of love nor of service.
I sit on my cushion, sing out to the ether,
Repeating the words of long-dead mystics.

(from a friend in June 2009, written in 1999)

2009-06-13T11:54:00.001-04:00

Sun splash, water splash
Greasy white, red turning brown
Shoulders tender: Ouch!

Quiet thoughts, awake
Voice and words, warm evenings
Bright smiles, three days hence.

2009-06-13T11:52:00.000-04:00

Wind chimes in the breeze
Now soft, now loud, now silent.
Now, it's always now.

Friends here for four days
gone home; no need to talk more.
Silence, so welcome.

(From a friend, June 2009)

2009-05-27T11:36:00.002-04:00

Laughter after rain
Floating thoughts, words drift between
Sparkles in the night

2009-04-26T14:02:00.002-04:00

Spring birds paint an aural landscape
Golden sun warms my back
North breeze cools my chest

Red ladybug climbs up and over
Yellow clover, dandelion stems
Steady, determined, alive

Stillness parts the veil

2009-04-24T11:26:00.002-04:00

New eyes sparkle with life
Futures roll to the horizon

Old eyes misty from life
Past sorrows bathe memories' ruins

The tears are real
The reasons are not

Only this moment

Is

2009-04-13T09:38:00.002-04:00

Grey clouds, drizzling mist beyond glass panes
Isolated inside from World outside

Inside, pixelated windows transport me
To to yet another outside world

But still isolated here with
Murmuring business voices
Whooshing air handlers
Jangling calendar alarms

Even here, the Way is apparent

2009-03-16T07:55:00.002-04:00

Stillness, grey, misty outside in early dark

Journey's footsteps fall softly
Heart opens, smiles, warming in Light
One before the other, distance covered

Soul beside me, breath tender
Love graces spaces between
Richly glowing, soothing, healing

Stillness, golden, misty inside in early dawn

Comedy on Confederate Avenue

2009-03-12T09:56:00.002-04:00

Cop in a cruiser
Across a four way stop
Hesitates as I

Unsure who's next

White van on right
Eases tentatively
Into danger zone

Escorted by Squirrel
Scampering a straight line
Full in the moment

Knowing who's next

2009-03-11T12:17:00.002-04:00

Fading red-orange of sunrise
Behind cars disappearing
Behind a hill
Behind scrawled wires on poles
Behind the windshield

2009-03-05T11:22:00.002-05:00

Confusion with words
Silencing my voice again
Winter looms outside

2009-02-13T15:38:00.002-05:00

Watching rockets love sky
Seeing sparkles smile
Spiders caress spiders
Webs binding life to life

Here, now, joy is

2009-02-07T14:51:00.002-05:00

Sitting amidst frost on the crest of a little hill
Rising sun behind me shines white trim on the tan building across the way
And throws a shadow before me: Line of the hill,
My sillouette on the line in a pose thousands of years old

An hour past

Four friends wrote me
Two children laughed with me
One bed warmed me

In this moment

Four birds call four songs, singing the morning
Two people come and go, living the morning
One distant highway, folks rolling through the morning

Joy takes me

I feel I'm with Shakyamuni, with Jesus, with all living things

Peace to all and all be well.

2009-01-31T21:15:00.000-05:00

Event: Hand cocked and ready for a 9mm draw, a black-clad beauty with a badge warily approaches the car she stopped while her cruiser's flashing blue lights advertise.

2009-01-24T16:48:00.002-05:00

Electronic smile
Black on white, fingers on keys
New love poetry

2009-01-21T13:25:00.003-05:00

A face I've known forever
A shoulder shrug in acceptance
Grieving eyes regard me in compassion
I return the same and they start
The tears for a life together lost
Bitter, seeming endless, ruining my vision

I can't believe I'm here

I . . .

You . . .

We . . .

Misty silence, uncertainty, fear

Grief

Heartbroken grief . . .

It's late and time to go

2009-01-15T16:03:00.002-05:00

A little bell rings
Affectionate murmurings
Warm summer smiles now

2009-01-09T10:54:00.002-05:00

Winds of winter, collar turned up
Chilled hands cradling breath drifting in
Frigid air through pink fingers
Like memories escaping into time

Over there, dark eyes smiling
A door, a light, a fire inside
Low voices and poetry
Summer conjured in seconds

Cold pushed back a while
Chill relieved, aches soothed
Images of hummingbirds, flower to flower
Winter looks to Spring

2008-12-26T19:26:00.003-05:00

Shadows of yesterday
Drift with thoughts
On breezes of affection

Swirling memories form
Crystalline images of
Smiles and tears

A sweet embrace and
A hand tenderly held
A loving "so long"

