For Elayne

She will shatter.
She will break.
She will disintegrate
pieces of dust, clay and cloud.

Some say she lives in the petals of flowers, that bees carry her fragrance in their hairs.
I say she is the wonder of a waterpool’s reflection, 
dancing in a Texas midnight, moonlit sky.
I saw that people were her gardens on the earth, I felt her shower us with care.

We look to the grass that clasps the sky, the rising sun.
We feel those curling, morning vines, the tender blossoms that she touched, the drops from the watering cans that fall back to us from infinity.

What was it that called her to listen?
To sip in all that suffering?
How did she snuggle in so perfect?
How many times did she bestow the gift of rest,
a shift in the joints rubbed raw with a hate we thought we could not escape?

The places we all ran from, she ran straight into,
into the thunder, into the hail thumping on hearts.
She rode into the dustbowls, straight into our thirst for relief and rain.

Is it any wonder that she feared to stop the care she was so great at raining down?
(like cherry blossoms in a spring wind,
    like confetti from the canons of a broken heart)

She will visit us in the hot summer wind.
She will remind us:
   Our sweat and the tears drop down to feed that ground
that holds our paws and feet,
      clasps in love the roots of all the little wildflowers
that she waited for each spring.

Elayne: I too feared your disintegration.
I too wish the world could count your kindness, carried in your arms like a perfect newborn.

What will we do without the certainty of your gaze upon the most plaintive portrait, the saddest symphony?
Can we reflect that courage in a looking glass, will we know how to step through when the time sighs right?

Nothing is enough to say what I want to say about Elayne.

Perhaps it is best to sit and spin the silence, with strangers finally known.

Perhaps, because she would have wanted it,
for once, I will not feel alone in silence and sadness.
For once, I promise, Elayne, I will try and be
your kind of brave.


—Emily Romano

Bigger Than Us

My friend said her friend didn’t meditate. What she did instead was take to her chaise lounge in the middle of her back yard and watch the stars come out. She would stay until the sky was black and filled with lights. 

You could do worse—all the apparatus of bowing and chanting and counting breaths, of talks about not knowing and ordinary life is the way, all of it set aside and instead there is the night, with stars impossibly far. 


Blankets to your nose on the cold winter nights, warm nights rich with sounds in the trees. And maybe sometimes it’s raining and you’re wet—or you’re so wet you go inside and that’s it for that night.

A sky so much bigger than you, the lights so far they come from before the pharaohs, before the oceans and land, and you are very small and young.

Some people go into the mountains, where the trees stretch down the valleys and nothing stops the eye in all those miles. I have looked down and out at the ocean and seen it go on out of sight.

Mountains are said to heal, and oceans too. Anything can heal, I think, that lets us put down our burden—we are not the maker and sender of the world. We are a small part. It is us, all of us. But we are not so big.

Sometimes when it is all too much I think of the civilizations that have risen and passed. There are still Mayans—farmers and families, though not in their great cities. Our nation will pass too, sooner or much later.

It can get depressing: this too shall pass. But remembering my smallness helps. I think it was Atlas who carried the world on his back. Too big a burden for a man, even a god-man. Better to let oneself be small.


Sarah Webb

At the height

Wind bends 
the grass 

etches 
lines of silver
on green waves 
far below.

Water stretches 
past any end.

Then the step 
down the path
to the car.


—Sarah Webb response to Marie Howe prompt “nothing stays”

What Is Proper When There Are No Others

There are no others
yet still
as I become more blind to balance
I acutely feel the tipping of the scales,
living bedeviled by bending,
looking for the imaginary breadcrumbs
I never laid down.
But gratefully clear
that I do feel delight 
learning that living and loving is kindness,
not aspiring solo indulgence.

Though the inward look just might reveal
some things too much and out of reach 
there remains no lack of vastness for embrace.

Yet still I do wonder: 
how are there astronomical amounts of empty space inside this body?
how can my shadow exist without blood from my veins?
how is death, like cheesecloth, straining out everything with a heartbeat?

Nonetheless I’m feeling bolder
to hazard the guess
that there is living and loving beyond the metaphors.
That perhaps purity and singularity of presence itself
is the simple miracle of an answer.

How sweet to be 
without needing to know 
the whole of the map of the universe
for evidence that you are never lost 
or ever without belonging.

Know this is the place for you
and I am a place where I am you.
 

