Temple
Posted: October 16, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Jeffrey Harrison, love, Poetry, Prose, Temple 8 Comments…
Not a place of worship exactly
but one I like to go back to
and where, you could say, I take
sanctuary: this smooth area
above the ear and around the corner
from your forehead, where your hair
is as silky as milkweed.
The way to feel its featheriness best
is with the lips. Though you
are going gray, right there
your hair is as soft as a girl’s,
the two of us briefly young again
when I kiss your temple.
Kindness
Posted: October 2, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: Buddhism, compassion, Gratefulness, gratitude, kindness, meditation, Naomi Shihab Nye, Poetry, Prose, Talking Voice Inside 2 Comments: When a friend opens a random page in your life :
…
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
The Summer Ends
Posted: September 4, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: culture, cycling, Fall Harvest, Identity, love, Omaha, passion, Poetry, Prose, social media, Summer, Wendell Berry 3 Comments…
The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way. Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth’s green fountains dried,
And fallen all the works of light.
You do not speak, and I regret
This downfall of the good we sought
As though the fault were mine. I bring
The plow to turn the shattering
Leaves and bent stems into the dark,
From which they may return. At work,
I see you leaving our bright land,
The last cut flowers in your hand.
First Song
Posted: August 21, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: compassion, First Song, freshly pressed, gratitude, Joseph Stroud, love, Mindfulness, passion, Poetry, Prose, yoga 4 Comments…
That long-ago morning at Ruth’s farm
when I hid in the wisteria
and watched hummingbirds. I thought
the ruby or gold that gleamed on their throats
was the honeyed blood of flowers.
They would stick their piercing beaks
into a crown of petals until their heads
disappeared. The blossoms blurred into wings,
and the breathing I heard
was the thin, moving stems of wisteria.
That night, my face pressed against the window,
I looked out into the dark
where the moon drowned in the willows
by the pond. My heart, bloodstone,
turned. That long night, the farm,
those jeweled birds, all these gone years.
The horses standing quiet and huge
in the moon-crossing blackness.
the spill
Posted: August 14, 2014 Filed under: Meditation, Yoga | Tags: blogging, Charles Bukowski, Graditude, kindness, life, love, Omaha, passion, Poetry, Prose, writing 3 Comments…
the jock’s horse
the 7 horse
clipped the heels
of the horse
in front of
him
stumbled and
fell
throwing the
jock
over its
head
and onto the
track before
some
oncoming
horses
most of
which
avoided the
jock’s
still
form
except for
the 9
horse
who gave him
one step
in the middle
of his
back
you could
see
the hoof
dig
in
then the
field was
past
and the
ambulance was
on its
way
the jock wore
Kelly green
silks,
black
sleeves.
3 or 4
people were now
gathered around
the
still
jock.
as the ambulance
moved in
the man behind
me
said to his
companion
“let’s go get’
a
beer.”
CultFit 