Until next time

2008-12-23T13:30:00.004-05:00

A dove glides into view
Soaring moments before
Timid approach, gentle cooing

Touching down for quick embrace

Then off again to far away
A familiar creature of mystery
Apart from here and now

One I thought I knew

2008-12-18T18:06:00.003-05:00

Brown fell to earth today
Fading to ashen grey
On a journey into unknown
Hoping for wisdom and truth

Blue floated in clouds of rain
Wond'ring for the sun
Searching for warmth and love
Hoping for safe haven

Brown found the stream
Now tumbling, swirling
Now gently flowing
Easing into the ocean

Blue watched the rains
Now a violent flood
Now a soothing mist
Washing the earth beneath

Brown went well and grew
In the earth
Blue stayed well and grew
In the sky

On days in the sun
And days in the rain

There is Joy

2008-12-12T14:29:00.002-05:00

Streaking raindrop bullets from assassin clouds leave
Brown, orange and red arboreal bodies littering the ground
Except they had already expired from natural causes
And fell like leaves in a fall storm

2008-12-12T11:57:00.001-05:00

Full moon, bisected and bracketed by powerlines
Majesty behind banality
Life

2008-12-10T19:32:00.002-05:00

Caterpillar taillights
Stretching and scrunching to
Red and green rhythm
Inching through
Skyscraper grass

2008-12-09T13:38:00.002-05:00

Auburn curls, uncurl down her back.
A strange goddess, tall, straight-spined, lovely in form
Walks beside me, silent, perhaps aloof.
Tongued-tied and alive on the street,
My silence is fear.

2008-12-04T11:30:00.002-05:00

A little boy, six, watched chaos around him
Hunkered down, staying safe
A man, forty six , watched chaos around him
Hunkered down, staying safe

Time marks the survivor and the cripple
Both live

Who's in charge?

2008-11-29T10:51:00.002-05:00

Sitting, thinking, longing
Dark rain blankets morning cool
Voices absent, quiet, gone from the day
Drops from the eves punctuate stillness

2008-11-26T10:33:00.002-05:00

Cold seeping around my collar
Early winter's breeze chilling my heart
Shards of trees lay weeping on heartless concrete
As their colors fade, their bones crushed
Ground under foot without thought

My own guilty foot walks on

Shards of the past lay in disarray
Desolate, cold and lonely
The young hawk, weary but flying
Hungry on the edge in the moment
Thinks no further than now

My mind seeks innocence

2008-11-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

Words play back and forth, doves of affection
Laughter floats on the air, leaves of joy
A thought tinged with grief, dragged from the past, borrowed from the future
Tears shed and wiped away in love and compassion

Walking, talking

Moments shared in the sun held in crystalline memory
Reflected in a smile
Fingers twine, the touch tender, feather light
Eyes meet, misty in the presence

Arms embrace, flowing warmth joins the two

Lips touch and touch again
Time stops

Joy explodes

Love blooms

2008-11-21T10:29:00.002-05:00

Leaves changing colors
Temperature slowly dropping
Darkness comes quickly

Seasons blending, overlapping
Memories as bright as the fall foliage
I hold onto the summer's warmth

(a poem from a friend, posted with permission)

2008-11-19T11:17:00.002-05:00

Bitter cold hands, stinging on a bicycle ride
Fall leaves whispering to the road's edge: Orange, red, brown

Bridge, a hundred feet above smooth rocks in river

Concrete rail, concrete sidewalk
Scattered smashed glass, laying in wait for tires, shoes

Twenty minutes til office warmth

2008-11-14T07:49:00.002-05:00

Sparkling blue lights in rain and colored leaves: Cops on Confederate Avenue

2008-11-09T23:28:00.002-05:00

Sitting in the cold
Geese fly by honking loudly
My eyes steal a look

2008-11-08T21:01:00.001-05:00

Colored trees, cloudy
Footsteps on a road to light
Mind flies in the sky

2007-12-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

Cold this morning
Fog again, over the water
Gliding in breeze not on my skin
Tree reflections cradle my eyes
Ripples on liquid glass come and go
Fracturing, slicing trees

Crows streak across calling each other

Life grows
Reflections shift
Things come and go

Change evidenced all around
Nothing is permanent

2007-11-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

I sit

Undulating water just before me
Hawk crying in the distance
Crows closer, calling back and forth

Geese in formation, wings driving North to South
Honking, disappearing South and West

And now. . .

