Light on a redwood tree

Redwood Tree, Armstrong Woods, Guerneville

Find a place to stop and sit while light and orbit shift
To here and there, or there and here, or where we are to be

Light on redwood bark of a thousand year old tree
Hues of brown and sienna and sepia and coffee

At a point part way down bright glare makes light white and scattered
Masking clear vision of strands of bark as if the tree were tattered

Each strand of life perhaps a soft light of recollection
Lives passed as lives passed, hallowed in loving connection

Images or stories reverberate in time
Spectrum of our lives entwined

Intermittent shadows dark, in time our minds may ease
Like bright memories become diffused histories

Movement of the planet around the sun
Marking time or marking us, each one

Light so bright now gone away
And tomorrow will be another day

Trees do not spend a thousand years in shadow
Despite rain or fog, bright sun will not be laid low

Light so bright deep in a heart
Where to end and where to start

Find a place to stop and sit while light and orbit shift
To here and there, or there and here, or where we are to be

<><><<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/17/14
The Walking Tree

The bottomless courage of the heart

062813 UCSF Mt Zion - In the Meditation Room
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.”
Blaise Pascal

Bottomless courage of the heart
Is discovered in the moments when the bottom falls out
Sometimes it happens in an instant
Sometimes months and months
Discovery of the bottom occurs as the movement is down
And down
Keep going down and no bottom is found
Hence the bottomless and no solid ground
The heart holds itself and everything else
On the trip down
As the heart sees or feels the sides and keeps going down
And down
And the heart holds on to courage
Courage of the heart is to be in the bottomless
And hold on
And find courage to bounce
Or arise or rise up
The bottomless courage of the heart
Is discovered on the way down
And formed on the way up
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/12/14
080308 Albee Creek Redwoods - God's summer home

A visit to the ocean

090114 Pacific Grove-8

On the edge of the lands
A poet stands
Looking west
Hoping for the best
Waves on rocks
Like ticking clocks
Comforting rhythms
For those who were given
Time to find
Some peace of mind
A place to watch for signs
Of how to feel and see our times
Seabirds swoop and glide

I have to make an aside
Sitting on rocks being profound
The water my footrest found
Waves splashed onto my shoes
And in a simple way just proved
While I sat here the planet moved

Back to sea birds gliding
And little crabs striding
In underwater worlds
Tiny lives in ponds unfurled
No one watching, no one caring
Except the lonesome poet staring
To see what is revealed
Transient feelings healed
Heart and tears
Overcoming fears
Beyond the maudlin
Sticking words in
Honoring past
Like looking glass
To places been
Visited again
While the unknown flows
One thing he knows
Future portends
As heartstrings mend
Ocean currents
All the torrents
More birds glide by
Breezes on the lower sky
The tide did rise
My foot stool hides
Now in the crabs domain
Showing what was always plain
The earth will move
And should improve
The poets evolving vision
Seabirds mission
Glide down the coast
And make the most
Of lower sky
While seals swim by
Kelp beds waiting
Light and shadows invading
To hungry seals
Fish revealed
Horizon line flat and fine
As waves at shore define
A changing edge of shore
Symbols perhaps of more
A future fine and steady
Once the poet is ready
To breach the rock edge
Of ocean with a pledge
To live here and now
Not then somehow
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 08/31/14
https://www.flickr.com/photos/desertbuzz/15143894402/

Two white butterflies
Splashing of foam feels like home
Under ocean blue skies
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 08/31/14
090114 Pacific Grove-4

The water jumps for joy
As it reaches the shore
The sky may be gray or sunny
The ocean is still overjoyed either way
Nothing gets in the way of its happy leaping
Even though rocks try to
The water swells with pride
As it reaches the destination
Bright little crests emerge
As if they couldn’t wait to leap
Up in the air
Moving to the edge of sea and land
Finding a happy place
To jump for joy
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/01/14

Two white butterflies
Always two white butterflies
Traveling along
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><> 09/01/14
090114 Pacific Grove-2