Poems from March, 2011 Month Long
Spirit Rock Meditation Center

Exploring Faith - March 10, 2011 
Even Mindedness -March 19, 2011 (Full Moon)
Bones in The River - march 25, 2011

Exploring Faith - March 10, 2011 

In a world of shifting sands
One sees the Hawk
Perched in our Valley
Calm -devoted to all movement,
In the green sparkling grasses.

The crow dive bomb him
This is my roof, my territory, my meditation all,
My stories, my thoughts.
How dare you intrude.

Standing on this edge,
The merciless, sweet, sound of your own voice.
Never convincing you to jump.
The taste of salt and dry mouth
And the blood from your own bitten lip.

Who told you,? You could out-think this life.
Weighing all things with your golden intelligence.
That jumping into complete silence
the sheer darkness …
wouldn’t have consequences?
No matter how courageously you struggled.

Yet, your own redemption.
This simple gesture
A Buddha touching the earth.
Dissolving the madness of centuries.
A Hawk poised on the edge of roof
About to drop off into
Darkness of the unknown.

Only two possibilities
Finding something solid to stand on;
Or
You will be taught how to fly.

Faith comes in confirmation
Like  electricity–unseen
Yet it lights your path.

Even Mindedness -March 19, 2011 (Full Moon)

Returning from so many journeys.
Stories piled on top of stories.
Closing chapter after chapter.
In some small cave…
Hidden away, some text-
Forgotten for centuries.
Held tightly in the silence.
This river of our own mythology.

You! who have abandoning yourself, one too many times.
Having finally sat down -
knowing nothing is forgotten in this place,
only amplified.
This meditation hall filled to the brim.

Stepping back–moving out of this house of dreams.
Into your own center.
Holding this lacquered begging bowl.
holding last year’s dreams over it,
knowing this simple gesture;
hands open…
dropping it leaf by leaf,
 into this bottomless bowl.

I was here to celebrate-
After all this living, ---bargaining over.
A place where the hummingbirds come:
To taste the sweetness of your own openness.
The insecurity slips at last-
The rains washes it down
the green hillside
Into the creek, undistinguished
From tears or just the toxins of growing up .

Sitting, like a stone Buddha
Unmoved by the longings and the dislikes .
Now, no need to move away from the Great Suffering,
Or even be enchanted by the Great Joy.
One sits– in even mindedness; with a boundless heart.
Earth, water, fire, air- find no footing here.

One rests, the exile is over.
To praise- form and the formless
A world were Emptiness, just the word.
Brings your hands together.
Gives way to a bow –
In the great understanding.

You know now when they use the words,
Luminous or boundless
It is no stranger,
You know you can sit in the Unknowing.
Blessed by a taste of grace.

Bones In The River

Rain cascading down, the heavens have opened.
Bundled up inside my own memories.
Water rushing, moving through me swiftly.
Tip towing across the surface of breathing.
Pointing towards our own hospitality.

Destined to reach my own underground.
A place where I could let the rain
Soak through my clothes;
 Skin; flesh, to these very bones.

 Dharma not different than the rain.
Truth soaking through the layers of my own being.
 Celebrating its silence and strength
Reaching the marrow of our bones.
All judgments left on the surface.
The outward bathed in calmness.
 Inward resting in original nature
The eyes smiling at all things.

The no name teacher comes,
Teaching us to hold nothing.
“Flow is possible” finally in gentle voice.
Yet–resistance, uncertainty – maybe the old small panic.
“I can’t swim, can’t breathe”
Abandoning the possibilities of freedom.
Totally forgetting that the river can’t be stopped.
Just molecules dancing towards infinity.

Deep down, being earnest and loyal,
Opening to this cascade of remembering.
Dharma has touched these bones. . .
Knowing separateness to be untrue.
The gift from these practices; simple trust.
This surrendering and stillness.
Determining its possible to just float;
In the aloneness of one’s own River.

Having been touched by all the small loves.
Knowing you belong to this place.
You open both arms.
Knowing; the smallest entry;
Could give rise to this Great Love,
You know the one that holds everything
And no-thing. . .