FLY AGAIN*

When you crash-land in a wilderness

and are lost and all alone

When your engine is

in desperate need of repair

When there is sand for miles

in every direction

When hope and trust are as arid

as the dessert wind

When you are roused at sunrise 

by a small odd voice

asking you to do something 

that makes no sense at all

Do what it says

Draw a sheep!

Performing this simple task 

will awaken a sleeping beauty 

Connect you to a sensitivity 

and an intuition

you knew when you were young

When you were pure at heart

When everything mattered

and was of great consequence

Remember this knee-high nobility 

It still lives within you

Let it tame you now

And you will fly again

*Inspired by re-reading The Little Prince

A CRUCIBLE OF THE HEART

A presence,

a silence

that makes space

for all that comes.

A grace and

a gathering

that receives 

and collects 

what’s shared

into its deep well.

A listening

that holds 

and evokes

grief, anger and love.

A mirror

that shows 

every face

what it most 

wants to see:

itself as golden,

as seen. The rays 

of the sun. 

The spectral hue 

of leaves.

An August

fired from Winter.

MANIFEST DESTINY

for Alfonso Benavides

Dry dirt. 

Dead grass.

Scorched leaves.

In this arid landscape

there is one among the tree's debris,

though fallen,

that lies buoyantly beaming 

its ribbed gloss and gleam

beneath the beating rays

of the mid-day sun. 

Like a broken vessel

after a storm

 it waits 

in a vast and placid sea

for the wind 

to catch its weathered sails again,

for a new course 

to manifest destiny 

 into worlds of 

unimaginable discovery.

NO STAMPEDE

I wait for something

to grab a hold

of my imagination.

For a metaphor 

to stampede through

my writing room.

But nothing comes.

There is only

the silence 

and the surprise

at how easy

and freeing it can be

to have nothing

at all to say.

THE THAW

There is a mountain

in the distance.

It is covered 

in snow. A wood  

block image. Hand- 

tinted with water color.

All printed on 

a greeting card.

Two redwoods stand

side by side

like ancients

wordlessly contemplating 

the distant range, 

gesturing

toward it: Will

the mountain

ever thaw?

There is no actual 

mountain. No mind-

melding between trees. 

No snow. There is only 

ink on paper

and the silence 

the cursive 

inside creates

as it etches its way

across a blizzard

of white.