Silent gliding South to North, a single honk
Landing as one across the water near the other side

Sitting

Clouds break, sun above, sparkles reflected below
My eyes, tender in the cool morning, warmth sensed, light felt
Lids close, red-orange illumination inside from out

Sitting

Eyes open, gazing at grass, sparkles and squints
Peaceful walking back

Behind me, small sounds: I look
Geese are up and over the trees, leaving

And leave me with a smile

2007-11-16T14:10:00.001-05:00

In crisp fall days, amber and ochre leaves abound
Little creatures crawl amongst things fallen from above, dug from below

I see myself

And I see something greater than me

Waves on the Ocean
We walk our paths, the little creatures and me

2007-11-15T08:22:00.000-05:00

Grey cool clouds in the morning
Damp envelopes the day
Crisp fall leaves melt on wet ground
Thoughts close in: Intimate
Looking out a window
This morning is now

2007-11-04T09:26:00.000-05:00

Sitting by quiet waters,
Destruction from the day before lay around
Rushes, grass, vines all lay where felled
Cataclysm on the small had struck

And yet

It was simply acknowldged
And became the new reality

New webs were spun
New burrows dug
Warmth to find
Sun to catch

Life carried on

The past was gone

2007-11-02T22:30:00.000-04:00

Quiet in cold night
Plane outside window glides down
Quiet leaves, returns

2007-10-27T08:43:00.000-04:00

Jeweled kerchiefs, spider spun
Glisten damp
After rain the night before.

Fog shrouds morning light
Trickles below glass sing above
Faint fall breath cools my chest
While my back is warm

A folded winged shape
Perched above the water
Spreading flap: The heron goes

All is one

2007-10-23T14:26:00.000-04:00

One day, quiet waves
Next, mystic fog over glass
Cool, dry, sitting by the pond

2007-10-04T09:38:00.000-04:00

Drinking the waters of the Way today. . .

Lunch with an old friend, soothing words of Christ.
A daughter's birthday, celebrated with song, returned by a radiant countenance.
Cooking for little ones, helping hands with mischievous grins.
Cradling darkness, quiet warmth of the little ones drifting off.
Familiar strings, an old song, callouses found anew, nice notes laughing.
Lao Tzu's wisdom, images of serenity.
A candle, incense, a bell: Quiet sitting, inward looking.
Smiles on a familiar face, decades of affection, quiet and warm.

Simple things.
Life.

Peace to all.

2007-10-01T09:37:00.000-04:00

Ethereal music, lyrics in a language I don't understand, takes me now to a place of quiet reflection at my keyboard.

I saw a comment on Serpentinarium that I had moderated but forgotten about and realized I haven't talked to that person in a while. I treasure the connections in life. This one crosses an ocean. I've missed the little spark that always happened when I saw the words coming to me from thousands of miles away.

Wistful am I, listening still.

2007-10-01T09:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday,
Morning meditation outside in cool fall.
Bird flittered in trees,
Squirrels scampered branch to branch,
Scrabbled in dry leaves on ground.
Cars on distant road, tires breathed the speed.
Planes a thousand feet in sky, homed to earth,
Air whipping and whistling, followed aluminum wings.
Signs of life outside,
Sang to life inside.

2007-09-18T09:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, a crystalline moment:

Fading sun, about an hour of daylight left, sun riding low above the trees. My broad-brimmed canvas hat shades my eyes as I recline in a chaise lounge by the road in front of the house. Rich golden light touches the high trees and road, painting early fall. Paused in my reading, I look out over the pond, water five feet down from a leak, low and cool in late afternoon shade. Except for a single large patch of sand opposite me, grey mud rings its perimeter, narrow on the steep slopes, wide in the shallows. Two urchins, my two, have dragged a small red and white cooler and a red wagon into the bare and slimy bottom on the other side and are picking golf balls of imprecisely known origin out of the muck. With mud flying, ernest chatter, turned unintelligibly into babbling from the hundred yards distance, narrates the adventure, the joy in which is palpable where I sit smiling in silence.

2007-08-19T09:34:00.000-04:00

A quiet Sunday afternoon, a relaxing visit with an old friend, a great way to spend a little time. Out of touch with politics and sports just now, in the last few days. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just is.

No reason to judge it, and every reason not to.

Heat has settled on the area for a couple weeks now. Inside and air conditioning is the order of the day. Outside only if playing in water, but sometimes even that's too hot.

The height of summer.

