without a sound

you showed me how to live
when you walked away
in the quiet of a breath
unheeded,
with eyes rooting
for the intractable darkness ahead,
not turning back even once
to see what was left behind,
no tassels left
to dance with the wind,
only one cord
that binds you
to your undying song -
the one you are here for,
the same song
that leaves sing
in the thick of a forest,
even as they die,
without a sound,
without a fuss,
without one memory
of eons witnessed
over lifetimes
of green to brown.
you showed me how to live
without a sound.

Into and Beyond the Light

today
i want to light
one little lamp
in the quiet
of my temple.

not for visitors
to come in
and take a peek
and marvel
at the darkness
and light,
to take them
to that same void
where I've been sucked in
many a time,

today
i want to light
one little lamp
just for myself,
not to feel safe,
or trump evil eyes,
or hope to save the world
with the light,

today
i want to light
one little lamp
just for myself.

i want to feel
the heat rise and engulf
my parched skin,
i want to feel
every wrinkle and scar
light up and burn,
i want to feel
the heat get to me
in the closeness,
i want to feel
the urge to get up
and walk away,
to do something,
anything,

and then
in that threshold
of one inflamed silence,
i want to feel the flame
flicker and grow
and die
in the stillness
of my temple

and feel the desire
to light it
and not light it
again.

today,
i want to light
one little lamp,
just for myself,
in the quiet
of my temple.

Come, Be a Mountain!

and Life said to me:
"Be a mountain!
come, take your place
between the heavens
and the earth,
for you are not alone;
come, stay where you are,
for in that space of being,
you will find your place
in the family of all things;
yes, you cannot move at will,
but that's why you can grow roots
into yourself and a landscape
that's ever-changing -
where rivers meander off
like prodigal sons
never to return to your folds,
where birds arrive and depart
like restless pilgrims
always in search of something,
where trees rise and fall
with every wobble
of the slowly turning wheels,
where paths and trails
cut into your very soul -
those that you'll never walk on,
where men and women come
to conquer a mystery
and flaunt their valour,
only to end up exploring and discovering
their own smaller and larger selves;
come, dear one,
be a mountain!
and rest in the stillness 
of all that is,
and all that will ever be."

Life's Like That

life's like that -
things fall apart
and come together,
over and over,
like imperfect floaters
in the light of my eyes,
there now,
not there now,
and I learn to play with
or ignore them,
to make room
and look beyond
to what must be seen,
what is always there,
in the space between;
for life's like that.

Intimacy and Love

I read somewhere -
'what you seek is seeking you';
and I wonder now
how that is true;
is that why the swan sings
before it finally rests
its well-worn wings?
is that why the leaves fall
into the ever-open arms
of their beloved earth?
is that why the ocean's waters
are lost in an endless dance
with passing clouds?
is that why the crickets call
to break the dark silence
of a night's long fall?
is this seeking
the timeless presence
and burning absence
of intimacy
and love?
 

I Bring You Myself

I bring you my myself, my all.
Every time.
Will you meet me where I am?
Now?

I bring you my lingering melancholy, my heartache, my sadness that sits on me like a heavy cloak as I walk miles and miles of emptiness on a long wintry day. A cloak that bears down on a frail frame, that sometimes finds it hard to carry its own self and take just one more firm step into the grim wilderness. Sometimes that cloak keeps me warm and cozy and I need it to get through this winter. Sometimes I want to take it off and feel the cold bite my taut, cracked skin. And so I bring you myself.
Will you stand with me in that frozen landscape and watch the falling white and the rolling greys and blacks, without asking me to think of spring that's just around the corner? Will you carry my weary load with me? Will you snuggle inside and make light those endless miles? Or will you watch me from afar with pitiful, laughing eyes that have forgotten, even for a moment, what it feels like to shiver and freeze, and carry a heavy load for miles and miles, all alone?

I bring you my shattered dreams - precious pieces of that beautiful crystal vase that once held a single rose of hope and love; perfections in the dainty dollhouse of my mind's eye, that could not be broken. But they did break like all fragile, impermanent things, and I cried and wailed as every shard that fell, dug into tender skin, that did not know what it meant to be touched and held with love. I bring you those wails and wounds that sting and bleed, smarting with the salt of those pain-filled tears that never found a warm home. And so I bring you myself.
Will you sit with me as I hurt and die into those piercing shards still intact, not for once wanting to pluck them out, to stop the bleeding or the wailing or the tears? Will you hold me in your arms, will you collect all my tears and sing me a silent song that falls like gentle rain, numbing the pain and the loss, like balm for a flailing soul? Will you know as you patiently caress my broken heart, that those dreams were as real as the lit up lanterns of wonder and magic in a child's innocent eyes, and not the wispy clouds that disappear over an impending horizon that never arrives? Will you whisper to me then that it is okay for me to dream yet again, knowing that there is a beauty in that humanness, that creation and its death, to nurture more life?

