Sandpaper

I've noticed
when something aches
rubbing it with my hands
eases the pain

It stands to reason
if my heart hurts
rubbing would
ease the pain.

How is it that
even the lightest touch
grates the heart raw
like course sandpaper?

So much for rubbing.
So much for reason.

Entropy & Change

Humans (and all manner of creatures) have this amazing ability to adapt. This week I contemplated the times I've made a choice and walked into a new situation confident, scared, and blind. These choices often came out of necessity--move or die.

This isn't the literal death. This is the death of spirit--when movement has stopped and entropy threatens the very existence of soul. This death seldom happens all at once and it nibbles away until you adapt and recover or stay in place where your loss shows only in the deepest, blackest place in your pupils.

I make major like changes when I'm facing an adapt or die time. This week I paint and I write. Consider how you be with the times when you must adapt or face the death of your spirit. What patterns do you see?

Death to Entropy

Fifteen years ago,
I got on a plane to San Antonio
What the hell was I thinking?

About six years ago,
I filled a 2nd generation Prius
full of $1000 worth of Ikea furniture
What the hell was I thinking?

Almost five years ago,
I filled up a 2nd generation Prius with toy trains
and drove it to a house on a court within walking distance
of two schools, a trail, a waterfall, and active train tracks
What the hell was I thinking?

Seventeen months ago,
I filled up my 3rd generation Prius with Legos
from my cubicle and an unconfirmed job offer
What the hell was I thinking?

Today and yesterday,
 I filled up a 3rd generation Prius
full of $800 worth of art supplies
(without spending that much at all)
What the hell am I thinking?

Some things don't change much, do they?

Thirty-Three Toads and a Feather

Take a familiar walk in the dark. What changes?

Thirty-Three Toads and a Feather

Walk at the cusp of dark in the rain
with lightening bugs flickering in the bushes
and the birds silent in awe of the lost sun

The splash and dash on the path
could be a trick of the falling light
until you see it eight more times
Relax your eyes into the dark

You'll see toad-stoned shadows
as if Medusa has wound her hair into the vines
and holds their toadly gaze

Toads know Loud Walkers can't see in the dark
Stand ready to scramble to the slick mud
when a size nine foot becomes an umbrella
A flat toad is no toad at all

You walk lightly to tickle a toad with a a white striped feather
At least one in thirty-three still hold Medusa's gaze
Fear or trust, Loud Walker?

Useful Things

JB continues to teach me what adventure and the power of naming is all about. This morning was an ordinary hot, sticky July morning, and we took a different path.
He found a blue and white marble and I had a few blissful minutes to sit and listen to the water and watch the sun play of the backs of water bugs

When was the last time you stepped out of routine or took a new path for the sake of adventure and exploration?

The Place of Useful Things

An unfamiliar path off a familiar trail
near the ceaseless up and down of The Mountain
Follow the party shards down to the stream
to The Place of Useful Things
White and red bricks some broken, some whole
Cinder blocks with invisible eyes
The Cyclops is no oddity
Squared cement embedded like conglomerates
stepping around slopes of smooth round granite stones

You hop from stone to stone
I sit on a wide flat round rock watching you bound away,
listening for the incessant woodpecker
and for squirrels running through the upper branches
You bend over and picked something up
as I call in the dragonflies
I fly with the soft green body on black double wings
We look like dizzy butterflies--that's dizzy times two

The sunlight follows the water bugs walking like Jesus
You cradle your prizes in your shirt when I call you back
talking to the dragonflies, bounding from rock to rock
I roll my eyes, wondering what junk you'd bring home
I am as delighted with the blue marble as you are to share it
We bring treasures home in the berry pint and
eat the berries as we pick them

The wind starts the standing leaf ovation
The trees applaud down the familiar path
The Place of Useful Things you call it
Yes, useful. Useful indeed.

Rumi Whispered to Me

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi is one of my favorite poets. What I love about him is how he puts the spirit of the thing outside the context of religion. You can read more of Rumi's history on poets.org and read his poetry in both Farsi and English on http://www.rumionfire.com/.

What poet speaks to you and what does he/she say?

Rumi Whispered to Me
Stand in the field
Love into the right and the wrong of it
Keep the tea kettle on and the water hot
Invite every unexpected guest inside
Let them pass back and forth across threshold
Again and again
and again

Knock on the doors of strangers
and listen to the shape their words.
Their souls live in there

Be drunk and love deeper
Love anger like a lover. She is your passion.
Hold on to your lover tighter then let her go
Burn for her
She'll come back again and again
and again

Pray.
Pray reverently
Pray irreverently
Pray to the salts of the earth.
Pray to the rains on the heaven.
Pray to the wine you wish you had drunk
Pray to the wine you wish you hadn't tasted

Stumble drunkenly down the road
In the arms of friends
Holding is found in the spaces between you

Fly inside to the mystery
Ask the moon to rise.
Be confused and silent, my friend
Dress your spirit in gold
and your body in clothes

Light a candle. Go slow.
Watch how quickly it burns.
Ask for what you really want.
The mirror of yourself lie in the flame

That field there?
Let's meet and share a stranger's wine until dawn
and lie down in the green, green grass
to watch the sun rise and fall into the full moon
Let's lie down in the green, green grass
to watch the trees rise and fall
from flower to green to orange to yellow to brown
Let's lie down in the green, green grass
to watch the snow fall and rise around us

The destruction of the heavens will fall around us, lovers
Look up and be sober. The stars still stand