The Flame

the fire is stoked
inside of me,
she rises and dances
with the billowing winds,
drawing ancient souls
into a sacred dance
of shadow and light,
around the flames
of devotion
of her burning heart.

They Belong to You

and when I felt the waves
rise and fall inside me,
a rhythmic contraction and release
that drew me time and again
to their unequivocal presence,
I didn't realise
they were calling out
to their Mother,
who gathered them happily
in one fell swoop,
into her large bosom,
as I stood before her
and smiled and bowed,
saying to myself,
"they belong to you."

Eulogy for Myself

I don't want to live
so people cry when I die,
I don't want to live
so the ones I love
hold me in their hearts forever;

I want to live
so I can laugh and cry
sometimes in one breath,
I want to live
to fill my eyes
with sunrises and sunsets;

I want to live
so I can have one friend
I can give my whole self to
without holding back,
I want to live
so I can love
and learn what it takes
to love someone
who doesn't want to be loved;

I want to live
so I can look at the stars
and forget about living or dying;
I want to live
so my living is the eulogy
I write for myself,
etched across the heavens
on one star-filled night.

Set Yourself Free

I want you to tell me you love me,
not to make me feel loved,
but to make you feel the love
that wants to set you free.

The Uncertainty in the Certainty

why do I want
to understand myself
and be understood?
why do I want to make sense
of everything that flows
in, out and through me?
why can't I simply be
like that pod on an ancient tree,
bursting from its seams
to release its seeds
on the wings of love,
in every season,
knowing
that some will sprout, and
some will crumble and die
in the warmth of certainty
in the uncertainty
of a compassionate earth.

Distance

and when I feel a distance
between you and me,
I know that it is time
to close in on myself,
not to hide
or lick my wounds,
but to find myself
and what I had lost
in the distance
between you and me.

Purity

you look for coal
to find diamonds,
you look for oysters
to find pearls,
you look for water
to find the spring,
you look for the night
to find the stars,

but when you look within
you forget how to look -
you look for the light
closing your eyes to the darkness,
you look for what's pure
not wanting to touch
or feel what's impure;

there is no short-cut
to the rites of passage
into a throbbing heart,
that chooses to stay open
to distill the essence
from the hurt.

Heart Broken

and when you left,
you didn't take the sun with you,
nor did you leave
a patch of darkness behind,
you left me with
the flowing flood waters
of a broken open heart,
that held in its ripples,
the light of a million stars.

Waves - Of Love and Letting Go

and I raged and rushed
in an endless rapture,
to kiss the blushing shore
and carry her with me
in one timeless embrace,
until it was time
to quietly let go.

Circle of Life

and a mother looked on
with soulful eyes
at her newborn calf -
now a limp carcass,
torn and devoured
by impatient claws
and floundering teeth;
he was just a seed
she carried for a while;
a seed with a story
and a life of his own,
in this unfathomable,
self-nourishing,
circle of life.

Detachment

and the shore looked on quietly
at the drifting boat
once moored to her bosom,
while the boat nodded
to the fading shore
held by the dying waves,
and I wondered to myself -
who was attached
or detached
in all of this?

Knowing

and when you ask me
how I know what I know,
what to do and where to go,
the black ibis rise in an instant,
in one glorious symphony
from the still waters,
and head somewhere
into the fading light;
a black ribbon changes shape
with every passing moment
in the melting blue,
floating into and with
the uncertainty and certainty
of yet another triumphant night,
and one more blessed day,
proclaiming my place
in the family of things
that are born to be wild.

Song

you sing with someone,

you sing with yourself,

you sing for the song

that makes you want to sing;

and I wonder why

I cannot feel the joy

that you are feeling,

and then I realise

that what I want to feel

is not the joy of listening to you sing,

but the ecstasy in the melancholy –

you know that feeling

when you wake up at five,

draw the curtains,

and open the doors

to let another beautiful day in,

and you hear a little bird

sitting atop some far away tree

whistling to the sun

and the sleeping stars,

and to you in your own universe,

and you feel you are the chosen one

so privileged to hear that song?

I want to feel that,

I want to feel your voice

merge and quiver with my own

in my beating chest,

untouched by the distractions

of an ordinary day,

like the last note in a sequence

that stands alone

and dies into the silence;

I want to know how it feels

to be in that space between

the singer and the audience,

and I want to know

how blessed I would feel

to be both.

Womb

and when I am done

with the adventures

of my inner world,

sometimes shaken,

sometimes wounded,

sometimes fuelled,

sometimes felled,

I yearn for the warmth

of your skin against mine,

of your breath inside mine,

of your hands around me

and my little heart,

you’re my go-to place,

where I can curl up

and forget about everything else,

and rest like a little pup,

who now tired of chasing its own tail

comes to snuggle between your feet;

and then the world suddenly seems

simple, safe and at peace.

Falling Stars and Fireflies

do you remember the time

when we watched the falling stars

streak across the blackened sky

and light up our dreams,

as we stood like little children

watching the magic of dancing fireflies?

and it seemed like as we saw some,

we saw more, and then some more,

not sure if our eyes were playing tricks;

but did that even matter?

for as they pierced through

the emptiness,

and burned themselves out,

we knew that in our dreams,

we had survived their fall.

Anger

I want to hear your words
crash into my yielding ears,
and thrum my cold, damp skin;
I want to touch the sparks
and know what it feels like
to be inside your exploding form,
I want to stand in the fire
and be burned down to dust,
and feel your anger rise,
as I feel and fill myself,
with mine.

