I never give up….. I stumble, I fall, I fail, I hurt, I bruise, I bitch, I moan, Sometimes I even scream At the sky…but I never give up …and then I laugh
My whole life has been a struggle in A world determined to drive me crazy. I never surrendered…I will live my life. Early morning walk smiling and nodding At each broken soul I pass acknowledging that The same spark in me is the same spark in them. I buy my friend Andula breakfast At McDonald's knowing that maybe she is Jesus And maybe I am the Buddha and maybe We are all just fools taking care of each other And maybe that's the Kingdom of God and maybe It's right here, right now and we just don't get it.
To sit just after dawn Soft light— Last night’s dreams are gone Lost in things remembered From the day before dreams Deep breath— Is this breath Any different than Dream breath? I hear my soul laugh At the confusion I awake from a dream Into the real world The cup of coffee Is solid but the dream Still talks to me I listen to the dream And sip the real
Father Sun—Sister Moon Dancing in the beauty bright Turning round in beams of light That defy the dark of night Music of the blessed spheres Melodies for those who hear Poetry does what prose tries to do but never quite succeeds because it is always going somewhere. Prose is about from here to there. Poetry forces the mind to stop and look at what is right in front of you. It is not about from here to there but from here to here. Prose runs. Poetry walks.
Pragmatism—I use to think of myself as a liberal but as I got older I found myself realizing that people who call themselves liberal could be just as self-righteous and obnoxious as people who call themselves conservatives. It was all about the “I am right—you are wrong” game which is one of the worst games human beings can play. If you carry it to the extreme, it is OK to kill the people you don’t like. I don’t want to play that game. So what does that make me? A moderate? A centrist? Someone sitting on the fence? So I started to call myself a progressive. That worked for a while but soon I realized that many progressives had not thought through how their ideas would work. So I called myself a practical progressive…too many syllables. I have come to think of myself as a spiritual and political “independent.” My faith and politics are based on values, not creeds or ideologies. I support c...
I pick up a small round stone on the beach I hold it in my hand—it is still wet from the Waves that have washed over it or perhaps Washed it up just as I picked it up and I Wonder about it—where has it been all These years before it met me on this beach I think about its sister stones up in the desert Who haven’t seen an ocean in eons--just Soaking up sun without waves—this blessed Stone has both sun and waves—I raise my arm And toss it back into the waters—Perhaps we Will meet again
When you wake in the morning Sing for the dead Your walk to the coffee maker Is a victory march You are alive—last night people died Sing for the for the fires Sing for the hurricanes And the earthquakes Sing for the violence The floods, the starving Sing for cancer and sing for those Who just said “goodnight” to a world That promised love and took it away In your song the dead will hear And will smile and bless us