Eno River Walking: Visual Verse

Please click on the image above to enjoy a ~10 minute "visual verse video" I've put together which includes my own photography of the Eno River and local area, as well as myself reading my "Eno River Walking" poem. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

    

Hydrologic Dao

O River--
our lives are but seeds on your tide,
born away on the Pathless Path
from mountains to sea
     and back again,
reincarnated as rain.

  
  


 

Breathing Towards Birth

Wind,
strong wind,
tell me,

are you
my true nature? –

heart dispersing
like pollen
on the breeze

and every thought
a flutter,
leaves at evening

even my body
this earthen animal thing
bending
unbending
to the currents

as here

invisible
becomes
visible

swelling up,
lungs a balloon,
full bull frog throat,

I am swollen with spirit
and feel as though I might explode

and in the same

moment
of fullness,
tension,
expansion,

the exhale arrives,
emptiness,
space,
a void unfurled.

I am not …
yet I am.

I cannot express
the fullness
of this being-ness
this such-ness.

Impregnated
by presence,
I am a dandelion gone to seed,

each breath
a step
towards birth.

Wind,

strong wind,
tell me,

when my last breath
rejoins
you,

will I finally
be
born?

 
 

The Cure Lies in the Curse

I am Lot’s wife
having looked back
became a frozen stone,
a statue of salt,

but now
having stood all these years
with the rain and desert storms,
world dropping down
to the ground,
my rigid silence
dissolves into tears.

This has demanded time
and the sure-rhythmed seasons of life
to cast my eyes forward again,

knowing that 

release 

is the eventual way of all things.

  

  

 

Following Bouyancy

floating in the Eno on a hot day ... ahhh

Naked in the Eno,
    hot day,
sun beating sideways on
silver ripples,
pale green leaves,
turtles toasting their shells
while I toast my pale skin
beneath the yellow eye.

Tufted titmouse and chickadee calling,
the slightest breeze soft kissing
my vulnerability.

Skeeter bugs skate on the river surface,
purple violets and spring beauty blossoms
crowd the river's edge.

Oh–

“Follow your bliss,” the wise men say.
      My bliss is out here,
squidging toes into riverbed sand,
as a slow slow tide washes over my body,
                          only me
                    only me here
with the rest of the world,
                           the wild,
the world far from any well-marked track.

I sink back into the current
legs lifting, belly to the sky,
hair drinking in brown water,
grown heavy

floating
breeze and river

my soul a dogwood blossom
caught in the wind,
carried away by this hot sunny day
and the cool relief of giving in
to the riverway

the river’s way of
       drifting
             ebbing
rapids here and there
but rare,
               wide, deep course
finding the down-hill path
                            down …
                down …
down

following
perfection

mind gone buoyant
soft in the current
where-ever gravity leads.

 

Mountain Dao

Occaneechee Mountain, in Hillsborough, NC where I first spoke this poem

Up
     up to the mountain top,
this wild place of pine trees
and hickory oak.

Up
     up to the mountain top,
river valley spread out
from ancient mountain roots.

Wandering path along the ridge
hugs boulders cut by years of wisdom
while wizened trees hold on--
hold to that horizon,
allowing themselves to be bent and turned
where few can go.

Here, there is Grandfather
      and grandchildren,
Here, there is youth and old age,
saplings stretched green in the sun,
in search of wind, soil, light and rain,
six hundred million year old rock weathered by
volcano, glacier, flood and time.

The brown hare hops off into the distance,
leading the way
up
     up to the mountain top
as I leave behind human constructs and thoughts,
arising out of the dark valley
into pure white sun.

Even the salamander is out to
greet this day,
darting this way and that like
a snake's glinted tongue.
He knows the way,
up
    up to the mountain top.

A thousand generations
have passed this way,
and humans
       --almost none,
melting the mind
like snow into mountain,
bent and turned
along the edge of wilderness,
the Way the heart is weathered, 

sharpness smoothed down
by the river of yearning
a soft stone
dissolving
into sediment
leaving behind
soil
and the pure crystal peak
of mountain top being

I will follow and sing,
trusting in the wild ways
stepping closer
moment by moment
up
     up to the mountain top.

Another Faith

Speak into the darkness
like a child praying.
Age does not lessen
your need for faith.

I don’t mean
blindly binding soul to dogma
or sacrificing intuition at devotion’s hands.

There is another faith
that lives beyond these,
waiting for you–
not on the mountain top of wonder
but beyond,

                    in valleys
deep with yew, oak and hazel,
moss, cress, mushroom and stone,
fine leg, hoof, snout, fin and tail,
hiding behind the mask of many.

It is faithful love
who dares look straight into the
Heart of God
and mist-melt into that morning sun, again and again.

To feast at the table of faith is
  but opening your mind
to human vulnerability, 

like fruit, long fermented.

Admit without shame:
you can never live 

  your own expectations.

Instead, faith is setting free
the subtle fear
that makes you believe
every other power but your own.

When you tread with faith
up the spiral milky Way,
you are a star in the night
a naked light without agenda
or any other feat but to
shine.

Only when the inner heat of longing
burns away the clothes
of what you thought you knew
and all the loves undeserving of you,

Only when there is nothing left
between body and darkness
can you make love,
skin to skin and breath to breath,
with the Heart in all hearts.

Only then does faith become
another word for “know.”