Category: Poetry

Dirt-Worshipping Tree-Hugger

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

Every day, priests minutely examine the Dharma

And endlessly change complicated sutras.

Before doing that, though, they should learn how to read the love letters

     sent by the wind and the rain, the snow and the moon.

                                                               — Ikkyu

You may freely replace priests with ministers, rabbis, imams, gurus, or televangelists.

You may freely replace Dharma with Bible, Torah, Koran, or Bhagavad Gita.

You may freely replace sutras with commandments, verses, visions, prophesies, judgements or any other claim to know the mind and will of the universe.

Or you may just replace all the words ever known with those love letters from nature and be at peace.

Meditation on a Rose

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

I watch you.

So long that I forget about time.

So intently that I forget about space.

I watch you until I forget what you are called.

 

Eventually, I am no longer watching you.  

A watcher is separate, and I have become

the suede of your petals,

the sinew of your stalk,

the sting of your thorn,

the essence of your fragrance,

the photosynthesis of your leaves.

 

For a moment longer than time and

smaller than a split atom

you and I are one.

Seven Seconds of Stunned Silence

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

It’s a timeless moment,

a sharp intake of knowing, a breath of awareness.

The final word comes, either heard or read,

and with it the resolution of a thought

which resonates at a tone too deep for humans to hear –                                             

maybe heard only by sperm whales –

but which we can feel, and which we know rings

a truth truer than the truth known before.

 

My eyes linger at the white space

on the page after the final period –

Or I sit in the quiet after Garrison’s voice

falls away into broadcast silence. 

I stay in that silence.

I stay for a timeless moment,

seven seconds of stunned silence,

in that place where poetry lives.