Anam Cara (Soul Lover)

Image: Howard Sokol*

 

 

to friendship and my dearest friends

 

Here with you now

I am aware of the space between us

and the gentle river of words and gestures that fill that space with love.

You are like soft autumn rain seeping down into the meadows of my soul,

lush with delight, a great open field of freedom

rushing down to the sea under stars.

  

It is here I meet you,

as you are, as I am,

our bodies like bowls resonating in the night,

sounding out our recognition,

echoes of some other destiny once partook together.  

  

We are two weary pilgrims at rest for a time,

stretched out in the grass with dew and dirt,

beach below and the receding surf reminding us that

somewhere in primordial memory,

your grain of sand and mine lay nestled next to each other.

And now in this eon of lifetimes beyond the original clay,

we feel the same sense of next-togetherness

deep in our bones and breath and blood,

bound together by water and fire and the bond of human spirit.

Our journey is long, roads into darkness and unknown dreams.

But we wander on in the womb of the world

to be polished from sand into pearl.

One day our jeweled selves will shine forth.

One day we will lie side by side again as we do now,

strung on a cosmic necklace of stars,

the constellation of our love made more brilliant

by lifetimes of travel apart. 

*

 

http://www.howardsokolphotography.com/

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.

Tattoo

Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images

  

  

Your touch
is like pen to paper
indelible on my skin,
a language of belonging
pressed deep into cells
and soul,
tattoo
forever marking me
as loved.

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.

Hail Like Lotus

Hail hits the house,
Soul trying to get in.
We build our minds,
place bolts on the doors,
locks on windows,
shutters,
blinds,
curtains,
mortar and bricks,
cement thoughts,
fears,
expectations,
desires.
We build our minds
and Soul wants back in.


 
 

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.”

    

 

(Be)Coming Home

Everyone is a little heartsick or homesick,
looking to belong to
their own humanity

like cattle to the land
or birds to the sky.

It’s as if by sweat and love and
long years’ journeying,
we aspire to find the secret of our species,

what it means to be alive,
to be utterly, totally
human.

I left home when still a child,
seeking out my own place
in the pattern of things,
holding the space between
broken and whole.

But now,

time to walk forth into the gap
between who we think we are
and who we’re meant to be,

centre of gravity shifting like
sands from underfoot

never coming home, but becoming home,
one step closer to the humanity
we’ve been all along.

  

  

Love Even More

There is such a yearning in me tonight,
a burning to look into the
face of another
and reaffirm my own humanity.

It’s as if the whole world
is being born
in the darkest confines of
my heart

until I am left
with no other choice
but to

love even more.