From the Belly of the Whale: Poems of the Male Soul

My latest volume of poems will be out in a few weeks.  It includes Yosemite at Fifty: The John Muir Poems. I am including one of the poems from the John Muir selection.  I am hoping to apply for a Guggenheim Fellowship this summer to work on a collection of poems on conservation and the endangered species of Yosemite.  These is such a need to bring awareness to a deeper level.  We need to feel the suffering of the earth and creation if we are to mobilize and change the way we live.

Reaching Out From the Chest

Everything in my chest

reaches out to bathe itself

in the chestnut colored loam;

strewn all about

with burnt and blackened

pieces of bark and wood.

I mingle with earth and

needles as if I am living from

the basement of my days.

My insides reach toward the

the forest floor that has

been asleep for the winter

of my adult life—building up

warmth and food for my soul

against a hollow detachment.

My wholeness is drawn out by

the heat of an age old woods;

by the heat of everyman’s

journey through these days

of finding a voice—finding

a central home in the me—one

of comfort and uncluttered

belonging to itself.

I find myself relaxed in my own

aging. Coming to myself like

a moist, sunlit bed of needles on

the dirt of thousands upon thousands

of aeons, and winters, flowering blooms

of gentle-life growth.

Cones pepper the view and

thick blankets of retreating snow

withdraw their reach to the bottom

of the hills; uncovering all that has

fallen and died since autumn; all

that is in there—that

I have forgotten until now.

My days have pulled in

a bit lately, retreating back

to the bottom of meaning

and the corrugated layers

of place and thing.

I find pieces of myself

scattered on the floor of my

life, and see wonder in the

ripening of passages

and aimless ambling turns.

The compost of my days is rich

with dank, wet, dark expression;

holding itself against the leaner times.

I have found more life in me

than I knew I had held.

The darkness holds no absence

it only hides the view. Flowers and

blooms for a future glory

lay dormant in the tubers

and roots of all life’s meandering

of imagination and place; of

time and space.

Standing on the remnants

of all that is past,

tenderness rises like the

scent of fresh dirt.

Tilled and open, it awaits

the planting of

the second half of life.

A raven sings this same song

from the other side of this vista.

I can hear it, but he escapes my view

Elijah

Yesterday, a crow

alighted on a branch

half way up the tree

just outside our home.

He sat there for

much of the morning,

cawing from time to time,

expanding his feathers

as I walked near, and

one or two times feigning to

fly away. He did not.

I fed him three hamburgers

and several whole

wheat rolls. He gladly ate them,

and managed off with what he

did not eat there on the spot.

To where I do not know.

Except that it was just over the bluff

of snow on the edge of the forest

of tall pines.

I called him Elijah.

He flew to me at the end of the day,

landing fifteen feet from where I stood.

He mumbled something in crow,

I am sure it was to tell me “thank you” or

that “the meat would have been better raw”,

but, whatever he said, he said it while

bounding toward me one hop

at a time. He left.

He was not there this morning, but two

new crows took the chicken that

I left out for Elijah. They were

skittish, though, jumping into flight

as soon as I left the house. They did

not turn back to offer thanks

or complain about the meal. They

flew in the thick of the pines,

never to be seen again.

The chance encounters we have

with nature call forth something

deep in us. Some primal passion of

being in harmony with the ALL.

I wonder, would these birds

all become my family if

my life took a downward turn and

I lived among the fields and

caves as a wildman or hermit.

We stand on the outer edge of a larger

circle of life than we could ever imagine

only because we have kept its rugged

simplicity at bay for “greater things”.

What does the crow know of digital

communication. Can a bear know of a

downturned market. Have we stretched

the canvas of our lives tightly over

the original painting of unity

and harmony – all for a shadowed

image of what lies hidden beneath.

It comes to us,

many times in a lifetime,

cawing to us to remove

the canvas that covers

our original face.

Most often, we are

headed somewhere else

and do not take the time

to feel its presence already

deep within our core. We move on,

afraid of what our lives would

look like, if we received gifts

from the crows.

Ciao!

tjm+

Early Morning Risings

So much
of the fanfare
and drama in life
is an early
morning rising
of mist on the lake.

Before ascending to
the height of the leaves
it is gone -

mixed and blended
invisibly with the air
all around.

Whisps of moisture,
our lives are subtle
and transitory - coming
and going like the
dried chaff and blades
of grass in the field,
like the icicles and snow-drifts
in the frozen soil.

Watching and
not attaching gives
us the space to see
and open to the
impermanence of the
moment.  Rising,
so much is gone
before the campers
arise from their sleeping.

http://outstanding.wordpress.com/category/topics/water/