I shook the gossamer web of our connection
Gently as a feather lands.
Despite my efforts, you heard a roar
Louder than thunder
And felt the percussive tremors
Of a violent quake.
I do not know how to communicate with you.
My words fall into a well of silence.
I hear no echo, no return, and have no way
To gauge their impact.
For your sake and for mine,
I will no longer navigate this darkened terrain.
You have no more need for these invisible walls.
I wish you all happiness.
Do the trees laugh
To see their brightly hued leaves
Swirl on the wind
Then fall to form a glorious colorful carpet?
Do they mourn the loss
Of their seasonal raiment
That partially cloaks them
From over-curious prying stares?
Perhaps, like us, their response
Can be both or mixed or changeable.
I don’t understand the ways of humans.
I would never dare to presume with trees.
Thank you.
Your words run quicksilver
Over my patched places.
I am shattered anew.
But now the light flows through,
And I laugh to see this.
The cracks of all my imperfections
Are not flaws,
Nor am I merely broken.
I am that, yes, but also and at the same time,
Gloriously whole just as I am.
As are we all.
I strike the bowl.
The moon appears.
A chant drones.
The floor trembles.
Another strike.
Time fissures.
There is a brief smell of incense.
All disappears.
The rains have arrived,
Remnants of the hurricane.
If I go outside and lift my face,
Will I taste the salt tang of gulf waters,
Hear the faint sound of Parlez Nous A Boire drift on the wind,
Catch the tantalizing scent of my father’s gumbo?
Or will I find the salt of tears cried by all who’ve lost,
Hear the shriek of a roof as it is torn away,
And smell the smoke from fires that cannot be quenched?
Nostalgia is easy for me,
For I am in the mountains and far from this devastation.
I am geographically lucky at the moment.
steam rises from the cup. consider these things
the cup shatters and the world explodes
celadon shards and tea float in the midst of primal debris.
chaos and noise and confusion
breathe, and then:
sit in silence,
sipping the usual cup of tea.
I rose before dawn in the late summer.
I sat on the porch outside my room.
The air was still and redolent with the salty musky scent of the bayou.
The bull frogs were still croaking from the night,
The crickets were chirping,
And a few birds had begun their morning calls.
I drank my usual Gunpowder Green in a hand-thrown mug
And realized I must make a trip to New Orleans soon.
I needed more tea.
How to delineate a life lived?
Let us use not temporal posts of days or years
But limn the finer measure
Of love given and received
Of kindness extended with a free hand
Of compassion shown in minute and larger ways
Of laughter shared with those around.
Choose to see joy
And continue to delight in our communal dance.
Early morning, a liminal time,
When the tenebrific skies seem poised
On some obscure threshold.
The air is quiet;
No birds yet sing to herald the day;
No wind or rain disturbs the transitory stillness.
The moment awaits any assignation of meaning.
For a brief few breaths,
The world is simply as it is.