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.

This Mountain

Standing
on this mountain -
the one firmly rooted
underneath my feet -

I lose myself
to feelings
of smallness
and infinitesimal
focus on
the singularity
of my tiny place
in this cosmos.

One small grain
of sand in a universe
of billions and billions
of galaxies.

And yet,
I still cry out,
into the vast
openness of
all that is;

and know
that I am heard.

This standing,
this smallness,
and this being heard

sets my heart
afire. I am burning -
burning on this hill -
with the forces
of the ONE
who built these
caverns with

the thought
of His breath.

There has never
been another.