This is why the hawk is so beguiling. It is a wild in my domestic life. Amongst all the tidiness and comfort it reminds me that hunt and be hunted is part of who we are.
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Once, the sun was the switch that turned everything on. The sun would rise and light would come upon us. It would find its way to wherever we were…
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The sunrise fills a valley the way I teach my children
to sweep, reaching out as far as you can
We are each the fine end point
of not just one but many lines,
not just two, but four, eight,
sixteen, thirty-two ply and more…
Unhitch yourself from the wagon
that goes only one way
knows only one route
travels the same rutted path
it always has,
Some part of me longs to keep moving, keep busy, keep my mind fully and wholly engaged in the business of life. Another part of me longs for stillness. This part of me quietly insists I stay where I am, wherever I am, and listen.
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Where are your wilds?
What have you tamed
and let others tame in you?
As it turns out, that stack of books is a pretty good representation of what I’ve been up to lately.
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Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
—from Chapter 15, Tao Te Ching
Books I’ve loved, and a couple that so many writers have on their shelf…
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Your words, a candle
on a bare wooden sill,
talisman
against the baying night.
Your vast soul,
that seabed on which
the ocean of you rests,
holds every part of you
I never expected to meet ruru this way, dead. The dark tail feathers were standing up, their fan shifting from side to side in the draught of the passing cars.
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Change comes, sometimes,
like a slow dawn.
You shower, dress, and
make your way downstairs
to find the day has kicked off its boots…
Hang out the sheets
and take off your shoes…
Mist not only obscures, but reveals.
The mountains, that cracked rim of bowl
that holds me, are gone…
How can the world be ending
when there is music on the radio
when somewhere a new life is being born
right now and now and now
On the day of least light,
two cypress trees buffer the dark
and frame the rising sun.
On your own shortest days,
shadows long on the ground…
I’m tired of the promise of more,
and how it always makes me
feel less.
How much can one possibly need?
Hope is there alright
but you have to let it;
you have to let hope
tip the scales…