welcome

I wonder often
when I wake up,
what makes these eyes
feel welcome?
that they open afresh
to every morn?
what is the invitation
left unwritten
upon these lashes,
heavy and curled
with the weight
of things gone by
and those yet to come?

welcome is not easy
but it is possible,

in an unfamiliar face
without a name,
in skins worn and discarded
by community and solitude,
by love and humiliation,
by faith and betrayal,
by unity and rejection;

welcome is not easy,
but it is possible,

in a world
that comes alive
to a new place
in our eyes,
in our hearts,
everyday,
strolling in
uninvited,
yet always
welcome.

here. now.

I watch the way

my hands 

bring me

here

I could not 

draw a circle

if I kept looking

to where they had to go,

or where they started from

yes, these hands

bring me

here -

to this space

unfolding,

even as they move

this space,

where hands

meet the fire, 

the waters,

the earth,

the sky,

within and without,

dots and hearts

meeting

one moment

at a time

here.

now.

spoken

it doesn't matter
what you wear
or don't,
for your soul shows
on the skin
of your heart,
that feeds
and speaks
to every cell,
to tell the world
who you are,
and why you are here,
resting in the silent folds
of every breath,
every move,
every word,
held
and already spoken.

once

there is a tree
who weeps
every night,
shedding pure white wisps
of transient dreams,
fired by a devotion
to simply live,
filling the cold air
with her essence,
singed by the harshness
of a blazing sun,
who jolts them awake
to a one night stand;

and as I saw those
countless pearls
resting in their fullness
upon the listless sand
this morning,
I made a wish to die
invisible
like them,
exploding into
their own scent,
with nothing to do
but live
and love
this one night stand,
once.

for a morsel of life

sometime ago
I wrote a poem
on hunger,
the hunger I knew -
the hunger of eyes
always searching
for something
among cracks,
the hunger of hearts
yawning and closing
to be filled
and emptied,
the hunger of skin
baring itself
to be stroked
to its sensibility,
and the hunger of spirit
smitten by a delirium
of la la land,

until I came upon
this hunger -
of hands
sold to the soul,
itching to work,
to feed stomachs
churning,
calling,
for a morsel of life
lived simply,
with grace,
and an impeccable devotion
to what gives,
to what is -
their lives.

handmade

bless these hands,
for they guide me
to follow the threads
of a heart-stitched life -

filaments of light,
torching the dross,
tethered to the call
from the void

where nothing is seen,
or heard or felt,
only listened to
with every cell
rising from the marrow,

where longing
delights the spirit,
where passion howls,
serenading
the wild heart,

who only knows
how to craft a life
that's simple,
with hands that speak
in silence.

your eyes

I see your eyes,
they give it all away -
those dark pits
you're terrified of
stepping into
alone;
skins stitched
apart -
even as they touch,
like ice cubes
frozen
in their sameness,
and a blood
they hold
but cannot share;
bodies bonded
in a cling-wrap of fear,
smiling outside,
even as they scream
inside,
for eyes that care to look
where no one
wants to tread,
alone.

the spiral

nothing's ever forgotten
in this world
on a spiral -
where everything rests
in the space between
dreaming
and becoming,
where splinters shatter
like resolute dewdrops,
only to return anew,
on new coordinates
of love,
held in the matrix
of a joyous celebration
of all of life,
spiraling into themselves,
over and over again.

this voice

this voice
does not belong to me.

sometimes, it comes
from the mighty mountains
holding an audience
with the raging sun
and a swirling sky,
sometimes, it whispers
from the tips of leaves
glazed by the moistness
of coy winter dewdrops,
sometimes, it saunters in
with the daintiness
of devoted dragonflies,
smelling the faraway rain,
sometimes, it rides the waves
of a twisting ocean,
breaking its silence
over a placid shore,
sometimes, it slices the skin
of a hardened earth,
letting it bleed
into the black night,

yes, this voice
does not belong to me;
it belongs to the stillness
of a cosmos
that's alive
with the dead.

there is no place like home

everyday

when the birds fly home
and rest their wings
upon twigs and leaves,
sharing the spoils
of another day flown,
the wind stirs
and breathes
new life
into me,
showing me how to stay
and move on
without ever leaving
home.

yes, there is no place like home.

empty stomach

I look around me
and all I see
sometimes
is hunger -
in little kids
getting bored
in a blink,
in tottering elders
locking out death
in every breath,
in hapless youth
wandering listless
upon shifting sands,
in obsessive seekers
searching for a musk
they cannot smell,

yes, I see
hungry eyes,
hungry hands,
hungry feet,
hungry mouths,
hungry ears,
hungry skin,
hungry heads,
growing tentacles,
groping
for something,
for anything,
to hold on to,
wanting
all the time,
to suck,
to suckle,
to be filled -

empty stomachs
of everything,
burgeoning
like mushrooms,
not knowing
how to be
empty
or full,

only propelled
and shoved around
by an unstoppable avarice
to latch on,
to own something,
to hold onto something,
they can never catch
or call their own.

new leaves

two weeks ago,
this tree was bare,
all skin and bones,
standing
in her own glorious halo
of aloneness,
like only a tree would.

today,
her new leaves
have re-turned,

without brouhaha,

with noone to tell them

where to go
or how to be,
only a whisper
from within
and beyond,
to those who care to listen -

that something
always survives
and thrives,
that something
is on its way,
something you see
and yet cannot see.

half done

some things
are perhaps best left
half done -
to enjoy the silent ache
of forgotten things,
tied with the strings
of what could have been,
steeped in the aroma
of what was left
blowing in the wind,

a dandelion leaves her home
half dreamed,
half done.