May We Exist

How often do we see?

How often do we see ourselves?

How often are selves inclined to be seen? 

Is certainty only face to face?

The body tries to say all, 

yet it barely offers what it can.

Wholeness, by design, 

hinges on the lyrics of the heart.

Syncing breath with being.

Embracing ancestors in the blood.

We are birthed inert, yet bonded,

by ordinary miracles 

and manageable necessities.

Being human – being perfectly imperfect.

Being mindful,

learning there is that watershed moment

which is a drop, 

which is a stream, 

which is the wave

that washes away illusion

that without the mud

there will be a lotus.

—ed sancious

Christmas Cactus

I left you alone.

Two weeks without water.

When I came back I thought your limbs drooped heavy 

because: flowers.

Some already sticky, rotted fruit, 

others waiting to burst forth into the sun.

I considered giving you away, as easily as you’d been given to me.

You are a cactus, you don’t need water.

If your withered greens fall off in places it’s because you are a cactus.

You don’t need water.

You don’t need love.

You don’t need attention.

Alone at home, I doused you in a bath of tap,

set you outside 

to listen to the insects hum

to feel the warmth of the day’s last rays of sun. 

When chill descended, I brought you in, 

considered dinner:

lion’s mane mushroom rips, garlic smashed, asparagus singed.

When it was done, I turned to find your limbs raised up.

It was probably just a little bit.

But you looked a ballerina, revived and ready to dance

Forgive me, little teacher.

I didn’t love you, I didn’t tend to you.

But you still did the work of bursting forth with flowers.

Forgive how quick I dismiss. 

Forgive how little I look around 

to catch your beauty, most profound.

—Emily Romano

Blue Sky

a blue sky

stretching out before us

wisps of clouds

along the distant horizon

Mt. Tam in the background

my Mt Fuji

the Golden gate bridge

magnificently across the Bay 

my little dog Noodle

sits close and shivers 

together we look from

our mountain bench 

inspired by the panorama 

Noodle frightened

by the vastness    

—Bruce Linton

while the world was on fire

while the world was on fire   

I watched carefully 

as the low sugar 

strawberry jam 

spread across the 

thinly sliced  

sourdough batard bread, 

the smell of the

the Arabian coffee 

was intoxicating,  

our small dog "Noodle" 

chewed on her bone relentlessly,  

Carolyn did her concert in C Minor 

as she unloaded the dishwasher,

our bird clock chimed 10am with the Owl hooting, 

the rain had stopped

outside our open door to the garden 

Japanese maples rested for winter

—Bruce Linton

Waiting

Salvation requires so little says Carol Hamilton, praising an old Inuit woman who sat out a blizzard under the snow. The storm raged but the woman didn’t rage. She would live or she would die. She waited to see. When the storm eased, she broke out into sunlight. Neither lost nor found, she made her way home.

I admire such calm, the giving way—to the elements, to what is needed. Sometimes that quiet comes to me—to any of us—the car sliding across black ice, the crash, and that silence in which we wait to hear

is this life, or is it death? And they seem strangely the same.

Other times I try not to thrash about. I clutch, drowning, hour after hour, not for life or safety but for something firm beneath my feet. A teacher of sorts, a man with problems of his own—like all of us— once sang a scrap of song to me. The words are mostly lost, but I hear the line that mattered. Cause I’m already standing on the ground.

Something beneath my feet—the calm itself, resting in it. No matter what, it will be well.

—Sarah Webb

The Wild Red Cry

“…when you hear out of the same twilight the wildest red outcry.” from You are Standing at the Edge of the Woods by Mary Oliver 

While the darkness is a friend,

there are times when it harbors things I do not trust.

The wild red cry is not a stranger

to the ears but it is the harbinger of death 

and of whom we do not know.

In the darkness,

we are blind to the habits of the wild,

yet they are always there.

We are blind to the story

that unfolds without the light of day.

