The Comfort in Connecting
One to Another
obliviating for a moment
immanent loneliness
one that never really goes away
rather stands for you at the Ready
Remains waiting
after Love’s
laughs and fears
*
Keeps us Longing
until we hear
in our Patter
the Breath
we draw
from an identical
Life Source
*
Atoms to Atoms
the Rumi in Us
*
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
To All My Sisters
Smooth Roundness
such Bells of Flesh
calling to Feed
both body and soul
Ring out in their Sensuous
appeal for tenderness
These bells, Embodiment
of how we nurture Life into Being
and Being into Humanity,
these fine bells
tense and loud at first
then longer
more Sonorous with Time,
extensions of our heart’s Fiber
like limbs of deeper giving
*
To sever these bells
is to remove our outward
manifestation
as Life Givers
it comes at great sacrifice
endows us, yes,
with a profounder grasp
of our responsibility
as Thrones of Life,
still
Bereavement
arises first
*
Art Work By Yaron Rosner
The Sun’s Power
Recedes
my body contracts
Wise to the oncoming Chill
*
Birds Gather
the Smell of thirsty leaves
books and classroom doors
the Sound of Bells,
distant Now
*
One more year
One more groove
in my palm
many more grey filaments
Connecting me Forward
And Back
to so much Time
Walking this Earth
Be it Half a blink
In the Span of this Spinning planet
All the same,
Crickets
Mindlessly pursue their rubbing
Now to keep Warm
until overpowered,
they Drop
*
Photograph by Nick Zungoli
*
When you Leave
we enter a state
of Suspension,
lasts the length
of your Absence
*
waiting
we Sway
in the wake
of your Departure
whisper one to another
in a crescendo of utterances,
fall quiet on hearing your name
*
warmth of three hearts
Beating
three souls
Echoing
through the current
of each beat
*
deftly
we summon Patience
as we Float
in our Limbo
awaiting your Return
*
The Moment the world
as you know it
Shifts
Slips onto a parallel path
oddly Arduous
yet so Enriched
teaches the intense
Fulfillment of Perseverance
at the heart of adversity
And if Chosen
Humility
in the face
of ever-changing
Constancy
Revealing
our infinitesimal place
in Life’s Design
The Challenge
Of Being
Here, Now
So close And so far
*
stepping onto the dojang floor
*
The Moment of Agency
*
Scatter me
you said
to the Four Winds
that I might fly
at last
deepest wish
and strongest fear
you said
that I may mingle
in laughter, tears
words of truth
and foolishness
you said
that I might visit
close and far
wide and near
simultaneously
with different particles
of my Self
you said
that in Death
I be what I was in Life
a lingering Flame
at once important
and
insignificant
I store
my Memories
in Multicolored
Boxes
*
Some
I open
Often
others
on Occasion
*
there are those
I see
But never Touch
*
And those
I don’t even See
*
A queen concealed
behind the mask of a male deity
your Realm, the undifferentiated
instinctual world, defines
our humanity or lack thereof
*
the earthbound laws of our world incarnate
limitations of our flesh
painful or ecstatic
your promise, trial by fire
leaves us with Bare Bones,
the beauty of which, unfathomable,
cannot be apprehended
*
the miracle of feeling
the Core of one’s existence
feared as punishment
experienced as the expiation
of hubris and its artifice
*
You rumble beneath us
shaming our lives wrapped
in the illusion of grandiosity:
we are but peons of honor
as we tread this Earth
struggling with your rules
until exhausted, we surrender
transform
or die
Pluto
The Romans
Fought, Conquered, Built
Engineered, Strove
A blend of enlightenment
and ruthlessness
they read papyrus books
Codices
furnished lavish Libraries
emulating the Egyptians
*
crisscrossing Europe with roads, aqueducts
and Arenas
they Ruled and Conquered
until they no longer did
*
the lengthy decline
immeasurable in real time
a steady collapse
such a cake
insufficiently leavened
cautiously sits instead of standing
from one generation to another
incrementally slipping
catching itself
then slipping a bit more
*
the Undoing of Civilization
culture, knowledge –
Worms yes, Invasions, Fire indeed
Time, certainly,
but more than that, Ignorance
engendering more Ignorance
until no one reads
except a handful in charge
No more principles of Life
only principles of Fear –
*
From illiteracy and terror
a darkness hovered for millennia:
the earth once round
was now flat, the sun
as center spurned
human Parthenogenesis
a fact
the importance of clean water, forgotten
questioning forbidden,
any attempt at dissolving dimness,
viciously repressed
*
Until ever so slowly,
we Progressed Back
to the Humanities
salvaging ancient manuscripts
repossessing reading, examination, discussion
simultaneously galvanized by
and galvanizing the Printing Press
Empowering Minds
at once Philosophical and Mathematical
Exposing a World
of Objective Reality
no more the realms of revelation
rather the laws of physics
no longer the punishing guilt and suffering
of an immaterial god
but cause and effect
of a Beautiful Sentient Universe
made of atoms, void
magnetic fields
*
and nothing else
*
Art Work By Yaron Rosner
Winter has numbed us in ice,
faced with mounting crystals
your presence retreats
I turn in circles
books unopened, pens untouched
the day runs by, meals made,
a night, another day,
I turn in circles
feeling you wane
as if your breath were fainter
your body more transparent
preparing your soul
to lift from its bones
home for 88 years
I turn in circles
From armor to onion skin
a warrior’s challenge
to go in peace
without fanfare, artifice
or gun powder
rather a slow fading of the edges
a pacifying of the will
a softening of your ardor
now saved for me, only
and in the wake of your silent withdrawal,
you leave an emptiness I apprehend
and I turn in circles
To my father, 4 years before you passed
****