Poetry for Scientists
-------------------------------- Clockwork 2003 Finely meshed gears in tight fitting grooves lubricated thick. Input: the world. Output: profit. Synchronized mechanical parts; no thinking necessary. Efficient, effective. Metallic synthetic flesh machines; left right, left right. Clockwork. The eyes of the androids speak nothing of a soul. A machine feels only stop--go. Compliance is the sovereignty of a tool, like clockwork. ******* Science Mythos 9/30/04 In the beginning was a big bang. ******* So What? 5/4/04 A chick will forget the egg like a sprout forgets the seed, raindrops forget the cloud, a spring forgets the mountain. Leaves forgetting fall from trees. like feathers from birds molting. We forget the hand and walk. Remembering we breathe, give thanks, and touch the earth. ******* Strike Here 6/30/04 It has a huge underbelly and I can't hold on: the unspeakable name of this moment in time. The wind always shows up with news, the way striking flint leads to fire. There's a dictionary of subtle sounds waiting to be written: the sound of grass underfoot; the full moon in a clear Winter's night. Listen, everything speaks at once. ******* Potato Koan Koan 8/20/03 Mr. Potato Head clouds assemble in the sky. A nose, a moustache drift by: the face he had before he was born. See his one hand clapping?! He Doesn't Push The River That He Is, is his original name. ******* Always Has 11/2/13 "Be here now." You can save them you know, for then. Put them away for another time. Now-banking. You can deposit them into the future. Many in the past have been stashed away for later. Days, weeks sometimes full of present moments gone unnoticed, banked. They slide ahead into another dimension and wait for us. They slip away on the path to someday, vacuumed down a long tube slippery like a fish, until they all pile up. Moving forward takes on a new meaning. Here, then is now. ******* 2003 Birds pecking a seed at a time... We nibble away at moments, the suet of the world. Where are we taking this precious cargo? Do we return with the seeds and fodder of our experience? We relish form and fragrance in time. We return with the bloom of that awareness. ******* 12/8/03 If a fractal can go in and out of the miniscule forever as one pattern... if every atom comes from one basic stuff... if the fruit is in the seed and the seed in the fruit... and every baby is of its Mother's womb... how come our leaders are such strangers? ******* What's the Bzzz 7/18/06 A bee tests the fabric of my chair. Cellular and honeycombed, he likes it. He lies his belly on it and soaks up the facts: the math, the color, the feel. With one antennae to the weave, he probes and dances in circles; excavates, and learns. ******* 1/17/13 The present is the best of the three illusions. ******* Stats 1/20/12 To plot a life out on a number line... zero to?? A start, a stop, a beginning, an end. Life on the X and Y axis. The highs, the lows. Month by month, by year, by moment. How are you stacking up? Making progress? Moving along on an upward climb? What's on your Z ? ******* |
Poems from the Heart
------------------------------- Fortunate Cookie October 12, 2002 What good fortune! You were looking for true love and found divine love instead! ******* April 6, 2002 One by one, tiny birds have carried away fifty pounds of seeds. If they were all put back at once... Life keeps coming out of itself like the center of a flower, the belly of a volcano. Fleeting moments of awareness slip by, one by one. If they all returned at once... ******* Breathing in the circle that's my breath, I become more than the sum of my parts. ******* Do It Yourself June 22, 2002 There's only the creator's grace at the heart of things. No lessons, although we pay attention. No answered prayers. We do it all. All the goodness is ours. We are the champions of love. You can't give your power away, our true currency of exchange. The interior of things is always complete. We build the world. If you want it done right, do it yourself. ******* You'd think with everything speeding up, we'd be getting smarter faster, or getting somewhere sooner. A suitable and worthy evolution goes on inside. You arrive on departure. ******* Benefactor March 16, 2003 When we left the garden we were given a gift for our travels: a going away present: Take this little piece of paradise with you. I'll put it somewhere safe. You know where it is. Can't be lost, harmed or stolen, only drowned out by a million other places. No one but a true benefactor would keep the best far from our meddling, yet closest to our