I Write an Earth that is Dying

I write an earth that is dying.

Dying at our hand; which

makes it murder and not so

much just death.

I write an earth that is dying.

Unable to adapt fast enough

to the changes we are making

and not so much because it is time.

I write an earth that is dying.

Most will never claim their

part in starving her of life

and choking her on greed.

I write an earth that is dying.

And, I am to blame.

The Ice Sculpts Itself

The ice
is slowly sculpting
itself toward the
frozen ground
and piles of
drifted snow.

One drop
at a time.

It reaches for
a home in the warming
rays of the sun;

reaches down,
always down
to the frozen earth
and drifts.

It is a final
flair for the
water before it
disappears beneath
the hidden earth.

It goes below
to become food
and respiration
for the plants -
a home for
countless creatures
of the deep.

But, before it
goes it sculpts itself
for it's own delight.

Ciao!

TJM

image discovered at:

http://wallpaper-s.org/42__Icicles,_Yoho_National_Park_of_Canada,_British_Columbia.htm

Turning for the Essence

There is a turning
that takes place
in the heart;

a turning over of
all that is heard and seen.

The heart looks at both sides -
all sides - of a thing
and feels if it is
right;

if it is true.

Pay closer attention to
this turning than all
you only hear and see;

for it is fuller
and is made up
of more than meets
the eye and ear.

It is more about
that which does
not present itself
at first,

and in those whispers

the essence of a thing
is revealed.

Ciao!

tjm+

Hissing Drops

The ground -

it
is so dry -

you can almost
hear a hissing
as the drops
of rain

touch the face
of the earth.

The heat
comes up
off of the
surface

just about
dissolving
the rain

as it touches down.

Spattering
and hissing,
this rain

is long overdue.

Like the
opening of a flower
you have long
awaited

these drops
of moisture -

emancipating the
world from heat -

clearly open the
heart.

Snowdrops of Spring

Slowly
pushing
their way
up from the mud
up through the
fallen debris
of life

the snow drops bloom

hanging their noble
heads in awe

of the ONE who has
asked them
to bloom
one more season,

once again.

taken by the author - 12 March 2010 - Holy Cross Monastery

A Coldness

I reach down deep in the dirt
and there is a coldness.
Not the coldness of being rude,
but the coldness of rugged surviving.
Surviving against all odds;
surviving in the face of a
fierce and mighty foe.
Thistles grow like this.
Heather grows like this.
In the face of death,
some people grow like this -
grow towards deep
strength and coldness.
Standing on the edge
of the waters
the purple and the mist are
a ways off. They lift
me up and bolster me
from my heart.

Seals and gulls flop
and poke themselves
through the seaweed,
looking for treasures
and for things to do.
They are toughened by this.
They have saved themselves for
life and for death - being able
to play. They have saved themselves
from building bridges, and roads
and nuclear reactors.
They all slip, back into the cold,
surviving against all odds, against
the desire to overdo and subdue.
Against the desire to create monstrous
chaoses that they will become unable
to live without. And soon, unable to live
with. They slip through the golden
weeds, soaked with wet chill cold, and
are gone.

Roots

They start so quietly
here,
slipping from the trunk,
descending into dirt
and mud.
There is barely a whisper
where the roots pull away
from each other,
where the roots pull
away from the trunk
and plunge
into the earth.
I wish I knew how deep
they went;
what they look like
down under
the soil;
what they do there.
But I must tear them up
to find that out. I must
give them over to death.
Some men would,
but I can not.

Until I die,
great hickory brother,
I will wish in the
shadow of your
whispered roots. I
will wish and imagine
and make stories of
your life underground.

Windworn

Those portions of our
lives that disappear.
Folds of flower flesh
turning to paper with
the passage of time.
Those things are the
stuff the wind blows away.

It comes in sometimes,
quickly from its place
beyond the horizon, and
just picks up whatever it
wants. It throws it down
and watches it bounce.
This wind has power. It
can take things from one
place to another. And,
sometimes it makes
things go away.

I think I have felt it carry
away pieces of who I am.

I am alright with that. Some
of those pieces I never did
like. Some of them I will just
plain miss. All in all, I like
the cleansing power of the wind.

Again

I am not sure if it is
because the woods are so vast
that the smallness of awe in
a tiny trout lily blossom is
almost missed. It may just
be that nothing out here -
living in the mountains as
we now do – ever makes much
fanfare about its existence. A
birthing is about as silencing
as a dying – and you could easily
cross paths with either without
setting out to.

But, once you set your eyes on it,
whether it is a bear trail off into
the brush or a blue jay hopping and
pecking bits of broken nuts, the
kaleidoscope of wonder opens up
and you begin to see a thousand,
thousand strands of interest and glory.

How could you have ever lived a day
without having noticed what a bear
smells like and how a jay cocks its
head to the left and to the right –
as if it is hearing the bugs crawl
or the earth cracking underneath it.
But here, in the place that is hiding
the power of infinitesimal beings and
light rapturous cavalcades of life,
when you see a small thing, you see it
in all of its worth. It shouts at
you to notice its depth and character.

Or, maybe it’s just that I have slowed
down a bit and can actually see, again.