The Vessel

The old woman sits,
her milky eyes see nought now
but shapes bent out 
by the flames of the fire beside her.

Her bones still strong,
her skin the give away,
made as it is of the sheerest silk
crumpled and dyed in hues of purple and blue.

She can no longer hear the stories
which now fill her belly, her heart:
her mind, though bright, has absorbed
all the cries for attention it can absorb.

So she sits and others gather
While she pours forth her timelessness,
speaking of the love she learned
in a lifetime of heartache and joy.

A strong voice radiates her light, her dark,
valueless and priceless in equal measure.
She is who she is with no apology
and all who hear her rest in that.

In the lav with Charles

I'm spending ten minutes per wee
just to hang out with him,
which is a lot of time
in a person's day.

It's a dirty kind of lust:
one of pleasurable grunts
in hidden dark corners,
subterfuge and coveting.

He either makes the profane sacred
or the sacred profane,
I'm not sure which,
maybe both. But I do know

this dead man reaches
down, into my guts,
dragging my heart with him,
messes around there

makes me moan
oh yes thank you god
for this
and I want more.

Do not give me your heart

I do not want you to give me your heart,
Nor will I give you mine.
The world spins here,
The heart-centre of being,
So you exist in me already,
I in you.

I want you to keep yourself,
As I intend to;
To call yourself home:
No one ever said
You've spread yourself too thick.

We can never know each other
The way we know ourselves
So let's share what that's like:
Tell me the experience of your heart
In this moment and the next,
What makes it laugh and long for,
Weep and sing about.

Oh please God
Do not give your heart
But love it holy,
Wholly for you;
Let mine open and close to you,
As yours will close and open.

Everything lives here:
Let us walk this life alone together,
All one.

Let's share that.

The Truth?

So many thoughts that never become things,
Remain intangible:
Ah, there we are,
It is spirit which has form!
Thought is the abstract!
I wasn't sure before.

There is a feeling one gets
When one recognises truth:
A truth
The truth
Any truth.

There is no 'the' truth:
That becomes a path to follow,
A rule to bellow at your fellow man
In order to maintain a
Something that is not, truly, maintainable.

What is true
Here, now?
For me,
For you?
Can we find shared ground?
Even if it is only in
A moment of recognition
That we each can say
I see you see things
Differently to me,
Laugh at our humanity
That prizes belief
Over this commonality.

Let me go let me go let me go
Says the truth;
Let me go
So you can truly see:
Truth is not opinion or belief,
Truth's only form
Is here and now,
You and me.

Run

Run run run with me!
Let's see the world
Fresh-eyed each day,
Nothing guiding us on our way,
Showing us all that 
Delights.

Can you value a slug and a lion the same?
Compare the magnificence 
Of dolphin and bluebottle?

Then run with me,
Not away but together;
Know that I will never stop:
The wild mare,
Alive with inspiration,
Sleeps in the wind,
Untameable.

So run with her
Through rain, over mountain,
With sun and snow on your face;
Remember to taste
What life is for:
The knowledge of spirit
Through body.

Let's take hands
And run.

There are Old Sayings and New Ages

My heart speaks to me
In curves, pictures, zen.
It does not remember like the mind,
It simply lives.
Open, it touches all it sees;
Closed, it softly restores;
Always in perfect balance,
Though I may not always
Understand it's odd rhythms -
The times it skips a beat
Or runs away with itself.

There are no words
But those of my heart
And it is boundless,
Its armour lighter now
Than years gone by:
Heavy plate turned to
Nimble leather, a second skin
To clothe me when I need it.

When you feel as light as air
Something is needed to
Keep your feet on the ground:
My heart has an untethered nature
Conscious of its many layers,
So throws down anchors 
From time to time.
But it knows to cast off often,
For, unbound,
It can let go of what it loves,
Trust that leaps of faith
Bring untold riches
That all the positive wishing in the world
Can never hope
To manifest.

The Path

We awaken.
Our minds imagine pain enough
To pull us from deep slumber,
To make our bodies wake
To change
A situation no longer tenable.
There is no clarity
Like that post-storm,
When the wild winds
Are behind you now,
When you can emerge
From cool safe depths
To a surface of waves
Which arrive gently
On the lap of the shore.

The rocks over which you scrambled,
The pools through which you waded
Are still there,
Though no one again will tread
The path you made with your two feet.
The almost-distraction of a peaceful lagoon,
The green stone that shone:
Perhaps no other being will see them,
Certainly not the way you did
On that day,
So here we are,
Left with the story of them now.

And here still, the beautiful shell
You collected,
A reminder to hold
What you learned:
That your way was perfect
Because it was yours;
That you could tread carefully and pause
To cause no harm
And also find joy in risk and swiftness,
In the deep, intuitive knowing
Of where you needed to go
To make a life that was your own.