Dreams

every day when I wake up
to yet another glorious day,
my eyes cast their net,
throwing their dreams
into the blue emptiness
that makes space for all,
and I lose myself
in that thin line between
the firm and the firmament,
not knowing what they will bring to me,
when they come back
to rest awhile
in the stillness
of my own little self.

Me and You

and when I go away,
I don't want you to cry,
I want you to smile, and touch
that little piece of me
that I gave you,
not because I want to live on
forever in your heart,
but because I want you to know
that I did my little bit
to help you find you.

Fragrance

and a little bud wondered to herself -
"how can I feel my own fragrance?"
and then she was kissed open
by a prancing sunbeam,
and the wind took her
in his swiveling arms,
and she was plucked and pressed
by a wonder-filled child,
and crushed under the heels
of a lost passer by,
and she found her fragrance
as she clung to the souls
who had touched her
and her surrendered life.

Your Eyes

your eyes
they’ve taken me
to all those places
I’ve longed to go
but never dared to go alone,

your eyes
they’ve looked
into my heart
and found and filled
the unseen cracks with gold,

your eyes
they’ve held me safe
and cradled my deepest songs
so I could look at myself
and know where I belong.

your eyes
they’ve been portals
to worlds within worlds,
and while I lost myself somewhere out there,
I found myself in the words and worlds.

Sky and Water

 Sky and Water

and when I looked into
the space between,
the silence,
the emptiness,
the infiniteness,
where nothing seems
or has ever seemed
out of place,
I think of two friends –
Sky and Water
who are together, yet apart,
changeless, and yet changed
as they follow their course
and mirror their stories
in the space between

and beyond.

I’m not an Artist, I’m a Devotee

and when you asked me
if I was an artist,
I looked into myself and smiled;
and my eyes were led
to the gifts of an ordinary day,
to the vastness
and nothingness
of the sea, the sky,
the sun, the stars,
and all of creation,
that never speak aloud of their art,
but quietly go about their daily business
possessed by an unflinching devotion
to themselves, to each other,
and to Life.

Invocation

and when my fingers moved
across the silent white,
to draw your frozen form,
I felt them reach out
on the wings of a prayer,
across those miles
of emptiness,
to touch your face,
your eyes,
your heart,
as they touched me
and became mine.

Sandpaper

suffering
is grist for the mill,
a sloughing off
of unseen atoms
stuck to the skins
over skins
of an ancient piece
of wood,
sanded
to reveal
the grains -
the source,
the lifeline,
and the journey
home.

Ecstasy

and I vanished
into your eyes,
not with the hope
of finding myself,
but because I could
no longer contain
you in me.

Joy's Friends

and when Joy came home
the other day,
she brought her friends along -
Jealousy, Anger,
Pain and Guilt,
so they could sit
with each other
and look deeply
into each others' eyes,
and drown themselves
in Love.

Copyleft

if you have wondered
like I have often,
why my words
have a touch of this
and that;
if you get a feeling
that it isn't 'me',
then you are probably right!

for how can the ocean
not be moved by the rivers
for how can the skies
not be touched by the birds
for how can the earth
not be opened by growing ridges
or the silence of the night
not be emptied by the song in my ears?

I am what I am,
I am what you see,
I am what you hear,
I am what you feel,
because I let Life
move, touch,
open, shape
and empty me.

Forgetting

Why do my fingers
and my eyes
itch every now and then,
to steady a balance,
to still a pendulum,
to watch a compass,
to catch myself or another
from falling or flying?

Why this obsession
to change,
to correct,
to moderate,
to still
everything that moves,
and to move
everything that's still?

Why do my fingers
and my eyes,
strike out
like roving tentacles,
overpowering,
and encasing
my gentle heart
from the swell?

Have they forgotten
how to reach out
to touch the stillness,
the mystery,
and purpose
of the dazzling stars
in the liquid firmament,
that explode into laughter
while they watch over
a sleepy ocean?

If I could speak a poem....

and you took me to a place
I didn't want to go to;
you found me a song
I so wanted to sing
but didn't know how....

I let you peek
into my little world
not to see what I see,
but simply to feel
what it feels like to be me....

and to know
that there is someone
who made space
for a little flower
to kiss a distant sunbeam
that she was hiding from,
only so she could be touched by both.....

Elegy to a Mother

a little bird
showed me one day
how I must live
and die;

as she left her chick
out beneath the intimate skies,
where the winds
bit sharply into their flesh -
age irrelevant;
and the earth -
I don't know why
she turned away
suddenly
with an icy stare,
as if she knew,
but couldn't help

that little bird,
as she flew away
alone,
finding her way
across tempestuous seas,
for a little piece of something,
that would put out the fire
in raging bellies,
flapping her tired wings -
urgent, yet not impatient,
cutting through the white,
without looking back once
at her newborn,
who stood there shivering
with hopeful eyes,
not knowing if she
would ever come back;

and as they said
their silent goodbyes,
with not so much
of a peck or a squawk,
they began to write
their own stories,
of what it takes to live
and to die well,
here.

Song of the Wild

and as I sank
into your lap
and lowered myself
against your quivering skin,
I heard you sing -
not the song with words
and a pretty tune,
but the silent deep song
from the wilderness
of your wild heart.

Song of the Wild

Eyes

and so I gave you
a billion eyes
so I could see
myself,
through you.