Month: February 2013

Your Sancho Panza

(Written 08/29/2000 upon departing from Children’s Services to work for Family Law.)

One child. One Voice. One Adult
This Time together
The time we spend in each other’s lives is all the time we have.
What we bring is not what was. Nor is it what will be.
What we bring is what we have here and now.

We preserve in our minds and our souls what is life giving,
or what drains our spirit.
Our spirit however, controls how we retain, what we retain.
Can adults give this piece of spirit to a child?
If we did not believe we could, we would not be in this work together.

Children and their parents and families are powerful and dynamic.
Those who would assume they can enter in, as a positive force,
should be both aware and brave, and a little foolish.
How else could they proceed like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
into all these windmills
inhabited by little people?

There are lessons too many to explore in all this we do together.
There are lessons we wish we could impart with ink and paper and formal formats.
There are still more lessons lost in our hearts.
Oh, how we wish our fervent words
would magically be understood by parents, and administrators.
Like the Don and his friend on the donkey, we trudge on.
Some of us even change horses.
Yet we find the same windmills!

Occasionally the winds of change blow through our view of the world.
It takes our worldly experience, and indomitable hope,
to recognize opportunities within the winds of change.
Don Quixote jousted with the winds of change.
He saw a windmill, but attacked a dragon.

Each of us sees all kinds of dragons. We joust at them.
We cry when we fall off our horse.
We rise up again to find more children to rescue from the jaws of the dragon.
Your Sancho Panza is sitting next to you.
Your Sancho Panza is standing before you.
I’ll be around to share in your jousts.
Riding a different horse.
Together we do change the world, one child at a time.
If you don’t believe that, ask your Sancho, who’s sitting next to you.

a tree by the side of the road

On the cusp of a hill where the fog rolled in
A seed found root as they often will
Winds of years blowing through
Low clouds touch the sapling’s ground
Bring fullness to a tree as myriad branches grew
The works of man were built despite the tree
Below the hill a road was built
Carriages then cars then freeway sounds
All under leaves that finally wilt
The fog still rolls its moisture low
Leaves and branches struggled until
Against incessant smoggy flow
The smoke and ash a tree did kill
For years the drivers rolling past
Saw the skeleton tree up in the grass
A landmark of wood on the side of the hill
To mark a journey’s end either slow or fast
Bumper to bumper the drivers passed
Or cruised by going fast
Some would note the skeleton tree
And take comfort that it was allowed to be
But someone decided that this old tree
By the side of the road should no longer be
So the saw did short work to make a skeleton tree
Just a stump on a hill no one would see.
But there are some of us who’ll remember still
A marker on the side of a hill
That marked our days and journey’s end
Just an old dead tree in our thoughts had a role
There’s a ghost of a tree by the side of the road
That lost its skeleton but kept its soul

<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 01/17/13

(I wish I had stopped and taken a photo, but I never did)

San Antonio Rd Petaluma, CA 94952
or
9008 U.S. 101, Petaluma, United States

What a simple heart can do

1426 Moffett sunset and beyond-14

What a simple heart can do
As the world turns round again
Hold to love and truth
And someone else’s hand

What a simple heart can do
When despair and hope begin or end again
Hold to someone else
Who’s heart breaks here with you

What a simple heart can do
Nearly but not close enough
To protect a gentle one
Who’s joy should come again

What a simple heart can do
When miracles run short
Is hold to life and love
As simple hearts must do

A simple heart can channel
the love and hope and healing
moving fear and hurt through
confusion and uncertainty

a simple heart is a life force
to share the goodness and the joy
of two hearts come together
simple though they may be

<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 12/17/12 1:45
UCSF Meditation Room Parnassus-10

Project on C, an epitaph

Empty space

An empty wasted space where once some knights could thrive
A room of hope, sometimes a place where children might survive
A system of paper and rules and myriad fools that hid some light within
But quality and reality’s touch where lost when hope became so thin
Now the knights and Sancho Panzas moved on to strive in other fields anew
While empty space and some lost grace search through other rooms to find what’s true

Empty space
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/11/13

 

At the core of myself
I felt that for all to be good
it would be right to be willing,
and able, to do a great kindness
for her, for them.

Those who need my forgiveness are forgiven.
Those who have wronged me are forgiven.
Those who hold a perspective
which brought me pain and hardship
have kindness awaiting them from me.

