Category: Writing

Quiet Gentleness

On By MiCoIn Buddhism Meditation space, changes, dreams, god, Joy, light, love, poetry, poetry changes, Writing, Zen5 Comments

 There is a smoothness to the

Texture of ordinary days.

Ease and effort are the same,

Quiet gentleness and holy light.

Each object flowing effortlessly

Into every other object yet each

Remaining what they are .

“Water takes the shape of the vessel that contains it,

Yet has no shape of its own” (Mooji)

What is my place in this quiet?

I am the water outside of the vessel,

The space the wind occupies between the trees,

The pause between the breaths.

I observe he smoothness of ordinary days and

feel the light that exists at the center of the flower.

And know that  he and I have become one.

(Poem #3 of the April Poetry Month’s 30 poems in 30 day challenge)

The Stones Will Remember

On By MiCoIn changes, childhood, courage, dreams, earth, faith, growing, hope, Joy, light, love, Man, nature, past times, peace, poetry, seasons, sweetness, Uncategorized, Woman, Writing13 Comments

Evening shadows shift

Through broken windows.

 

Chimney bricks slide down the roof

Puddleing under the lilac bush.

 

Weeds spread into the driveway

Reclaiming it for themselves.

 

When was this house built?

Was it ever new?

 

The yard and doorframes bear witness

To the families who grew here.

 

Long forgotten toys and broken swings

Hide beneath the matted field grass.

 

A broken clothesline flaps in the gray autumn breeze and

Sprung clothespins mold and rot into the ground beneath the broken posts.

 

Feral cats are now the only life that calls this old farm home,

And birdsong still fills the rafters of the barn.

 

The barn that once held livestock

Sits shifted on its foundation,

 

Listing and leaning to the south,

Away from winter’s fierce winds.

 

The stately oak gracing the front yard is rotten and broken,

Its fingers through the house roof.

 

Where did they go, the people

Who called this place home?

 

When the last one left,

Why didn’t they clean out the house?

 

Why not take the toys?

Close the windows? Lock the doors?

 

Did they not know they were

Never coming back?

 

The windmill out back has long ago

Crashed into the apple orchard,

 

Breaking in to pieces as it fell

and crushing the trees it had stood watch over all these years.

 

But in man’s absence

The apple trees continue to produce.

 

The lilac bushes flower every spring in spite of

Not being “cared for” in over 40 years.

 

The forest is slowing creeping back in to fill the void

Left when the field was abandoned.

 

All that remains of the people who once called this spot of land home

Is the family graveyard,

 

Where stones are carved with love and care,

Preserving for all time the names and dates of those whose lives began and ended here.

 

But the lilacs don’t care about being preserved,

The Oak is beyond pride and the buildings are slowly returning to the soil,

 

Just like the bodies beneath the stones.

Another 40 years and the stones will be all that remains.

 

They will be all that is left to tell the story

Of a time gone by.

 

The story of a house built to last a lifetime, a barn crafted with pride,

The story of generations of a family who lived, worked and died on this land.

 

A story only the stones will remember.

It Waits

On By MiCoIn courage, dreams, earth, faith, god, growing, hope, Joy, light, love, love poetry, Man, nature, peace, poetry, poetry changes, spirit, sweetness, symphony, Uncategorized, Woman, Writing3 Comments

It waits with patience hands

Outside our knowing, waiting to be let in.

Its story is always the same,

Its truth dependable but not always what we want to hear.

There is no hypocrisy, no deceit in its soul.

It is the soul that fills the void, that encompasses the eternal.

It exists in rhythms of time, tides of dependability,

Cycles of freedom and seasons of hope.

It can be ignored, but never escaped and so it waits,

In beauty and joy, in bliss and acceptance, in love and peace,

For us to wake up and realize it is but a mirror of ourselves,

The face of our existence, the light in our souls,

The essence of our being

Before we were born.

Into Blackness

On By MiCoIn courage, dance, darkness, Death, dreams, love, love poetry, Man, nature, pain, poetry, poetry changes, sadness, spirit, suffereing, Uncategorized, Woman, Writing3 Comments

I made too much of it,

More than it was.

But not at all what I 

Wanted it to be.

Yet I continued, wanting,

Wishing, and hoping and for what?

For another night?  It was just a one night

At a time love.

It feels unreal now,

 a waste of me, of my soul and heart.

And now begins the slow fade into blackness and silence, just like all the others, as

My soul bleeds and my heart beat stops and

My eyes, still in their blindness, wish it were not so.