hearts. ******* The Sound of One Flake Falling December 26, 2002 Who would have thought all the worlds could be put down on paper? All described as calculated. given enough time. What do we do once we've understood everything? Documented everything? A snowstorm blows onto this page leaving a paper thin covering that melts into these words. The universe begins and ends with the invisible. So do we. To comprehend one snowflake would be the yield of a lifetime. Everything we need to know could be hidden under one word. ******* Love cycle December 31, 2002 A seed is dying to become a sprout. A sprout is dying to become a plant. A plant is dying to become a fruit. A fruit is dying to become a seed. A heart is dying to become love. Everything gets composted in that garden, till there's nothing left but joy for the bloom. Under that fragrant fertile ground, love is dying to become a heart. ******* January 1, 2003 Knowing we are beggars, why don't we keep our bowls out in plain site? Understanding the value of breath, why aren't we awake every moment? ******* Continuum January 18, 2003 What strange thoughts the heavens. Divine synaptic constellations.; hollographic galactic ideas. When we open our eye's it's this world, this time, these heavens. When we close them, universes appear. ******* Compassionate Remains January 26, 2003 The Buddha never wrote down the word compassion. Mourners would have carried it off to a funeral pyre. Expressing truth, he pointed to the ground. Words written in dirt eventually are ground down, blown away. In a mind, they can be forgotten. He taught by example. The teaching is tactile. ******* We are set in a world of seemingly heartless people to love. ******* The Silver Rule: Let no man gain at the expense of another. The first rule isn't working. ******* |
Observations
------------------------------- The place where there's absolutely nothing is where the answers are kept. ******* When you don't cut the grass there aren't any weeds. ******* Attitude is the Philosopher's Stone. ******* Knock Knock February 10, 1983 The answer that truly satisfies is the response one receives at the open door of love. ******* Grasshopper, the fly of pure reason can't be hit while it sits upon the swatter. ******* Remains February 22, 1984 Under February's sunless sky, in Winter's gray forest, life rests beneath the fallen leaves. In one tree one leaf dances madly, dead and holding on. ******* Birth Hovering, life suckles breath into one. A fire all aglow draws in each to become time. ******* March 9, 1986 Laughter tosses a gaze to the free and open sky.; any lighter than this and they would float away.. But it's a grownups' world. We choose to keep our feet on the ground, while the child slips away. ******* July 21, 2001 Burn your bridges. You wouldn't have crossed the river if you wanted to be on the other side. ******* Sunrise, moonrise, selfrise, onward and upward into fulfillment and gratitude, when love breathes you. ******* January 29, 1982 Your life can be a prayer; the acknowledgement of the reverence of your gratitude. ******* A stream flowing under thin ice... like blood in a vein, we are the living earth. ******* Karma? Feeling good when you've done good. Feeling bad when you've done bad. What of bad outcomes from good deeds? And good outcomes from bad deeds years down the road? Much is out of our control, still we do what we can. Nothing really matters, but everything counts. ******* Romantic love is one of our most highly prized misperceptions. ******* A person is hidden inside a lifetime, and of them we see very little. ******* November 9, 1982 Friends like autumn leaves turn and disappear. Waving goodbye, they transform into Fall colors-- a Winter that follows Spring. *******. July 22, 2001 When you kill a fire, is it murder? When you drown in your own tears, is it considered suicide? ******* If we called birds faeries, wouldn't that just change everything? ******* The De-Mystification of the Earth Child The ocean retrieves itself without hesitation. A beach ball is blown out to sea. Neither the wind nor the current can change that. All this becomes mysterious only when I write it down. ******* Bridge January 1988 Life is prayed into existence; devotions that utter universes. Galaxies of stars and planets are spoken as ultimate truths. Blessings light up a million suns. Shh...that murmur you hear... frees the soul. The world records the divine desires, captures the essence and opens. Mountains echo holy sounds. Life, this prayer, our blessing grows ever greater when we acknowledge something, anything, in love. ******* |