2007-08-05T09:32:00.000-04:00

Soothing, spring quiet
Emptiness not filled, useful
Possibilities

2007-07-30T09:31:00.000-04:00

Basic truth: Life is hard

Center lost today,
Climb hill again, again
Mind only changed,
And all changed

Look in: Thoughts fall like oak leaves
Feel wind here, now there
Up, bare branch, sky behind
Truth is

Truth

2007-07-26T09:27:00.000-04:00

Peace

In this early autumn, winds have blown, snows threatened
Wrong turns taken, mistakes made, greed succumbed to, lies told

I look inside at reality

Past weighs heavy, future frightens
But now: Peace

Sunlight sparkles
Spiders draw threads through space
Trees green and turn, grass shoots tall

In this world I've hurt no one today

I have what I need

Peace

2007-07-25T09:26:00.000-04:00

Grass fell done: quiet
Breathe Bassai in dappled shade
Spinning, blade alone

An attempt at a haiku to capture this moment:

After taking the hour or so the trim the tall stuff that grows around the pond, I was making the walk—a couple hundred yards—back to the house when it occurred to me: Do a kata, right here, right now, while it's so nice out. And so, having not done Bassai Dai—the Shuri Ryu version is a bit different than the Shotokan one shown in Wikipedia—in a few months and missing one move, I performed it again, there in the sunshine-dappled shade, the trimmer laying by the side of the road, its shoulder harness thrown over it. There's a turn where one spins not quite 180 degrees into a stance; I sometimes lose my balance a bit there when I'm out of practice and did this time. That and shoes making my feet heavy on heightened the moment, familiar movements welcoming me back on a beautiful day after a bit of honest work.

My respect for poets grows and grows.

2007-07-17T09:23:00.000-04:00

After work, picking up a problem child
at the healer, I took a different route.

Not big highway this time, but old road through old town.
Big highway is fast, wide, it goes far places. Like
flying in a plane, land scrolls by unnoticed,
a blur on the periphery of the tunnel of attention on people before.
Old road strolls through old town, not so fast, but faster than walking.
Thirty five, not sixty five, not seventy.
Trees stand close and offer shelter: I glide by, cool shadows soothe.
Homes behind trees quietly observing passersby.
Evanescent memories drift into now.

I arrived forty years later than fifteen minutes ago.

2007-07-11T09:19:00.000-04:00

A man lived his entire life just to make himself happy. Because of that, things that didn't cause him pain were of no concern.

People ask him to do things to help them out. They ask him to stop doing things that hurt them. Because he feels no pain, the requests go unanswered. People's situations become desperate and they become frantic in their requests of him, demanding even. This causes him pain and so he grudgingly responds, irritated that his serenity has been disturbed, oblivious as to why the people around him are so angry and hurt by his behavior.

People would talk to him about why they were hurt. That was unpleasant, so he resolved to change. Soon after the unpleasant talks were done, the pain of them disappeared and so, with no pain and nothing else to guide him, he set about his life as before, harming the same people who had ernestly entreated him to not to.

One morning, after talking with one of the people he had harmed, he wakes up and realizes what he's done.

Now what?

2007-07-07T09:17:00.000-04:00

Crazy oak drops leaves,
Runs green with life, touches glass
Squirrel laughs: Tag, you're it

2007-06-21T11:52:00.000-04:00

Loneliness looms before me, a spector born on the wings of a six year-old's fears:

Who will stay with me?
Care for me?
Who will help me up when I stumble?
Who will tend me if I'm ill?
Who will share my joy?
My doubt?

Am I worthy of love?

2006-11-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

Truth.

I believe truth is of God. All truth. The location of it is irrelevant.

That makes some people nervous because it takes away their claims to exclusivity.

As it should.

I've seen truth clearly written in the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, mathematics text books, novels, magazines, music. I've seen it painted in art, spoken in literature. I've heard it in Bach, Beethoven and the Beatles. In comic books. On TV. It's all over. People's search for God is evident everywhere, but because it is not labeled as such, some people don't recognize it.

A lot of us didn't recognize Jesus either, did we?

2006-10-26T08:09:00.000-04:00

I think of myself as a Christian and so a succinct description of my faith could be this:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN.

So, what do I think these entities I believe in are, exactly?

My thoughts of God begin with God as creator and, in a sense, creation itself. I see God as the prime motivating force that caused the universe to come into existence. I also see God as the author of the equations that govern physics, and indeed, rather than standing outside of those equations, I see God, essentially as those equations. To carry that line of thought further, I see the physical laws that govern the universe as a form of truth, and to the extent that they are true, they are God. In essence, since God created everything, God actually is everything. There is nothing truly outside of God. Also, since there is obviously order in the universe and in the laws that govern it, there must be intelligence that chose and defined that order out of chaos. To the extent that this order is unimaginatively complex, the intelligence is unimaginatively great. This is my primary view of God the Father.

Next, I see God as Holy Spirit in a couple ways. First, as life itself, the inexplicable force that dwells in every living thing. I also think of the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of God the Creator.