—© Ed Sancious

Untitled

there are no others
if I get angry with you
just mad at myself


I’m Angry

I suppose I had an epiphany the other day. 
I concluded that I am not destined to become Buddha,
or another Buddha, or even Buddha like.
I still see you and I still see me,
two separate and distinct individuals.
Maybe it’s that “other” part of me that 
won’t let me see us as one,
the animal part of me that won’t
let go of those natural instincts
to protect myself and my loved ones
from the others, from you.
Don’t get me wrong,
I didn’t say it wasn’t worth trying
to be a better human,
but darn it, some people just 
make me mad.
I feel like I should apologize
to the universe, but even Mother Earth
blows a lid on a volcano 
once in a while.
In my defense, I’m going to go with
“it’s only natural.”
And that’s all I’m going to say about it.


—Paul Causey

There is No Other



— Kim Mosley 

Untitled

I am closest to you
when we are in bed,
not talking, not a word between us.
In our silence, just presence,
gently touching—
a shoulder, a back, a thigh.
Sometimes I breathe with you;
together, we are one breath.


—Bruce Linton

I am safe in my body.

My body is a sacred expression of a divine source.
I love and accept my body just as it is.
I am healthy, whole, and complete.
I rejoice in my healthy, beautiful body.
My body is loving and loveable. 
My soul is a reflection of love and light.
I walk confidently in this body that was created just for me. I am safe.
I send love and light to all parts of my body, for they are sacred.
I am safe in my body.
I am safe in my body.
I am safe in my body.
I observe my body and it is good.
I observe my body and it is good.
I observe my body and it is good.
I am so thankful for my body.
I am so grateful for my body.
I love and adore my beautiful body.
I am safe in my body.
In my body, I am safe and secure.
I am divinely protected and guided.
My angels are protecting and guiding me right now. 
I call on my spirit guides, ancestors, angels, and the Universe, 
to help me manifest loving, sincere, and long-lasting connections 
with like-minded individuals on this journey.


—Ivory Smith

Only Happy Lies

I told myself at the beginning of this year
That I would try to write only happy poems.
That is harder to do than it sounds.
But would it be a lie if I said I tried,
But then wrote something sad instead?
Would it be a lie if I said this prompt
Made me happy,
Didn’t take me down a rabbit hole
I didn’t want to go down?
Don’t get me wrong,
I love rabbits, especially the little cottontail ones,
The ones with the cute little noses.
No lies there.

But would it be a lie if I said I’ve never lied?
Ok, don’t answer that. I won’t if you won’t.
It’s not a lie that I don’t like lying,
Especially to myself,
But to stop lying, I have to examine the life I lead,
To reflect on who I think I am.
I must ask myself the tough questions 
and answer them, honestly.

Hello. My name is Paul, and I’m a liar.
It’s been 3 hours and fifteen minutes since my last lie.
But who is counting?


—Paul Causey

Idol

There lives a god within,
my own personal creation.
This is a god tranquil as a river trickle.
Cypress roots and limestone rocks 
along the river banks collect her.

This is a god as sinuous as wind
that glances along skin.
Bare arms, bare legs, bare skin,
wet with sweat,
welcome the parting curtains of heavy heat.

This is a god that burns alone in rage,
as sudden as the lightning’s strike
on dry prairie scalp,
overgrown, praying for a burn,
for the steam of scars,
the green survival that resurrects back.

There is a god inside, 
my history’s creation.
I wish I could atheist her away.
But she is there to stay.
I must restrain, I must care for her,
remind myself
that offerings to her are 
an offering to me and you.


—Emily Romano

Untitled



— Kim Mosley 

Tomorrow is a Yesterday

What fun to find 
that without my fear
or the lies that resistance insures survival,
tomorrow becomes a yesterday  in waiting.

Where time resembles 
 a canine expectation
on windowsill watch - 
a perfect strategy
to stay in puerile fascination.
To know the whole of everything 
with that childlike speculation
of what makes sense in this world.

A world that’s still, when my heart is full. 
A world not needing much in certainty.
Just being quiet enough to hear 
creation in conversation.

And in this world of mine
today is the only thing of value,
not needing trust or hope
but imaginations 
that have just enough wisdom 
to be confidants of the absurd,
to ask to place a window next to everything
as perhaps I'll need to go out and play.


— Ed Sancious

Lessons in Form and Emptiness

Every morning I write poetry, or try,
Not any great literary act,
But something to make sense of this world,
Well, that is not exactly it,
More for me just to be observant.

This small dog, who now lays next to me,
We don't really know where she came from,
But she so appreciates our kindness now,
Laying, resting quietly,
In her bed next to my chair.

A refugee seeking safety
And a place to call home,
Really, that is what we all want, isn't it?

I took refuge in the Buddha,
Had to leave my home to return home,
Now my "practice" is beyond form and emptiness,
 That is my home.

I think this little dog knows better than me,
about that!

I am humbled to be her student.


—Bruce Linton