Cancerian Prayer

River of Life,
Wear away my flesh until spirals of love emerge.
Carve into this skin the tides of no-mind
until stone I am no more.
Dissolved, dissipated, sand dispersed to sea,
I return to feed the forms.

Red Mountain Mind

Red your pine needles, your rusty clay and woodpeckers,
Red the dawn about your head, and squirrels who sleep in hollow beds.
Red the river with your mud, tinged with blue, green, brown and gold.
Red your ants, emboldened by flesh, and red your buds in spring's first blush.
Red the cardinal, mulberries, raspberries, blackberries, holly and red maple, red oak, rhodedendron.

Red too am I, rolling in mud and water, hair like flame, and skin now re-formed with your own.

You call to me through creaking trunk and woodland scent:
"Sink back into the mud
back into pine needles and redbird song.
A new clothing fashion from
dust and feathers, twigs and elderberries."

I will don Red Mountain as it dons me,
but a thread of thought in the mind of its song.

Woven, re-patterned,
my mouth becomes beak and eyes like a fox,
two antlers grow from a sharpened brain
as mud dries into skin bark, textured, all curves,
with tree knobs and boles for knees and elbows,
and this heart, now quartz stone
purified, pressed into form by the weight of 6.5 billion years
and the great river of time that wears away at the universe
like water carves canyons, caves, new creatures,

pooling deep in the cosmic belly,
it carries the seeds of life,
erosion of dreams now scattered to the winds,
impregnating the darkness like embers or stars,
galaxies fed by the compost of planets and long dead suns,
recycled, reborn, as tree, rock, snout and smile.

Human too, more stardust and water than creed or law.
Red mud for blood, these Homo sapien creatures.

Sun carries me back
back to Red Mountain.
Woodpecker overhead, drumming on my mind,
a resonant bowl for the wind

as thought drops to earth, an autumn leaf,
red blood turned purple, deep maroon, black,
feeding the soil of all that lives in the world.

The Salmon Soul Speaks

 written from the spring of Life that flows through Ireland as a river of Love

I will live as a river flows,
carried by the delight of my own unfolding.
I will swim the milky Way of Love
out to sea and back again.
Salmon in cycle, my soul,
soul as return, river, rebirth
into the matter of spirit --
unfettered
bursting banks
clearing the land
shaping stone into star
and egg into fire.
I am the current of GOD that remains
ever changing but ever unchanged. 

   

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.

  
  


 

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.

 

Eno River Walking

Eno River in Durham, NC

 

This place with birds calling to one another,

the slow whir of river walking upon

age-worn rocks from another life,

red clay sinks down, accepts, slides,

green thorns covered with promises of spring,

snow like winter’s ghost melts into the earth.

The river runs and walks, then runs again,

as quiet eyes of trees observe

passing of time

passing of years

dropping their leaves down

sap rising

budding

shooting forth into fullness

the color and splendor of death

as falling leaves come anew.

But now, now their blood,

their heartbeat pumps stronger

after long, unconscious sleep.

The deer have eaten at bark and branch

during winter’s starving bite,

but now, now from roots

spread forth green blades,

speared desires for sun and air.

This place is open

and intimate

the pebbles and small shells

mingle together like brothers and sisters

at the river edge,

each stone a story past, each shell a life long gone.

This place with its tall trees,

buckeye and oak: white, blackjack and laurel.

This place with holly, rhododendron, sycamore,

white ash, maple and beech, the trembling beech,

walnut, pecan, wild thorn, alder and dogwood,

sourwood and ironwood, honeysuckle,

a thick array of river birch, cedar and hemlock.

This place with grasses, grasses and grasses,

moss and lichen, ivy, sumac and creepers,

shooting bulbs wild with spring’s coming day.

And pine trees, who could not mention the pine trees,

short-leafed pine in bunches with loblolly pine drooping down,

long-leaf pine that needs fire to seed, fire to be freed,

ancient giants that covered this place long ago,

pine-cones everywhere before deciduous trees took root.

A sparrow peers at me now,

querying my intentions in this place,

then carries on, moves along feeding off the ground,

dancing with a hop in his step,

his lover nearby,

their white breasts glimmering

beneath brown wings and

gleaming eyes.

I am breathless,

breathless

at this place,

at its rolling sides rising up into blue sky,

this valley, this river course,

this place of cosmic lineage,

about to awaken to Spring again

like all other years — yet unlike ever before.

The joy that fills me

reminds me of home,

tells me I’m home,

tells me to walk softly on this clay,

to slip with it and slide with it,

to feel the leaves, the bark, the dead grass, new grass,

smooth stone, volcanic etrusions,

woodpecker in the distance amidst creaking trunks.

I know this place in my dreams,

have known it for many years,

but this place is real,

this place breathes,

it lives,

carries with it memories

sinking in,

sinking into me,

seeping in like blood and breath,

like scent on the wind.

In this moment,

there is no me.

Woods, river, birds, shore,

the silent white-footed mouse staring at me from his hole

as he melts into grey rock light,

blurring his edges,

not mouse, but stone,

not stone, but mouse.

So too I melt

dissolve

blend into hues of green and brown.

I am earth and wind,

murmur of water as it kisses stones,

tree-creeper hopping, moving up bark paths,

wren in the distance shrieking his warning,

rising rocks emerge from the hillside,

winding their way along a river’s long walk

all this I am,

all this flows in me and through me,

the Eno River walking and running, then walking again,

part and whole,

whole and part.

This place is real.

This place is home.

Note: The Eno River is my native North Carolina watershed … the rocks here stretch back 600 million years and are very deep, not only in my mind, but in this place's psyche too.