Edges

Edges


How much closer to the edges, I am now. How close to falling into deep black places, lost forever in times vacant hole. Peering over edges more often, these days, places in the past that I would scarcely venture.

Life’s unraveling ways, have peeled thick skin that layed across me, so long . Have rubbed the layers off my bones, these several years. Trial coming before me and before me, asking to place this body against it’s rough hard surface. Asking that in my act, some part of me left on the ground, in each hard way.

And now less burdened, somehow. The shedding, making the climb to edges much more inviting. The peering into holes a thing that can be done now. This thin skinned human open to it, more now. The tumble, the vault into blackness, just a thing now. No power over this tiny creature, lost and found.

There are many such people. Who climb every day to edges. Who peeled of their fortress, engage the blackness. And these sacred creatures, have nothing but their freedom. They are not spoken of or noticed but wait on the rim for all to join them, in a day when, all will be there.

The Blossoming

The Blossoming

Let me tell you what happened:

I got stuck
in the blossoming.

You see, I wanted only and always to be light:
breeze-bobbing and delightful.

I wanted to offer up my heart;
throw open the soft chamber of the petals, always laughing;
to balance on my soft stem like a question,
reaching
ever up.

Then came one of those
everyday winters.

When it was time to bow down –
to brown and curl –
I would not go.

What was down there
but the faceless nets of the fungus?
The jaws of the grubs?
The plundering ants?

And who, I wondered, ever stops
to admire a brown and rent leaf
as it melts into the ground?

I tell you –
now, I do.

I will tell you also:
there is no colder winter than one spent
yearning for flowers.

I lost more than one season
in argument against the patient,
waiting rootedness –

the hiding below ground,
talking with death and bacteria.

And dreaming.
And biding. And later I would miss even bright days in scorning the leaves,
who live not to sing
but only to gather
and gather.

But what do you know
of flowers that never fade?

I imagine they are not as innocent
or soft
as they seem.


I had heard it said but did not yet believe
that the soil is the flowers
and the roots are the flowers
and the ice is the flowers
and the fungus is the flowers
and the stems, and the leaves, and the sun, and even
the death.

Now
I wonder if the world
is one,
long
blossoming.


-Claire Dacey (Soul Flares reader)

The Blossoming

The Blossoming

Let me tell you what happened:

I got stuck
in the blossoming.

You see, I wanted only and always to be light:
breeze-bobbing and delightful.

I wanted to offer up my heart;
throw open the soft chamber of the petals, always laughing;
to balance on my soft stem like a question,
reaching
ever up.

Then came one of those
everyday winters.

When it was time to bow down –
to brown and curl –
I would not go.

What was down there
but the faceless nets of the fungus?
The jaws of the grubs?
The plundering ants?

And who, I wondered, ever stops
to admire a brown and rent leaf
as it melts into the ground?

I tell you –
now, I do.

I will tell you also:
there is no colder winter than one spent
yearning for flowers.

I lost more than one season
in argument against the patient,
waiting rootedness –

the hiding below ground,
talking with death and bacteria.

And dreaming.
And biding. And later I would miss even bright days in scorning the leaves,
who live not to sing
but only to gather
and gather.

But what do you know
of flowers that never fade?

I imagine they are not as innocent
or soft
as they seem.


I had heard it said but did not yet believe
that the soil is the flowers
and the roots are the flowers
and the ice is the flowers
and the fungus is the flowers
and the stems, and the leaves, and the sun, and even
the death.

Now
I wonder if the world
is one,
long
blossoming.


-Claire Dacey (Soul Flares reader)

All We Can

All We Can


So what's so bad about a hood ornament. Something to distract the eye from looking at all those dents and dings . Decoration may cover up some ugly wear and make the viewer think, that underneath must lie some beauty.

Some may have no need of this, distraction. Their shiny chrome still dazzles the crowd. Some in need of far more decoration, then decoration could ever afford. Beyond hope, ready for the heap. But me, still holding on to some shine, as most of us are, mid way or just beyond. So a do-dad here or there, may do the trick.

Years ago, decoration was for other reason. Done, to pretend, that this machine was what it really, would never be. Decoration an attempt to remake, turn a bug into a limousine. But that be the folly of youth, today all such illusion long since gone, laughed out of system long ago, cried out too, if truth be known.

So while partaking of some joy at our Christmas party, those comments directed at my new trim, brought a curious internal rift. So what’s so bad about redirection, on a face grown slightly worn? And as those whiskers weave this new gray beard, those looking upon this man, will have to imagine, the beauty beneath my new hood ornament.

A Refrain

A Refrain

I think it is in adversity, that character is revealed. The top soil tilled away, showing the loam or sand beneath. It is in the hardest times we rise or fall to ourselves, leaving to gather what is left of us.

And it could not be a facade, we assemble in hardship. The glamourous , impossible to hoist, when wind is blowing hard. Instead, we run for cover, or lay ourselves bare to natures wrath, being what we will be.

My!, the cruelty of the storm, it’s naked force on flesh and bone, it’s mindless rage, at we, it does not know. There seems no caring, no mindfulness, this turning angry at our innocence. It does so with blindness , or so it always seems.

The more I live, the more l think, the contrary. There seems to me another force, that grows deep inside tears. That speaks to this disquiet mind, that labors in despair. And if we know what love can be, then this must be it’s force. Seen more clearly , so, with the bleeding of the heart.

An Order

An Order


Looking at my friend, I wonder why. He is sick now, his trusty body, seems to be growing things that have no understandable meaning. Things in him, that seem to play no part in him but cause so much pain and displace things that have always been him.

And so, seeing in his young eyes that life force that always defines us, that he, right now, must be thinking, is abandoning him. Yet, though no longer a young body, there is no age to this energy that makes him. And so there comes that contradiction in end life matters. The body, with time on it, the force, endless, timeless.

Who could know, what days will bring. These body abandonments have there own minds. And too, life forces follow greater gravity's then we could ever understand. But fellow travelers still ask these questions that never get answered. And the why, seems to dominate these times. The knowing may come but waiting and living, will have to be first. There seems no other way.

Middle Eye

The Middle Eye

The time, this morning, to watch those two squirrels chasing each other over the steps across the street. My neighbor not noticing their antics but me just sitting here watching.

In the watching, the most marvelous inspiration, the thought descending, how such a small thing to watch, intentional, and fleeting but symbolic of all meaningful acts of intention. The moving forward, step by step, in slowness.

Each act of movement, needs such intention, needs such focus. Not to happen but to lend meaning. Enfolded into the thoughtful act, the universe and all the greatness of it’s vastness. Enfolded into those two squirrels chasing one another and me in the notice.

Today, all day, such simple things linking my day. The unconscious world ignoring most all the things being happened. But in the intention, the eye is opened to meaning and all weaves together.