Then the healing may be fully done.
I have made a commitment such as this
because I have come to the realization
that forgiveness rests in kindness.
And kindness wrests peace for the soul.
God is good
and she would have me see this way.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/18/13

Just reaching inside and being reflective

120212 Sunrise
Driving in darkness
Passing through the morning rain
Seeking only light
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 12/17/12
UCSF Meditation Room Parnassus-09
Circle of empty chairs
Offers quiet reflective
Accompaniment
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 12/17/12

Steady winter rain
The world goes on as usual
No great cataclysm
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 12/21/12

People see the world through a very narrow prism
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 01/10/13

On a clear dark night
Full moon in a winter sky
Chills yet thrills my heart
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 01/27/13

New light arises
Crows calling across the sky
A cacophony
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/06/13

Being in this state of being
Normal is relative to more than just feeling
How time and events reframe our perspective
Just reaching inside and being reflective
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/07/13

It’s always a choice
Action now or apathy
Life is up to you
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/07/13

Buzz definition
Since most of my distractions
reside in my head
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/08/13

Hawk and coyote
Wise sometimes mischievous
Influencing me

Hawk is the totem
Coyote always teasing
Guiding assumptions
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/09/13

Throughout our short life
Our death is an advisor
Our constant token
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 02/09/13

Leaves are like illusions

image
Wind through the trees
Blows leaves that flutter
In their last attachment to life

The buds of Spring
And green Summer
Give way to orange
And brown
Of life moving on

Leaves are like illusions
Or lives blown by truth;
They last through time
Until contradictions
Or wisdom
Blow them away

The flutter is caused by
The stem clinging to its source
In a gale force

The sputter and flutter and denial
Both stated and internal
Of any person resisting
Acknowledging the truth
Is like those stems
Destined to separate

In the depths of winter
There may be a few leaves
Still dangling
Old beliefs die hard
And illusions linger
After long and bitter truth
Blows down upon the disillusioned

The blue sky of reality
Cold and stark
Is laid bare
By the winds of truth

Until a new Spring
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 12/09/12
image

The space between breathe and a sigh

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Tilde makes equal
The space between or above
A breathe and a sigh
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/10/2012

Dancing through the dark
Of time and uncertainty
Learning from music
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/27/12

Cancer lies dormant
It is a false dark shadow
Hiding life’s wonder
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/01/12
Sunflower w Garden-18
“It is perfectly possible and it’s all okay.” David Servan-Schreiber
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/01/12

You would write that which
You have to say. Nothing more.
Haiku masters know.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/28/12

Crows fly below
The towers of our lost dreams
Bearing some new hope
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 10/29/12
Crows fly below
The towers of our lost dreams
A flock of sorrows
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 11/03/12

And I love you so
Grace in life was sweeter than
Dew upon a peach
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 11/04/12

inebriated
frustrated commentary
not the finest kind
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 11/15/12
UCSF Spiritual awareness
Watching the day fade
Light like time measured then gone
Another phase shift

<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 11/25/12

Summer poems 2012 – July

070912 Bolling Memorial Grove
There are certain spots
Always in the shade of trees
Never direct sun
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/07/12
071112 Richardsons Grove and Eureka 122
A baby redwood
Small of girth can grow to be
A forest giant
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/07/12

Where does the smoke go
As it wafts from wood through fire
Like thought’s energy
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/09/12

Insular cortex
Physical temperature
Emotional warmth
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/09/12

Counting pockets on a fishing vest, Gerry said, This one has fourteen pockets.” Anne said, “Better than a mini-van.”
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/09/12

Upon finding a cabin, a cliff and a river it was written

An accidental
Adventure into the past
Sunny river day
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/09/12

Ineradicable
Unpredictability of
Quantum physics
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/11/12

Fireside memory
Blue turns to black then to gray
Then it turns to ash
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/17/12

Balanced o’er the flame
Until embers took a piece
Of heart and soul
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/17/12
072612 Grover Hot Springs 038
The sun on the trees
The chill in the air
The warmth of the fire
The jays calling
The mountain air crisp
With promise of
A new day
And hot springs
Relaxation
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/18/12

Fire renews the soul
Warmth and light yet consuming
Forms shift like spirit
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/18/12

For the poker stick

Like flaming prayer
Guide wood reached out for heaven
Ember memories
<><><><><><><><><><><><><> 07/19/12