Marginal

This is where I live,
at the edge of this ploughed field
where sunlight catches meadow grasses
and turns them silver-yellow....

I prefer it here, at the line
where the forest intersects
the field, where deer and groundhog
move back and forth to feed
and hide. On these juts and outcroppings
I can look both ways, moving
As that crow does, all gracelessness
and sway....

This life is not easy,
but wings mix up with leaves there,
like the moment when surf turns into

The strange path

I am quite confident that even as the oceans boil, and the hurricanes beat violently against our once safe shores, and the air sweats with the heat of impending doom...that there is a path to take that has nothing to do with victory or defeat: a place we do not yet know the coordinates to; a question we do not yet know how to ask. The point of the departed arrow is not merely to pierce the bullseye and carry the trophy: the point of the arrow is to sing the wind and remake the world in the brevity of flight. ...

It is not too late to love

In times like these, many things become too late...It will be too late to save this coastline or that ecosystem, this city or that species, this democracy or that economy. But it is not too late to love, and it never will be. Love will count, no matter what. Even on the last day of the world.

Fluent in the manners and ways of soul

We have entered a time of descent that takes us down into a different geography. In this shadowed terrain, we encounter a landscape familiar to soul—loss, grief, death, vulnerability, and fear...This is not a time of rising and growth. It is not a time of confidence and ease. No. We are hunkered down. Down being the operative word. From the perspective of soul, down is holy ground...

How can we meet these unpredictable times with any sense of presence and faith?

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...Give your approval to all you cannot understand...Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. ...Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts...Practice resurrection.

Walking you make the road

Walker, your footsteps
are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road,
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea.

Sowing Seeds

An expression of faith
In life Herself
Is to sow seeds into dark soil
Not knowing what awaits.
Returning to the patience
Reverence
Grace
Humility
Practiced by our ancestors...
Reminding me to wake up amidst the confusion
To do what must be done to feed the children.
To tuck vibrant seeds into fertile soil
And patiently tend the garden,...
The garden that our ancestors left for us is beautiful.
May we water it well with our tears and our laughter, our stories, and our songs.

And All I've Got Is a Love Poem

How rare and beautiful it is that we exist. What if we stun existence one more time?... The earth remembers everything, our bodies are the color of the earth and we are nobodies. Been born from so many apocalypses, what's one more? Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire. But for what it's worth, I'd do this again. Gamble on humanity one hundred times over. Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them. I'd follow love into extinction.

Love springs from awareness

Love is frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love. Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them.

Pages