Tag Archives: Survival

Permission to Be Happy

18 Sunday Jan 2026

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Yes, the world is falling apart,

But for now, here, in this space,

It is quiet with music and candle:

Notturno No 3: Dreams of love,

Mixed with sandalwood and vanilla,

A fire crackling sweet brick-sound.

Last night, we strolled the city

Attended the symphony,

Before that, we walked forest paths,

Alive with the greenest moss-ways,

Fronds of pine, marked our path

Along the sweet, swollen river.

I found the crows there,

The ones who have disappeared

From our quiet winter sky.

They spoke our arrival to the trees,

Their cries echoing generations.

Yes, the world is chaos, but here

We do not need to know it.

Not now. Not later in this day.

I have permission from the universe

You see, to be happy anyway.

What Comes In Fog

15 Thursday Jan 2026

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Their burdens

are heavy,

and come

clickity-clicking

like train-sound

on a still day.

There is a sun

the world blots out.

We search the fog

for answers,

trace blurred lines

of distant trees,

search memory

for a map pin

of where

we want to be.

If I told you

to shine anyway,

could you?

Even the atoms

call out for help;

sometimes,

they whisper,

more often,

they shout.

Yes, the fog

is thick again,

but it is lifting.

Song of Namaste

12 Monday Jan 2026

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I honor the light in you. I honor the light in myself.

A song of sun, released,

Twinkling off snow–

When we die, will we cease

To sing, or will there be a place

Where there is only music?

I lift the flute to my lips

And think of the fallen man, once,

Who played his songs, broken.

I thought them lovelier

Than he’d sung before, chords

Played for a small audience

Of those willing to listen.

Sing me a song of salvation,

And I will breathe you back

A tune only angels can hear.

Namaste, namaste,

Let fallen angels find their way

Back to light, in broken songs.

I Am the Mountain

11 Sunday Jan 2026

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The mountain stands alone,

Unmoved by wind, or snow,

And I stand, arms raised,

In the distant below,

Saying, I am the Mountain.

And whether that’s true,

Or not, I have found it

Today, in this mantra,

And, at least for the moment,

It is my mind’s goal.

I think of all the past ways

People have moved me,

No more, no more,

I am the mountain.

The Geranium

06 Tuesday Jan 2026

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I lit that house up like fire,

With stringed lights,

So that everyone who drove by

Had to look in.

It was a long time ago,

And before it was popular.

Year round lights, as if to say,

What happens here is a delightful mystery.

Once upon a time,

A man bought a house next door.

He was from Portland,

And thought the lights

Would make a good neighbor.

(He told me so later.)

Many years have passed,

And now I’m looking back,

Beneath the lights,

Wondering about the belief

That strung them, tree from tree,

That lit the fire in the chimenea,

And laughed into the late hours

With old neighbors, drawn to light,

Like a lone windowsill geranium

In a colorless city,

Eventually fallen from its perch,

Broken, shattered clay of pot,

Roots reaching for a smattering of air.

Barn Cats

05 Monday Jan 2026

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The mice are hibernating

And so are the boys.

No birds to catch,

And the lull of winter,

A snatch of dreams,

Days end fast.

Do they look forward,

Like we do?

Twelfth day, twelfth night,

A turning light of anticipation,

A transition to being awake,

Awakened roots of trees,

Preparing for spring,

The return to living.

Yet, for the barn cats,

A return to killing.

Finding the Sun

04 Sunday Jan 2026

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It is a dark night

And fog has settled

As if to say no

To every question

the solitude

of not being able to see

What will happen

Or if you’ll survive

What is about to come

This is the time to remember

Who you are

How you got here

Why you came all this way

Down the broken road

Even if you didn’t know

Life, like the fog

Never seeing too far

Sight is an illusion

One more step

Keep stepping

Eventually, you find sun

I Was Wrong

02 Friday Jan 2026

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I thought she was like me,

The practicer of goodbyes,

The mover on’er

The cutter of moldering ties.

I was wrong.

Had I known how long

She’d still be broken,

Would I have broken, too,

What remaining pieces in me

Were still able to be broken:

Lost shards, tossed about,

On the floor of my soul.

Some things are too hard to see,

They must come slowly,

Like our failure to answer,

Unanswered prayers,

Or to stop the cruel rendering

Of her chronically tender heart.

A New Year And New Door

30 Tuesday Dec 2025

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A New Year, or so they say,

A new start, the passing of one day,

Which allows us to close a door.

I am thinking of who I want to be,

If believing a clean slate can set one free.

What didn’t serve well in 2025?

Or, didn’t serve my entire life?

And how does one change the habits

Of who we are, even bad,

The hobgoblins of our past,

Which lead to regrets, sadness.

What is it blocking joy;

What foils our better self,

Cedes territory to the evil elves

Sent to destroy happiness?

If age, and wisdom, could be a shield,

And we’d yield no more to influences,

What could rebirth truly be?

I’m asking you to envision

What I cannot see. Or, haven’t seen,

A shiny new door, clearly marked ‘free.’

Traditions

28 Sunday Dec 2025

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The traditions remain:

An old family tree,

The making

Of Gingerbread houses,

Wreaths, and lights,

A Christmas fondue–

And I ask,

Will they get me through this?

On the other side of the shadows,

Is my shadow,

I take that by faith, too.

He said, I can’t find my purpose.

I wondered out loud,

Is there a purpose?

Besides surviving, that is.

And the smaller things we cling to,

Making them bigger things–

An outsized portion of our existence

Is in the minutes, winding down.

To wallow in the shadows

Is, perhaps, a luxury.

It comes to this:

At first, we know everything,

Then, nothing,

And at last,

We are okay

With our lack.

Introduction

26 Sunday Oct 2025

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What is love,

But an unanswered question?

I do love the way

You listened to that note—

It hung in our mutual air

A moment we shared.

As if a matter of life

And death

Because it was that matter

Which consumed us.

And then gone.

I do love the way

You go

Missing.

——

I know love comes broken,

But it took breaking

To teach me.

——

Perhaps, my first love was longing.

And in that desperate hope

Came everything.

—-

And then there was love.

—

And then there was loneliness.

—

And then there was complete despair.

—

And then there was you.

—

Still breaking me.

Because such intensity can only consume.

Thirst and drink, but the glass is always leaking.

Reach and reach, but the hands seem empty.

—

And then there were your arms.

—

And then there was loneliness.

—

My time is winding down to tell you

About being human.

Such a world!

Born into a desperate flesh

And nascent blood.

Will we learn too late

How precious it was to suffer?

—

I would like to introduce myself:

Even as I mourn myself.

Confessions

27 Friday Jun 2025

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Would you like to hear a secret,

No obfuscation, no vagary,

A secret, that cuts so deep

It wounds you,

It unwinds you,

Because it is you,

But you want to know,

Yes, know,

It is also in me,

That we carry it together,

In shame, and in sorrow, sure–

But let’s be honest,

There is also pride–

I mean,

We have done what we had to do,

You and me,

Have we not,

And what blame is there

In surviving?

Somewhere In Saguaro

10 Sunday Nov 2024

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I thought, If all paths lead to God,

why should I care

about a right, or wrong, path?

I picked up a stone

and carried it four miles

through the desert to lay it down

at the broken, stone house.

But I took a wrong path, and laid it down

in an unmarked ravine, instead.