PRACTICE MAKES A PRAYER AND A PRAYER MAKES PRACTICE

Practice makes a prayer.
A prayer makes practice.
Practice can make singer, speaker, seer,
or almost anything,
according to the wishes of the doer,
dense solidity
or intricacy of varied layers. . .
if but to start,
and then stick with
the kind
of thing
that in your mind
to see
you dare.

THE CHANCE OF SHOOTING STARS

Tomorrow is the night of shooting stars
a night I read of in a red cookbook
some score and quarter years ago,
that told of how to celebrate
the permutations of the seasons of the years.

While there are people that I know
who’ve given viewing them a good long go,
I fear I’d tire of the wait,
or else
maybe I would break
if I somehow managed, ever vigilant,
to wait,
with ever open eyes
through sleepy time,
in hopes
that I could chance
to catch a glimpse.

Hyped hopes aside,
some things perhaps are prettier
as tales told
than as hard faits accomplis
that one pursues
on some bright lark
because some
pretty-speaking
influencer
drops heavy hints.

And yet,
since it’s sometimes quite hard to know
which grand spectacles indeed will thrill,

for the outward signs of some
may shine
as uber-distant speeding meteors,
to our here-now earthly eyes
as but scintillas,

and some may drop more quiet
than foretold phenom films
that fizzle quickly,
as they flop,

to leave you
merely brushing off the ants,
and ready soon,
your stargazing to stop.

But some,
amid an ink sky ground of dark
splashed with great flash
or peppered spare with tiny spark
will wow your shiny eye
lift your mood high
or deeply stir your soul. . .

And, until you try,
you’ll never really know,

So,
if some odd thought
should call to you
in appeal clear and strong
like the sounding of an inner clarion,

it is entirely possible
that the pursuit of shooting stars
on which to marvel and to wish
might just be worth
taking that chance.

AMPERSAND (revised)

Toes edge toward the abyss,
knees bend
shoulders swing,

and energy infinite contracts
with countless other actions–

a billion nervous fibers
twitching past all power of
even first-rate Pulitzer describers. . .

The scariness that appears. . .

the chosen necklace choking,
underlying the bold daring-ness,
it hangs, a strand
of single links of little fears,

heart and lungs speeding,
the formidable inner courage fire
stokes up to seething. . .

The feeling says
’twill have no end–
so many
single little links of fears
chained into one,
unimaginably long
strand
hooked and sealed
with endless, nervous ampersands–

a pose that well precedes
the leap of faith,

underlining that,
while the doing’s pretty hard,
it can’t hold a candle to
the consternation of the wait.

SATURDAY PEACE

Saturday
Peace.
Play.
Rest.
Activity.

Time to catch up,
or just hang back,
whatsoever might be ,
on this particular unique
day and date and time,
your personal proclivity.

Come the blunt of clouds,
with rain and wind
or ice and snow,
or maybe quiet,
gently bright sunshine,
whether by work
or break therefrom,

it can be seized
as a good time
to unify you better with
and to sort out your
best chosen place
in all Infinity.

TAP INTO YOURSELF

Tap into yourself.
For it’s there where’s housed
your greatest resources and wealth.

Know how and who you are,
where you’ve been,
and where you’re headed,
beyond some navigation points
of what’s your vessel’s bearing
and how that trues your motion
with some sky-illuminating star.

You can start by noticing,
to see what’s deep and
what is surface,
scratching, stroking, or soothing
as is cried for by the multi-talent
organ of you
the very biggest,
not-oft thought of one
that includes your dermis,

Proceed then,
to delve also up and down
you can
through secret inner vitals,
to find the wails
and too, the happy hums,
the joys the griefs,
excitements, and the doldrums. . .

And from there,
decide you may
to progress out
to your like-kind ones,
and further to the the people, animal, plant,
and mineral dissimilars,
and further still where lie
all sorts of nebulous and sparkly things
clear out to galaxy’s and universe perimeters,

and feel as you imagine
where in the vasty blend
of bright and dark
the tiny speck
and wondrous large
being
that is you
can delight,
uplift,
and help who and what and where needs helped
in your inimitable way
to do your part.

CHANGE AND INERTIA

Change. . .
Inertia. . .

One of these moves
to something else
that feels strange. . .

The other moves
as it moves now
or stays,
by all the tendencies involved,
at rest,
in the same place.

Either one
can help,
can be a cipher to itself,
or too,
potentially can hurt ya.

So do you push
or pull,
or find a way
conferred by grace,
to move,
or stay just where you are?

Either way,
done gentle
or done brisk,
confers some clear advantage
and some risk. . .

So you can
puzzle on
the current pose
of some blinking, distant, wishing star.

Or you can
ask
the quiet murmur
of the life
residing in your body’s every tissue
what it would do. . .

It’s completely up to you,
according to your most true
desire,

to choose
the one you think
could aim yourself
more accurately
and far.

SUNDAY AND ITS SPECIAL SUN AND DAY

It’s Sunday.

Note the sun
within the day,
even if, for now,
from where we are,
above, beyond a seeming ground of clouds,
it may merely show
as a fuzzy wide bright place,
or a veiled circle glow
shone through sky
of seeming gray.

And this Sunday,
notice, too,
the day inscribed
by arc across the firmament
of same said sun,
the clear seen unit part
of the canvas
that your earthly life is painted on,

and feel how
you use your eye,
your ear, your arm,
your skin,
the nose you use to breathe
the mouth you have to speak
and taste, take joy and sustenance
from whatever you are blessed to eat,

and how all that and more,
becomes the color and the brush
you use to make the picture
by which the Universe
with and by you
will have the chance
to be,
as by no other
boldly enlivened
and deeply touched.

REMEMBER LOVE

Remember love. . .

First, for you. . .

Then, for us,
the ones you like
and know and trust. . .

And then,
still be sure to love again
for them,
the rest,
all ’round the earth and sky
and ocean blue,

for,
it’s only then
that the love succeeds
to seep
all the way through,

and
be honest, lasting, deep,
and true.

ONE BIG DAY

sometimes one big day
moves more than just one earth spin
inside I’ve revolved

WHEN YOU GO DEEP

When you go deep,
it is dark
it is heavy,
and
there is muck
like you would not believe
way at the bottom,
which only bottom feeders thrive on. . .

and
there are fiercely fearsome fishes
with bumps and and outstretched bulbs for eyes,
gaping wide ready jaws,
and fangy teeth,

but,
with some time there,
you may also come to see the likes
of dimly glowing jelly fishes
with their sheer ballooning bodies
and dangling parts ethereal
slowly drifting by,

beauty which you ne’er before
were in the right place
or the right time,
or with the right courage
to see,
to take in and admire,
for the simple, yet weird creatures that they are,
flowing like their water home,
but also looking just a bit
like a hot and tonguey dancing fire,

And, when you are ready,
to leave the lure of new found wonders,
to come up for air,
the realm in which you mostly live,

you emerge
with a whole other world
inside of you,
and a surprising new appreciation
for the sun and the sky
and the air on your face,
that formerly
seemed so ordinary,
it came to be
that maybe once each blue moon,
you noticed them a bit.