I think of God the Son in this way: I think that the man Jesus was so in tune and imbued with the Holy Spirit that his life was different from all others and is legitimately called the Son of God. I was, as a child, taught of his birth of a virgin and his resurrection from the dead. Beliefs in these physical events I struggle with, but I cannot renounce them. I believe in spite of some doubt. What I have no doubt about is Jesus' supreme goodness and compassion. And for that matter, when I think of him as a manifestation of God the Father, the creator, then virgin birth and resurrection don't seem so unlikely. Jesus is my Lord in any event.

I think of evil simply as distance from God.

How do I think these entities relate to others, particularly people of other faiths?

It is foundational in my belief that there is essentially nothing apart from God. An important derivation from that is the idea that if a person of any faith ernestly seeks God, to wit, seeks to understand and commune with their creator, they will in fact find the same God I believe in because there isn't anyone else there to find.

The implications of this last point are large.

2006-07-27T07:52:00.000-04:00

A semiotic blonde in a Jeep Cherokee behind me on the commute in this morning: Shorter hair to the bottoms of her ears, like a spy might wear to avoid being grabbed in a fight, turned out a little disheveled like a lover, sunglasses covering intent, hiding motive, lips upturned the slightest bit at the corners signing knowledge of plots, schemes, seeing through me and others around her on the highway, undoubtedly the only one to know what may happen today in the city, seminal events of great import secretly occuring underground, in backrooms, vaults, smokey bars where negotiaions of life and death transpire and evanescently fade on direct view.

2006-07-25T21:32:00.000-04:00

wheels within wheels, is not what I see the truth? rashoman asks. things in the new market, the old market, commerce thrives and contours (to steal a word I'd have never used that way before) civilization with its writhing life over (never)yonder. thoughts flying through my head: a writer with a gift for words, a filmmaker with a gift for vision, musicians with exquisite touch. breathing notes into, out of, an instrument that vibrates the air with sympatico delight, sensed by ears on heads, heads in a crowd, smokey blue air hanging over those heads while the sound flies across the bar tickling them all with bliss: heads leaned back or down, eyes closed. they get it.

2006-06-10T18:51:00.000-04:00

At the flea market this morning, every type of person under the sun: Young pretty mothers with small children, dust and dirt on their faces, smeared with sticky grime from candy in the sun; grizzled middle-aged working class people, baked in the sun for 25 years to a golden brown, red in their skin, freckles coming out; well-to-do people looking to pinch pennies—part of the reason they're well to do still and probably always will be; middle class folks, walking the isles in the hot sun, sweat on brow, shorts, sandles neatly dressed; poorer people talking of great deals, things that work well, days spent fishing at someone else's pond, the last hunting trip, clothes a bit shabby, worn, sometimes even dirty from just getting off work. And one after another smiling, then looking closely with eyes that have seen all this stuff before: toys, beatup furniture, this and that, anything one can imagine.

2006-04-23T11:06:00.000-04:00

...back against a wall, window behind me, warm sun pours over my hands, speaking in letters, type, skype, type, snipe, allusions of grandeur, delusions of sandier, rhyme time, climb slime, free associate on business people walking down streets in new york, wise guys I read about but know nothing of, a city that never sleeps, especially around times square, where, church is the thing, Saint Mary's just around the corner on 46th...and here again, dust on a screen, little asteroids, a belt around the waist of the solor system on my computer sol...shadows of trees waving in the breeze outside falling on the floor beside me, white carpet, stained here and there...kids playing in the other rooms, wife reading the paper, Sunday morning, quiet...click, click...

2006-04-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

A beautiful day, downtown sitting on a bench, sun shining, a light breeze, dappled shadows across the page of the book I'm reading. The story moves along, characters working through their parts as pages turn. Lost in the story.

Then: The bliss of the outdoors calls too softly to ignore, the book closes, slides onto the bench, I slouch just a touch lower, elbow on the bench's smooth black metal arm, followed by cheek in palm. Eyes shielded by my broad brimmed hat, warm sun dissolves the day into nothingness as I drift off.

And then: Dreamily I look at the time. A meeting in 12 minutes. The world beckons me to gentle responsibilities, and so back to the office...

2006-04-13T15:12:00.000-04:00

...stomping through fields of cars rolling by, lights flashing, sunlight glinting off of a chunk of shattered glass on the sidewalk—dusty, pushed to the side—concrete below, bricks to the side, blue sky with fluffy clouds above.

faces made of windows up and down river of asphalt, people canoes bobbing along in social currents, washed from work and back during lunch breaks by clock tides.

life at the office in the small city...