So, we extrapolate from what we know

into what we do not and believe that it is the truth.

There is a finality in that scream.

Is it yours? Or is it ours?

Humanity is estranged from the woods

and has been for millennia.

We do not know where the wild red cry originated,

but we have come to know it,

to savor the taste of the blood that it embodies.

It appears that we cannot get enough

and like the predator in the dark of night,

we hunt for it in the differences between us.

Once, there were animals to be feared

Whether by day or night,

but now humans top that list.

No wonder the other animals shun us, fear us.

No wonder the world is slowly dying.

We are standing at the edge of the woods

wondering when the wild red cry 

will be heard again, not if, but when,

and whose cry will it be?

—Paul Causey

At the Edge of the Woods, Unable to Say It

1.

Indifferent, cold

the working of law.

Or, filled with light

mild, blinding.

Here in the trees

we leave a little of who we are.

In them I don’t stand as tall.

The pines stretch above

and the cliffs.

Water widens. 

Wind slants it with gray,

with lines that trail.

Life is in it

and death.

Cold pierces, teeth tear,

all in that vivid light.

2.

A wind crosses the trees

and all are murmuring.

A fire comes 

and all are burning.

Not this tree’s branches, that tree’s branches,

but a raising and lowering.

One moment a single trunk,

a fistful of needles

alone in its grieving, in its dying.

The next, a green

that spreads along the mountains.

Morning 

and then night.

3.

alternation:

caught in edges

mourning, loving, fighting

a trembling of water

—Sarah Webb

In Response to Saigyo: A Prayer

 “let me not spend my life 

                lamenting the world’s sorrows

for above

in the wide sky

the moon shines pure.” Saigyo

Flying is such a joyful thing,

I can’t do it when I’m sad, or angry,

or even when I’m asleep

and don’t feel anything at all.

Which is most of the time really.

You need joy in order to fly.

So please “let me not spend my life

lamenting the world’s sorrows

because being able to fly is such a rare

and beautiful thing.

I’m afraid by lamenting, 

I wouldn’t be able to recognize joy 

when it found me,

and I would miss that terribly.

So please, let me be joyful

let me fly to that beautiful, pure moon

Shining in that vast, wide sky.

Please, let me fly.

—Paul Causey

Ghazal for Gaza

Since all the walls shattered, since they bombed this land,

where will you sleep now, where will you wash, what is your home?

Will you sit in the rubble that once was a street, will you wrap your shawls tighter,

bubble chickpeas in sauce, use bed frames for firewood, is this now your home?

The palm trees still standing, that sway in the rain, the sound of the ocean,

the water that rains in buckets for drinking, is this now your home?

The songs children sing, the clapping adults, the purring of cats,

the siren, the bullet, the beating from soldiers, is all this your home?

I have a house with four walls, that I wish was more infinite,

so I could invite you to rest, to drink water and bathe, and say this is your home.

These words I write may be left on a page, or a screen, in love and in rage.

If you read them and cry, if you read them and smile, say this is your home.

Prayers to Allah, prayers to Jesus, prayers to people, deaf to your calling,

in silence, in speaking, outside in snow, inside in your heart, is this all your home?

I ask of the universe, please, cleave compassion, in dark hearts of men.

Tell them the air that we breathe, the light that we share, this is our home.

—Sol Frye

Gravity

There aren’t many problems

That can’t be solved 

By going out and sitting

Beneath a tree

While reality drops

On your head like an apple.

Perhaps nothing would happen,

But sometimes it takes a while

To understand

That there is something much larger,

Much more important

Than apples simply falling.

—Paul Causey

Skateboard Mishap

I thought he'd be all right on a skateboard. I was wrong.

 — Kim Mosley 

Three Views of Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma 1

Bodhidharma 2

Bodhidharma 3

—Bruce Linton, MFT, Ph.D. 

Tsunamis and Years

Tsunamis and years

refuse negotiations.

No change in habits.

— Ed Sancious