For Nikos Kazantzakis

Between the crumbling

clods of earth

slowly creeps

the  marrow of my soul

- moving -

always along the 

lay of dirt

in and over

and among.

Swimming in

its primal bath

it knows as home.

The feet,

the feet they tread on

 

and on and on

the clods - up

in the ardent ascent of

the rugged, rugged mountain 

of the tit of the divine.

When I am on the

dirt and on the climb

I am feeling my me 

as full and strangely whole.

The rougher the clods and

the steeper the climb 

the aliver the feel.

On, push on,

and up.  Always up.

Pandemic II

I found a

leaf today;

sodden full

with rain.

Silently sitting

still on the 

loamy earth -

waiting its turn

to become dirt - 

below the

mountain laurel.

Sodden full;

silently sitting.

A leaf.

Exquisite.

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.

High Rocks

The earth is
held together
up here with
cedar roots,
with hickory roots
and the constant hope
of no rain.

The red-shale soil
loves to wash
itself,
down
to the ravine below
becoming silt for the Tohickon Creek -
the Deer-bone Creek.

The dirt is
made up here
with the slipping
and the sliding of rock;
on rock;
stone against stone
and rain on earth.

The pounding and the force
makes dirt of the stone.

Creeping along in
the fingers of the rain
the dirt is grabbed,
the dirt is pushed
along the roots that cling
tightly to life
and to the vertical growth.

The earth is
held together up here,
by cedar roots,
by hickory roots,
and the constant hope
of no rain.