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.

THE GUTTER

is the inside

margin,

the space

between pages.

It’s what’s needed

so a book

can have

its binding.

Don’t we need

space like that—

a beat, a breath—

between

experiences

so balance

becomes

our stitchery

and our folios are

enlivening reads

that keeps us

turning pages?

THE PYTHON

If you submit

to it

suffering

will hypnotize you

like a python,

wrap you

in tightening coils,

suffocate you,

swallow you whole.

Don’t let it.

Untether yourself

with kindness,

with compassion.

Relax what’s taut.

Breathe

into breath.

Let the animal

you are

wake to the softness

of the body,

to its own

flesh and sinew.

THE BRAID

So many

threads.

Arriving at

the right weave

of this

and that

is the art

of inclusion

and

omission.

How ‘bout you

take over

from here?

Only then will

the binding 
and the bond

be right.

THE LADDER

A shop window,

for an instant,

reflects

a ladder—

the handyman

is out of frame.

Just an axis mundi

on the move.

This image,

still with me now,

has me feel like

I could be

the ladder’s

carrier.