Common Ancestors
Pruning the Orchard
These forests
This mountain
These trees
So many trees
So many lives
Lifetimes ago
So many deaths
As many rebirths
Why this unavoidable end
This incontrovertible sorrow
This leaf in the wind
Without seed or roots?
Around this tree
We embrace all trees
All disembodied leaves
These flying crawling creatures
We embrace ourselves
Ourselves so many trees
So many roots
Finding home in the soil
Wisdom in the sun
New life in our branches
All our relations swirling forever –
A primordial soup
A sylvan broth
Of forest phantoms
And felicitous nymphs
Neverending.
Evermore.
A pregnant pause
From the stories born
of dying bloom
every awkward
moment wilted
and decomposed,
the obstinate armor of
hearts cracked,
petals discarded,
filaments busted,
pistils dismantled,
and each of these
spirited away in
floods of tears.
Here lie they now
in fields of
budding dreams
wondering what
further amputations
might be necessary.
Silence
Multiple, he said.
The Goat Boutique
Walk in the Canyon
If you go in
you might come out.
You might come out
looking better than before
you went in.
Maybe tussled with musty rose lips
A dusting of glitter
Or the visage of a horned god within you
revealed behind vertical pupils.
You may find a little something there
you’ve never seen anywhere else.
Mystified you wonder if humans
are not the only visitors there.
If some other might
come home with you
wanted or otherwise.
If you go in
you will be changed
either within or without
or in your entire being.
Perhaps what you come out wearing
deserves to be torn in careful rips,
your naked self unveiled, receptive, inquisitive.
These chance ribbons wrapped
with rotational intentions
around a protuberant maypole.
Maybe next year
you will show restraint
at the door and then —
go in anyway.
Much like any goat
might do.
Between split rocks:
This deep fertile place
Where water has come
Thousands of years
I see differently
Staying within,
I try and walk the whole way
To see where it all began
But the trail is long.
The sun begins to fall.
Alone I would be safe,
For in darkness a hand
Would hold my hand
And cleave my heart
And show us on our way.
So, today I climb out of this canyon
To the path that brings me home
Up from the old watercourse
To coast down streams of understanding
On the way to the Great Ocean.
Paradise
I
We could all get naked and run
barefoot among trees screaming
joy and exuberance,
rejoicing in what we behold
and what beholds us as if both
were one and the same.
We could carry on
until the Old Man screams
at us to put on clothes
or he’ll freeze our asses,
having his way with cold, that man!
And until we find comfort
in the bundle of burgeoning layers
nestled in the heart spaces of his icy palace
we’ll be lost in hell for eternity.
II
We could bathe in the luxurious
salty elixir of the cerulean blue
and peer upon its living bottom teeming
with creatures who colorfully
pleasing entice us to ride this wave
toward the shore of tomorrow
forever joyously lost at sea
with this glorious day.
We could carry on
until the Old Man waves his hands,
ordering us to move along,
ticking away the end of pleasures
when we run aground on
rocky new beginnings in a concrete wilderness
of boutiques and pink hotels.
III
We could leave it all behind,
consume ourselves in unlimited energy,
manufacturing inspiration to boldly walk
a new and decadent world
unlinked to the Old Man’s trappings,
the formidable door to our hearts
so easily opened in ecstasy.
We could carry on
until the architect of the dream falters,
heaving us into a nightmare of sleepless
dreamless worlds beyond reach of familiarity.
And until we obey our heart’s command
to heal this poor sick man,
we’ll find ourselves mysteriously again
before the doors to oblivion.