A Play of Stillness

On By MiCoIn changes, courage, darkness, faith, fear, god, hope, Joy, light, love, love poetry, Man, nature, peace, poetry, poetry changes, seasons, spirit, sweetness, Uncategorized, Woman, Writing, Zen5 Comments

 

I sit on the stage.

Darkness surrounds me.

The audience, if there is one,

Is silent.

There are no props on the stage

Only layers of black curtains.

I don’t remember auditioning for a play,

But here I am.

It’s odd there is no music or

Other players.

I sit in my darkness for what seems like forever

But there is still no sound, no movement, no life.

Just stillness and a mild sense of confusion.

I feel the space in front of me more than see it.

I sense it is there, curtains in a circular shape

A boundary perhaps but between what and where?

The other side is unknown and unknowable

Until the show begins.

But will it begin?  Still no script or players,

No music or lights.

I run my hand through my hair to prove to myself that

I am still real in this sensory deprived place.

But what is real about an empty stage, a wordless play,

A playerless story?

I begin to realize that

None of those things matter.

All is stillness and non-separate.

The “show” never begins and never ends.

The circular curtain and empty stage contain eternity

And this space is an empty place within me.

There will be no play, no script,

No lights, no audience.

This story is mine, the darkness my stillness,

The only witness, me.

Just me as part of the universal consciousness

Acting out a play of well-rehearsed lines without ever saying a word.

Each player a part of the whole

Never separate from the others.

All joined in the cosmic drama

Of existence.

The curtain rises on one story, one actor, one consciousness

In an act that never ends.

Storm Dance

On By MiCoIn courage, dance, dreams, faith, hope, light, love, Man, nature, peace, poetry, seasons, spirit, Uncategorized, Woman, Writing, Zen2 Comments

 Coastal dunes slide and slip into the sea

As the storm rolls on to the north.

Gulls scurry to grab unfortunate crabs washed ashore by the crashing waves.

Seaweed floats and ripples with the waves like grass in the wind and

Salty sea spray coats the disinterested windows of empty houses on the shore.

The tourists have all left for the season

Leaving the ocean and beach to carry on with their lover’s dance

Un-witnessed and unashamed, with freedom and reckless abandon.    

Just Look

On By MiCoIn candles, changes, dance, dreams, god, hope, Joy, light, love, love lost, love poetry, Man, nature, peace, poetry, poetry changes, seasons, Uncategorized, Woman, Writing5 Comments

I saw the stars last night,

Didn’t even have to get out of bed.

They were so bright in the cold, dense,winter air

That they shown right through my lacy bedroom curtains.

I saw it as a reminder of what is still there and always will be,

And to find it yet again,

We just have to look through the holes one more time.

The love and stillness of forever.

On By MiCoIn dreams, hope, light, love, love lost, love poetry, poetry, poetry changes, sweetness, Uncategorized, Writing, Zen6 Comments

 

Our destiny is love,

In its form of being and nonbeing.

It flows from the source,

From the beginnings of timelessness.

From the place of no time or deception as time is limiting and

Deception is the extinguisher of love.

Loves lies around the edges of our worldly existence,

Waiting for its chance, for an opening to flow in.

It is patient and forgiving but is not to

Be taken for a fool.

Love cries with agony watching our abuse of and unkindness towards each other

But it will never walk away or give up on us.

It sees and is the stillness in me and

Recognizes itself in you and all beings and nonbeings.

There is a lack of labeling in love, no separateness of one from the other.

It does not merely exist in some abstract form as it has no form and is alive in the stillness of all things.

Love seeps into existence in fragrant vapors of stillness and

Frames the portal to eternity.

Isness and non-duality are the very essence of love, the connection of being and nonbeing,

The beginning and the end, the beginingless and endless formlessness of all form.

Love is the essential formlessness of me and you and

The non-separate nature of us all.

So  forget my name but remember when you and I were the formless within each other.

And when you again feel that deep stillness  and

Have found your remembered place in me,

Come and hold  me and once again we will share 

The love and stillness of forever.

Missing Words

On By MiCoIn poetry, Writing3 Comments

I think the words are on strike, they are not working…

They have left me, again.

Are they all on vacation? Or maybe just sleeping in…

They hide beneath my bed and try to trip me when I get up.

I hear their giggles under there

But they are too fast, I can’t catch them!

They refuse to come out and play but stick their little feet out from under the door

Just to tease me!

I caught a glimpse of them outside early this morning,

Sneakily running through the garden heading for the woods…

Those little rascals, I’ll have to take a walk to the brook later

 And round them up and put them back to work.

They can’t hide from me forever, although sometimes it seems like they can…

Silly words.