Ritual

Open your eyes.

As a breath enters your nostrils, fills your body and leaves your lungs, give thanks to the Creator for your soul, able yet to inhale and exhale.

Give thanks for yet another day laid at your feet; this gift of possibility and potential, another chance to strive a little further.

Open the curtains and windows. Take in whatever light and air there is.

Remind yourself how small you are in this world, but remind yourself too that small things can make a big difference.

Inhale. Exhale. Stretch.

Put on some music. Tune your heartbeat to the rhythm of the awakening world. There is music everywhere, if we choose to listen.

Listen. To your heart and your head. Listen without judgment or regret, without the desire to control or direct.

Leave the distractions of commentary and imagery alone for now. This is time to be still and silent before the deluge of information and stimulation and noise attack you later (as it surely will).

Move. Perform a sun salutation, or ten. A push-up, or twenty. Run the block, or a few miles. Your body has rested; it needs warming up.

As you move, take note you that your heart and soul is housed in a body: your body. It is fallible, limited. But it is faithful and beautiful. It is yours alone. Do not take it for granted as you wander through this realm. Eat, drink, nourish it.

Read, at least a line or two. From the morning funnies. Or the Holy Scriptures.

Speak: to God, to yourself, to the universe. Ask: for guidance, for protection, for courage, for strength.

And now, you are ready. To meet the rest of your day, and the rest of your life.

Saudade Season

You're as tall as the tree
Sophisticated, you see
The tinsel in truth is tack
The gifts prove their own lack
Of insight into your standing now.

Yesterday's bells ring
Today's melancholy sting
Come then crowd of unwelcome ties
Another dinner to tell more lies?
Asides and clever lines for your brow.

Under the bough, no more surprises
Another lost year chastises
Too much wine, you yawn
Where could the magic have gone?
Resigned that it's lost, you bow

Goodnight youth, goodnight now.

(October 2014)

Affogato

To pour the whole shot

In one shot

Without spilling a drop

Was always a skill of yours

At first the globe floats in defiance

Refusing to succumb

But already revealing canyons

Flooded with rivers of black-brown

Soon the stirring

Melts as it mixes

The ice and heat

Embracing each other

Between forgetting

And bittersweet fantasy

I taste long gone

Weekends

Now all is left

Is a line of beige

On clear glass

And an aftertaste

Of smoke and caramel

(September 2012)

Crumpled

Unravel me

Untie the knots

Only you know

How to untie

Iron out the creases

On the crumpled sheets

Of my bundled mind

Salve my bruise

Rub off my scar

Kiss away the sting

On my broken body

My empty hands

Fill them

My blistered feet

Heal them

Speak to me

And in speaking

Give me hope to reply

Unfurl my sails

Let me dare

To dream

To fly

With you

(August 2012)