I live freely, choosing where my love goes seasonally.

This is my inner garden, i steward as i see fit, and am made well.

i give freely as my uncle Johnny Appleseed planted

without restraint. That’s how I’ll live, yes

blatantly giving my best fruit to whom i choose.

Unabashedly particular in my giving.

 

Jemez hot springs then

We waited purposefully until dawn that night

backpacks laid along red stone cave rim just at the edge of our hot springs-

once within  the springs, with stars rising over our skin

the older native voices nearby, arose, again

chanting blessings–some outback pow-wow, and there were elk hooves

quietly thundering in the coda, somewhere up north

shaking the earth in that peaceful rhythm that only animals alone in fields unseen can mimic.

We were kids i think then-twenty one, maybe two, with sky blue hair, i remember you…stones, sky, skin and everything was about to begin for us

back then, and somehow, again, still is.

 

 

Seeing Galway Kinnel read

He had those soft enormous hands in vermont sun

turning his own pages, in nothing short of glee

that’s how i remember that hulking poet man back then.

we met once, when I was still a kid-

(26 years old at bread and puppet farm)

eating bread and stars and starting

to dream what was ours. At that moment, it was nice to see

another, standing upright into the full stature of their being.

An oak of hope, still there like as a photo in my soul

of a man standing reading his own poetry

on the soft sturdy floor of this forest.

 

 

When I met the poet Robert Bly

we talked of death and Jesus

he was interested and with that twinkle eye

and his colorful vest

said, you might be onto something there. later,

at his Harvard reading,

he dedicated one of his poems to me:

“my friend is thinking of death and Jesus”, he said, “so here is what

i think so far”. It blessed me that he listened. Thanks Robert Bly

It was my birthday that night, and i was still dreaming alone.

what i heard you say, is don’t stop-your question will guide

you home. That was a nice thing to imply, friend.

 

When i saw Allen Ginsberg at university, he was

drunk on life with accordion chants in hand

the whole crowd rolling on each line, like a drunken band

until he said, something about this is what life

was meant to be like. I was happy to have encountered that fool!

 

And lastly…

The birds outside today hawk at their own intervals.

i wish i could have that uninterrupted rhythm of being each day

that they so unabashedly proclaim exists.

You and I are interrupted creatures instead.

We even interrupt the instances when we could just be-

to represent them. Still, i am less envious than recognizing

that these specific bird’s-a group of blue jays, as i check through the window- sonic assurance and confidence is something like

His Kingdom come. Once, in that space, we will not be constantly tracing everything into

what it might mean. We will know and be ok with that.

we will peer at what we want to and be happy, and then move on

in exactly our own rhythms.