I bring you my memories pressed between the pages of my life, like pretty flowers and leaves picked on many a walk into the wild recesses of my soul. I bring you all of them for each is the beginning or the end of a chapter, a tidbit of my life. I know that there is prettiness even in the most ugly of them, even if I don't see them that way now. And that is why I bring them to you....so you will see them as I see them now. I bring you the depressing ones that are hidden in the darkest corners of my heart, that come back to haunt me like shadow puppets on a stone wall, and some that hurt like stitches still unremoved. I bring you soft memories of the special people who touched my life, some people who are no longer there and some who I have wished away. I bring you myself.
Will you turn each page with the slowness of the moment, losing yourself with me and those wild flowers, walking those forest paths all over again, simply because they are beautiful and wild? Will you keep each page open and listen to me, until I am ready to turn the page myself and close the book for now or forever? Will you listen to the stories that each flower speaks this moment, and know that they are there now for a reason that still serves me; that they make me feel alive and real and messily human?

I bring you my words - all garbled and scrawly and muddy as I speak, even as I know that they rise from the clear spring deep inside, and I bring you my silence, that fills up the crinkled white paper of a tongue that cannot move freely. I bring you the pain and the joy of that womb of silence where spoken words are like messengers who have lost their way. There are beautiful stories that live in that forest of silence - stories set free by message drums and not shouted out from treetops, because there is a grace and rhythm in that silence. And so I bring you myself.
Will you listen to the deep cadence of that pain and joy and collect all of them, all my words, like pebbles from a forest stream? Will you dip your feet now into those muddy waters and splash around with me like a little child who doesn't care about the colour of water, nor wanting to walk on upstream? Will you join me in a song or dance to the drumbeat of my throbbing heart, or will you wish for another song?


I bring you my trust, both strong and fragile, like rays of sunlight slanting through a heavy, unrelenting sky, or like dapples of light dancing on newborn leaves, bringing everything to life. I bring you that flickering flame of a tea-light that dances with the fickle wind, because I know that it is my burning that lights me up and the dark room where you sit. I bring you myself again and again.
Will you watch me dance until I get tired and rest in the folds of your dark room for a while, only to be lit again some other place, some other time? Will you hold me close and wall me with your palm, just so I can dance a little longer? Will you light up yourself just so we can dance together awhile and spread a little more light in a dark, gloomy world?

I bring you my hate, my anger, my failures, my terrors and my shame - those weeds that grow over and over again, in a garden that I have been taught to keep pruned and pretty. I bring you the exhaustion of overworking at pulling them out every time they pop out from the giving soil, hiding the beautiful flowers that everyone wants to pick and keep. I don't want a manicured garden where I can sit on a deck with a book and sips of warm tea. I want a wild backyard which is home to dancing butterflies and wiggling worms, where I can find myself and take a walk bare feet.
Will you walk with me in my little garden, holding hands and singing a song, as we watch the weeds and the butterflies and the worms that crawl along? Will you stand with me unafraid and open-chested, kick off your well-worn shoes and step with me on the rugged stones, gravel, soft grass and thorns?

I bring you my love, an offering of a single rose at the altar of sweet self-forgetting; the swell of an ocean that never relents to the sky or the earth and yet dances with both; and the bright light of the ever-exploding stars in the distance . A love that doesn't need sunglasses, cloches, life-vests or armours. A rose that lives amidst thorns, because that is what makes it a rose. An ocean that rises and dies into each moment, because it knows how to live and love. A star that burns itself up just so it can light up another world. And so I bring you myself. My whole self.
Will you take off your shields and masks that don't become you, because you don't need them when you stand up and look in the eyes of love? Because love can only look into itself and reflect its own light and beauty into the eyes of the beholder? Will you bow down at the altar and make an offering as you pick up that single rose? Or will you look away, with that half turn of your face, into the desert sands of dead habit, seeing everything as a mirage that can never quench your thirst?

I bring you my myself, my all.
Every time.
What will you do?
Will you meet me where I am?
Beyond those fields of right and wrong,
in the absence of all reason,
in the thick of all seasons,
in the presence of raw humanness -
yours and mine,
and look into the empty vault
of infinite possibilities?

Meet me where I am.
Not where you think you are.
Not where you want me to be.
Just where I am. Now.

A Flowering

A tightly closed bud
getting ready
to bloom -
to burst open
to her own fragrance,
but not too soon.

In the pain
and struggle
of a birth
and a death,
she is born.
A flower.

Quietly,
unannounced,
hidden from
prying eyes,
she arrives
with her
joyous
presence.

Simplicity

A simple
white jasmine.
No frills.
No favour.
She leans out
to see

the restless sea
in the distance;
She feels
the burning longing
of the cracked earth;
She hears
her dying friend's wail
closing in on her;
And yet
she can do nothing.
Nothing.
Simplicity
lies in doing nothing.
Nothing
but being oneself.
A colourless rainbow.
An empty canvas.
A fragrance that lingers
in silent spaces of togetherness.
Presence
is enough.
Simply enough.