Crashing Down Days
These crashing down days
Where you can feel
Even your bones drooping
Are not just days to get through.
Before pills and light bulbs and television
You humans would in winter
Sink low in the darkest days
And learn of yourself at your very least,
Blind to the sun and shadowless
As the sun is, for a time, blind to you.
You know that you will come back up
You always do
Like a frog from his chilly bed
In spring sun blinking.
So do not hasten hibernation.
Instead in this long night stay sunk and
Frog paddle through your ancient mud
And find the lumps and fossils
That hold the truth of who you really are
When there is nothing bright about you.
from Pieces of Water
Tapping
Spring sinks
in the cold night.
In the morning
spring rises.
The heat of the sun
pulls us to heaven.
The chill of the moon
presses us to earth.
Sweet sap
Overflows
hung white buckets
of pale moonlight.
Clouds of steam and heat
rise from damp leaves.
Spotted salamanders
under mossy rocks
wake up.
Seasons change
reduced by fire
water of life
full of the woods
an amber jar;
remember,
in chaos,
natures
upheaval
in the end
creates
the sweetest things
on this earth.
Astronaut
Back up.
It is not about you.
Back up.
It is not about your story.
Back up.
It is not about your country.
Back up.
You are not alone here on earth.
Back up.
The sun and moon are now below you.
Back up.
You are in a universe
Inside of a bigger universe
Inside of yet another swirling universe,
Teeming with earths,
Just like ours.
When you back all the way up
You can then look down
On our little glowing globe
With its colors and clouds
And tiny blinking lights.
You do not need
to be an astronaut
To get perspective,
To have an epiphany.
We are tiny precious beings,
But we must back up
And rise above
To see it all
As though
We were God
Looking down
On ourselves.
Mule
Harness the devil
That devil of doubt
That hangs heavy behind you
When your faith has run out.
To harness the devil
All you must do
Is begin using him
As he has used you.
The mule that hangs back
Reduces your speed
Is the one who will pull you
If given the lead.
This mule is not evil
He is not against you
He’s just following orders
From your point of view.
Turning around
Is all that it takes
To turn into momentum
All stubborn mistakes.
It is easy enough
To loosen your binds:
Your freedom lies in you,
Not outside your mind.
The force it has taken
To struggle and fight
Is the same force that guides you
Back into your life.
So harness your devil
Give him his head.
With the power of doubt
You will find faith instead.
