AIRWAVES

Needle

between stations.

Radio static.

Finding the right

frequency

may have less

to do with

the dial

and more

to do with

the listening

of the listener.

THE THREAD

An invisible veil 

clings to 

every contour,

every wrinkle,

every strand

of the story being told.

The fabric moves imperceptibly

with every twist and turn

of the unfolding tale

like cambric or silk

over an undulating body.

It’s a story

like any other

until what you are waiting for 

happens: a stitch breaks loose.

And that’s when

the warp and weft

of the weave

shows itself

and the fray says:

This is the thread, take it!

So you do.

Because that is 

what you do.

The rest is conversation,

collaboration, 

a quest. Story 

ceases to be story

and the telling

becomes the teaching.

THE BRANCH

In the density of the night

the darkness has many arms.

Pick up any fallen thing

and use it to reconnect to the world,

because you have forgotten how.

A fallen branch may be your proxy.

Take it, thrust it into the dark,

rattle its thick lattice

until something falls free,

drops to the earth

like a heart beat.

You might be hungry

but that is not why you

bite into the fruit,

the forbidden.

You do so to end

the mind’s mastications

with your mouth’s.

And you know this

though you don’t know you do.

Only after the sun has risen,

and your back’s against a redwood,

is sleep possible—

because an owl, who

had hooted all night long,

is now the same angel  

watching over you

from her nest, a cavity

created by a fallen limb.

BACKWARDS

Wake to find

it is a beautiful

night to be born.

Ride the red pony

backwards,

it is time

to fall upwards.

Irony and paradox

are your shiny apple,

your thunder dream.

Do the opposite.

Make your curse

your calling,

pin the sheriff’s badge

on the criminal inside

and cuff him

to Truth.

Get comfortable

with discomfort.

There is a heyoka

in every one of us,

a sacred clown,

a contrary warrior,

who is looking

to find peace

in the blue of the house

in the dark wood,

where our lost child
is waiting to finally
parent us.

COUNTING

Not everything that can be counted counts,

and not everything that counts can be counted.

— Albert Einstein

On fingers

or with numbers.

An abacus or a slide rule.

Through theorems or calculus.

What if these methods

won’t work?

What if

what is really worth

counting

can’t be counted,

because no manner

of measurement

or calculation

is fit to the task?

This is the way it is with

trust, love and gratitude.

They are unquantifiable.

There is no integer or derivative

that will equal

the sums they carry.