Poems from March, 2009 Month Long at Spirit Rock Meditation Center

Full Moon Metta Talks - 3/13/2009

Spring Solstice - 3/21/2009

The World Calling (From a well gone dry) - 3/25/2009

Full Moon Metta Talks

Oh you thought I could talk about the heart
the subtle way the armor shifts.
The many layers that hold it in place
and cover it with trance.
Or the ice that chills the fear
and freezes the heart.

At night, even the light through the window shades,
asked the moon to come
and press its face against mine.

Yes, breathing into me,
closing the dream world,
eyes open, 3 AM
shutting off the world of words.
A soundless shadow of the heart
knowing; like a bird nesting,
would gather all our flaws in celebration.

Could it be, uncovering another layer --
 breath -- wedded to both body --  mind
seemingly uncomplicated and unfabricated
that this small movement,
the smallest shifts,
allows -- heart freed from its trance
to shine like the moon,
undiluted by the window shades of our stories.

To merge with it perfectly, impossibly
it opens and closes
"the sure hearts release"
a promise given by the awakened one
thousands of years ago.

I know, you know, we know
I remember, you remember, we remember
that's enough, you're enough, this is enough.

the eye drops off to sleep.

Spring Solstice

Sitting on the bench,
the brazen Turkey with the club foot.
Knowing the human predator
suspended in these wandering yogis.

Knowing somehow they are taken by something greater
knowing their first utterances,
overheard only by themselves
dropping them only deeper;
the silence of this impossible place.

The white tailed kite, sitting so still
suspended above our valley
both wings in unison
hovering at the edge of its own
insubstantialness;
body still, eyes everywhere.

Here the visible and invisible
show us how our ego -- mad mind
dreams on and on. Questioning what's real, who's real,
heralding the ancient panic.

Here on this ground, the wave breaks
leaving you only sky
vast empty sky
a groundlessness
that sparks the panic
which lights the flame again.

One wing which holds one above the valley
empty-- maybe just emptyness.
in the other some old flame with its warmth
and uncompromising light;
one holding the void the other to touch our world.

You knew you came to die.
Seeing through all the fabricated selves,

the warmth and light only things left .
please take my hand
the world knows you
they have been waiting.
-- sanity and compassion.

yesterday this was me, today not sure

The World Calling    (from a well gone dry)

From this silence so well constructed
I wonder off, into tomorrow.
bending like a willow
trying to touch a world unhatched,
this impossible, of my imagination.

i am the intimacy of faith
I am the grandeur of loneliness.
I am the worthiness;
-that which is kept buried beneath the wounds of my stories.

Sometimes everything has to be studied
knowing somehow this sitting here
not enough.
this knowing the fierce walking
like pilgrims through the darkness.
Knowing we've traveled inside everyone.

Feeling the grief; the joys.
I want to know
no more traveling on the wings of fear and hope.
but sit by the fire of living
no longer dying to what could have been
or even what will be.

But finding my place in the things that are;
some mystery presented
some grace
some bit of mercy
miraculously lived.

So let this listening
Somewhere beneath the granite shelves of the earth
where the sweet waters, lie in wait.
To be tapped to give life back to itself.

This basic goodness
this first step home
gives you back to yourself
the heart flowing  with each encounter
a mind pliable; moving like the sweet stream
from that deep down listening .

I am awake
as the world calls in its pungent need to change me.
I move into it -- with it.