Yes, DO go gentle into. . .

YES!! Go!

Yes, DO
go gentle, gentle,
into that good night.

No, NO!
Not THAT good night!

THIS one here,
this one now,
this one that’s fallen,
and whose calling
is to let us
from this day down to settle,

to uncoil,restore,reset,
allow our bodies
and our minds
to drink the salve
of darkened sky
straight to our every tiny cell
and thus,
to remake us,
in our big and small things, right.

From this one day,
+++++ whose work’s been worked
+++++ whose play’s been played
+++++ whose rest, rested,
++++++++++ in between,
+++++ once all that fits in a day
+++++ is said and done,
our time to unwind,

for this night lives just here
and’s only ready for you now,
just this one time,

it can’t be packed
with others up
or used in retrospect. . .

For,
days and nights,
of their nature
announce themselves quite clear
as the very stuff of life–

their design is not temperamental,
they start and end when we would think,
if we keep our heads well out of holes
and linger not too long in blinks,

they fall, they rise,
both beautiful and wise,
they parse for us
vast time and experience,
to make it gently incremental. . .

So while we’re here,
let us the call
of our deeper bodies
thus to heed—

To yield to night,
our eyes from light to disappear,
going gentle, gentle, gentle,
into this very, very,
good, good night. . .

And though
it be not guaranteed,
it is a path
that’s much more apt

to bring us another
day for friends, for lovers,
children, parents, sisters, brothers,
ourselves and any sorts of others,
or for any task
at which we’d like
another crack,

and,
if fortune smiles still
on us then,
perchance we’ll get
another sweet and gentle night
and perhaps
another bright, new day
right after that.

Advertisements

HOW DO YOU RIDE THE CHANGE?

How do you ride the change?
(Though you may yearn
to fight it, clear it. . .)

How do you nix
or take
the risk
while some straggling part of you
yet trembles and lags back
to fear it?

How can you catch the wave
to mount upon
the tide of change,
and steer it,
to take you where you want to go?

How grow you brave?

How do you plot and re-arrange
the heavy stones
so firmly planted in the status quo?

Well, first,
Breathe you down
and fathom deep,
straight to your feet,

and feel the movement
bid you touch the braver tones
in earth,
your blood, your flesh, your bones. . .

Assume a stance
where you don’t think or strain,
be you
in company,
+++++or solitary,
on untrod path
+++++or highway lane. . .

Release, leave back
old and new pain,
old and new loss,
or any plan to force,
appropriate, or grab
new gains. . .

Allow your life,
yourself,
your inborn worth
to take their natural
expected and surprising
turns,
+++++as does our earth
+++++and the world that it sustains
+++++each day,

Go on.
Allow
complete release,
and free all these,

till all of them
are of a piece,
and meld,
and realize,
surrender to,
their common destiny,

in which, together, they unfurl,
in peace and struggle,
noise and silence,
in grief, despair and fraught frustration,
celebration, satisfaction, mirth,

So, now,
with greater grace and ease,
you’ll breathe yet on,
+++++full wide and deep,
+++++still to your feet,
come dawn
++++++++++to wake
come dusk,
++++++++++to sleep,

and in between,
play, work and rest,
and, as necessary, eat,

and thus, as one apart,
and one together,

relax into
the as yet unseen ride,

no matter what
the sunny, fair,
or freezing wet and ripping
sort of weather,

no matter what befalls
or is or isn’t said or done–
which may tickle, soothe,
or jar or hurt. . .

And when you think you’ve found it all,
remember all the fun that comes
when you
once more pick up the ball
of your own joy. . .

And savor every little bit you can,
upon your next intrepid,
inner-outer-joined-together,
heart-mind-spirit,
wonder search.

A GENTLE DUSTING OF THE NASCENT WINTER’S SNOW

Rain at the bottom. . .

the dusk of summer’s blush
segues to autumn. . .

the peak receives
a gentle dusting
of the nascent winter’s snow.

Still green,
the high up forest
contracts, awaits
the coming gusts,
which foreshadow
some certain kind of wintertime. . .

But, as for how that’s going to look,
we don’t yet know.

I WISH I MAY, I WISH I MIGHT

A star
+++++ I wish upon,
although
+++++ it’s very far. . .

Who knows
if it even ever listens
+++++ or if it’s deaf,
as its point light
amid the whirling night sky glistens?

Nonetheless,
upon this distant star,
I wish I may
+++++ not end right here,
++++++++++ but see a dawn,
+++++++++++++++ another day;

I wish I might
understand,
+++++ not just be understood,

ere close I eye
upon whiche’er
bright maze of stars
+++++I shall chance, in awe, to gaze
as it will rise,
when falls
my final night.

SOMETIMES IT HURTS

Sometimes it hurts
when I don’t like
and cannot hold
that I don’t like
the way that I’ve been treated.
Hurters don pants,
+++++but, others of them, skirts–

some bludgeon blunt–
+++++some prick with spikes–
some, passive hostile humbleness
+++++and others egotistical, conceited. . .

first I must breathe,
+++++when lashing back won’t work,

so to conceive
a common core humanity,

seek deep, sort out
to feel if ’tis best,
in each such case,
to detach
+++++or strive to reconcile,
so wholeness is, at last, restored,

at such a time
when this dread storm
has blown right past
and can be deemed completed.

DO NOT LOOK BACK. (WELL, SOME SAY THAT).

Do not look back
(Well, some say–that. . .)

And, OK yes,
I sort of get
that forward movement
is meant to be
our main direction.

And yet, you lack
if ne’er you do
hold up and view
the backward-looking
looking glass.

For,
so much of our instructive light
shines its very, very best,
to make stuff show
from different points of view–
sometimes sharper, other softer,
but always more wisely in the scheme of things,
when pause is ta’en,

to consider things
not just
when and where they are,
but in schemes grander
during a breather
of reflection.

LOOK AT THE BIRDIE!

Look at the birdie!
Don’t blink!
And say cheese!

Be warm
but make sure
that each muscle
and bone
in your form
appears lively and warm,
while all the while,
in suspension,
you freeze,

for who knows
which future subsets of people
or posterities.

A shot at perfection
not quite got,
despite oods preparation
and hope escalation,

making it easy to get
the concept
and yen
for the proliferation
of ephemeral selfies.