Poem from my younger me to my old age me, just found in an old journal today…(I wrote this when i was in my 20’s or 30’s; still feels true at 50) Good reminder…

I was supposed to be more just like a blue bird, or painted hawk, or
an uninterrupted tight rope walker between worlds wearing colorful coat….absurd, i know…holding my balancing pole out in darkness
towards the stars, shining like that, us….noting each one of them as specific musical notes or tones in God’s ears. Yet,
They put tar on my wings when young-fears; but i kept flying nonetheless, only occasionally interrupted, or tumbling, by the weight on my wings, of things, and the false roar of voices below.
Mostly, i just wanted to fly well up there-to know-so others could see. To be a readied flashlight for others
to be by, a way or ray
in mid-air-an in-spiration to the nations-like Philippe Petite walking in mid-air between the two towers,
which i later saw fall in real time,
from another bridge.
Gracefully nimble, vulnerable
us all, walking the wire
between Worlds
together, forever, already anyways, we
might as well be
flying, or walking a wire between worlds, stars
as we go….

A quote I came across about the art of reading, as I was reading this week. Applies in the internet social media days as well, I think.
“To read with the heart as well your head is still an art to getting a writer’s inner intention, or meaning-the tone is part of their song or message. And the heart is always required to know tone.
To understand something we must read it with both the heart and head, if we want to encounter it in Love, or actually interpret.”
When we look at art or one another more devotionally in that sense, meaning enters!

Today, I saw and talked with….
two hawks, three hummingbirds, one shrub jay and a cardinal. So many friends to talk to!
Wrens are friends also, as are the little birds with no names who arrived this morning near my pen, maybe to be named. I almost got carried away, there were so many visitors today. The tiny wren is my repeated friend, as are the gawking hawks above-we talk, interact and share regular resources and space and even time.
Who am i to not call them welcomed friends too. All of us guest here, in this enormous room.

Met a girl from Richmond, Virginia yesterday out here in San Fran. Richmond is where i went to art and religion school and lived in an art community for ten years, with an old magical polish Jew from Argentina!
What a languid literary river city, with buried trains beneath churched hills, and bakeries where everyone remembers you, and porches fanning out across the fan. I lived on Grace Avenue. Some part of me, still does probably. So many artist friends still there, painting, sculpting and thinking about their spiritualities.
And lovely water barns outside of town, along the James river, which many poets have sung about starting with Edgar Alan Poe, whose house i lived near. I always said I’d write a book called Richmond which would be a biography of her long life before she was America. Maybe i still will. Lovely place, nice to meet one of her daughters yesterday. So lovely, like that ghosted city.
This new friend is going back to open a bakery and coffee house with her boyfriend. I hope they make it back, and keep making bread and coffee for that creative haven city! Even though all the statues along Monument avenue have been torn down now, and memory dislodged. I bet Grace Avenue is still there! Grace tends to be tenacious, as I’ve learned.
I come from storied cities, which are still silently singing in watery ways, less obviously branded than many. More like a river song at night, in honey suckle scent, or an old magnolia tree in Spring, Richmond is.
I’ve lived in lots of river cities, Austin, Boston (which the charles makes feel like a river city, at least in Cambridge), Albuquerque, Prague-all those cities had that mystery of the river in them. But Richmond may be my favorite in terms of the mystery of the river at night. I dream there often.
Nice to meet a daughter of Richmond in dusk’s light yesterday again. Cities are like new and old friends to me. They keep the story flowing…I don’t know which one I’ll end in, but I’m sure I’m walking towards another rivered city above somehow already.

To be an olive tree me…

I want to be
rooted and leaning upwards when i go,
like an olive tree,
i, made ancient already
by more urban settings,
and living under too many bridges, having seen
too many faces deeply, too many 911’s in my heart, am
surprisingly, less gnarled
thus far, but want to contain
that ancient elegance of standing true
to the stretching of time,
in blue green glistening, with chimes in my branches!
That, sturdy fluid stillness of olive
tree, i would like to leave here.
Make me an olive tree then, with
The history of the wind of aging
in my bark-that veined story. A tree which looks like it almost
occurred underwater, or within Another hidden place!
Something, no one noticed
was even aging, until it was wise.
Yes, i want to be
an olive tree when i die.

Being seen in the unseen moments of our days…
To find people’s eyes takes time, but it is always worth it. I love those silent, unseen exchanges daily. Had one tonight with a local jewish lady, who could see where my wife and i were at in our day—shopping, preparing for the week. Her knowing caring empathetic, look was enough to make that marital collaboration of caring for the week, seen, and more special.
It’s the little moments which contain the poems in life. Of course, my jewish friends always empathize with a couple at the market together trying to plan for the week. But, it was nice to be seen in our backstage moments of picking out the right cheese for a visiting friend. Usually, it’s just my angels shooting the film! Nice when people join in!
All of our daily unspoken poetry matters! Everything is worthy of song.
Every person’s day is a collection of poetry!

Make art as we devotionally read! It opens up things…

I like making art in dialogue as i read scriptures! Keeps my creativity engaged in my spirituality, as i listen, and interpret.

Here’s one from today, and dialoguing with David, the great intimate king’s reflection on being an olive tree in a temple…when i make art with David, i get to overhear his spirituality! Art is a great way to read, and collaborate in meaning.

An art response to David’s song (Psalm 52)

But I am olive tree inside a temple
charged with wet fruit-charged fruit,
in fertile soil
that grows
almost electrically raw skinned in
unseen from bowed center
heart receptor’s wires and arteries.
I tremble awake daily, my nervous system, skin and bones
inside of Thee
forever, already stone to write upon.
Re-sound in me, write your lines, carve yourself in me,
i’ll be Your tree in your temple,
with silver-sliver flecked
green leaves
dusted by angel wing’s
glistens at night-me in Thee,
I’ll be your olive tree.

Habakkuk watching 911

though you sear my eyes
watching buildings fall from the skies
where once a tight rope walker crossed at dawn;
though today i see bodies falling like styrofoam cups
into craters which haven’t filled up yet
though i don’t understand your methods Man
still, i will trust in You
though church is half naked
and focused on the wrong things
though the nations can’t get along
still i will trust in You

though i was wounded watching the bodies fall on 911
though that justice made no sense to me at all…
still I will trust in Thee.

though on George Washington’s bridge, I a saw truckers tears
jet planes passing through black dragon shaped smoke tiers, and
the Thumb of God lifted for an instant there,
world trade collapsed then.
still i will trust in You
under whose Hand
we all stand or fall
that Your Tender Palms
will hold us all
catching our bodies
in mid air
with the net of Love
as Your hair…
So through that day
at You I still stare..
waiting on Your Name
waiting on your understanding
care. Our eyes are watching You alone
through falling steel and stone,
and our tears of unknowing.

How well certain writers
explained and described
how big and small each
day is.

Making a poetry collection…

Lord gather my collection
put me in Your stanzas
pronounce and write me both
as you will.
Gather your words
out of my years
and make a poetry collection of me.
You are my only editor
and publisher.
i will be your little words,
organize my lines
so we can share them in time.
Lord make me
your collection.
Collect me, in Thee.

You have no time pressures
no dead lines-You
crossed that dead line
long ago. Now,
gather the real words
in my bones
for your own pleasure
of reading them
out loud!
i don’t need success either
to know
so
let’s just
make a whole
poem together
friend.

Collect me
into Your Heart’s Mouth
and sing me
to Yourself Lord first.
And then, if you want to share me,
feel free.

I’m free verse
anyway, as You who made me
already know.
Collect then sow me Lord
where You see fit.