My mate has died but parenting did not end.
We all still need to be raised,
my Cygnets and I
learning to make the world our home,
together again.

I love my children the way Swans love theirs,
shepherding them,
preening them,
leading them out into the day as glorious lords and ladies of the marsh.

Circling them I weave attention's nest,
that they may thrive,
explore,
nibble,
sail the smaller eddies of childhood.

A father's love is no less a force than the tides of the world.

They will leave me some day,
I still dip down to fold laundry for my eldest and brush the youngest's hair.

The wetlands will always be filled with them.
I lead them now,
all the while practicing feeling currents without them.

The poetry of Being is scattered throughout time and the cultures of the world. It is written by Sufis, American Transcendentalists, Asian Zen and Taoist masters, a myriad modern poets, as well as many others. The profound experiences they convey can be felt in Celtic legends and Native American prayers. Their authors not only document the wonderment of life but the deeper presence that is evoked by their experiences. They relate an expansive sense of Being awakened through nature, creating a synergy between the inner and the outer that dissolves separation between self and that greater presence.

Though centuries and cultural differences may separate us, their words have not dimmed, they still light the way.

Sitting Alone on Jingting Mountain By Li Po - (701–762)

The birds have vanished down the sky,
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
Until only the mountain remains.

From Don’t Go Back to Sleep, by Rumi

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth
across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch…

From The Song of Amergin - ancient Irish legend

I am a Stag of seven tines,
I am a flood across a plain,
I am a wind on a deep lake,
I am a tear the Sun lets fall,
I am a Hawk above the cliff…

From Meditations by Sarah Margaret Fuller

Today, for the first time, I felt the Deity,
And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This
Must be thy will, — for finer, higher spirits
Have gone through this same process, — yet I think
There was religion in that strong delight,
Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,
I did not say, ‘He is the Lord thy God,’
But I had feeling of his essence.

The Beauty Way Prayer from the Diné, a First Nations People

In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again

From At the River Clarion, by Mary Oliver

I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water…

Poetry is one of the arts by which we can both experience the presence of Being and guide ourselves deeper into its fullness. I imagine Mary Oliver amplifying the voice of that river as she sat in its company and wrote, her pencil conjuring forth the many voices so audible to her.

I’ve been migrating back into the practice of opening to Being (a word for God/Goddess/Spirit I use as it conveys both a presence in the physical world as well as timeless transcendence), as my focus on grief and family pulls less on my creative process. Developing an awareness of Being through the arts is not only nourishing for those of us invested in it, but essential if our culture is to grow any well rooted wisdom about living with love and gratitude on this beloved planet of ours.

I hope the following poems, arising out of my daily life, encourage you in opening to and receiving the essential presence of Being available to us all.

*For those who want to sit back and listen, I’ve arranged the spoken poems as a video playlist on youtube. Click here to listen.

I’m not to interpret,
but to listen and intuit,
drifting with the oration of the forest,
unwedded and yearning,
unfolding with me inside of it.

I’ve been told again and again by those advisors who can’t be seen,
I must listen, quiet myself.

Listen.

Perhaps I can hear the clouds sailing above, hanging lower, turning grey with the weight of the water they’ll return to all of us who live below,
or the movement of the soil pushed at by inspired, pale roots,
and the toads buried so deep,
still pulsing,
gently.

Every moment there’s a letter to be opened by each of us,
a honeyed serenade gifted to us we must read and release,
making room for the next.
I need to tend to these glorious sermons.

Listen.

I’d write poetry.

We’d have too many pets to count,
eat above our pay grade,
have way too much desert,
be lazy,
rude,
hilarious,

and I’d write poetry,

about the impossibility of our love,
how large it is, how it swallows me before dawn
when I picture both of them sleeping safely
in their beds that hold them like I used to every night,
cherished but still balanced on the edge of life,
waiting to become something new.

I would worry of course,
feel there was no safety net,
wonder when it all comes apart,
and then remind myself that today I will put food in front of them,
tell them through benedictions of laundry, waking up when the alarm was ignored, and driving, driving and more drivings,
how wonderful they are,
to me and the world that is only just discovering them.

I might look for a prayer someone else has written
to encompass the beauty I’m awash in
the gratitude I feel,
but I wouldn’t find one,

so I’d have to write poetry instead.

Dance sometimes looks like an old vine clinging to a stone wall -
staggering in every direction, doubling back on itself,
down or up, it doesn’t matter,
dance is discovery unbound.

I can love that I’m made of broken things, even though it hurts sometimes.
My body is still willing to become a river,
carrying me forward, deeper into Being.

I’m as blessed as the day I was born,
wandering from one pool of light to the next,
never begging for wonderment, always feasting.

Some days they squawked at me for getting too close to a nest,
tiny creature members scuttled away from my clumsy feet,
a few offered me friendship from time to time,
I always said yes.

All animal beings have their own ways.
Horses are so proud and cocky in their majesty,
yet deeply humble when they love.
Each winged being that circles the Earth is a unique citizen
in a flowing axial wave that wraps us all in grace, curiosity, and mirth,
with hilarious Corvid commentators, always watching, laughing, and chiding.

I’ve spent time with Seals, the good people of the Sea.
I believe they carry the most ancient stories of our Oceans,
its many battles and births in their longing eyes.
At times they seem like a brash people, hard and raucous,
but they are sensuous lovers too,
only surpassed by Otters.

It doesn’t matter how deeply I wander into the human world
they always welcome me back as if no time has passed
and we can travel together again.
I bump into humans there from time to time,
then they become kin too.

The hands of the forest reach into his body as we glide,
relaxed, open.
I feel the prayer of moving, being,
held in the sky by magic.

I have to let this wonderment break me apart
so that I might walk through a forest
and feel that I’m walking in prayer,
content to be a small part of now
in the greater Being.

Tomorrow I’ll stand in my circle again
and fly with him through the forest
so that I risk being broken apart,
so I can walk through the world
like it’s a prayer.

We’re so easily trapped by chatter about how we look,
how strong we are, how good a provider we might be,
ignoring the song we all carry inside of us,
the one that calls us home to our bodies,
and everything unfolding around and through us.

We can be as good at love as we are at fighting,
as supple as we are strong,
as vulnerable as we are certain.

But still we wander through the modern world,
chasing shadows of what a man is supposed to be
dolled out by those who have no feeling left within themselves.

If we could just trust this falling,
the moment the ground gives way,
when you don’t know what will happen next,
have the courage to tumble without hope of landing,
then we would know what it is to be truly alive
and the man would follow.

Everything is different about her.

But I know she’ll belong in the world,
because of the way she sits on a horse,
her rightful place,
a true home.

To some it must look like she’s working when she rides,
laser focus,
no missteps,
but I know she’s pumping out joy, carving a holy trail through forests,
over mesas and across beaches,
daring the world to say no to her just once,
so she can drill those mighty hooves in deep,
wiping away every cold look or closed heart
with the kick of her boots and a twitch of the reins.

When we pass a field of grazing horses
she sees a new cousin, a brother or sister,
on four legs,
waiting to meet for the first time,
and maybe ride to the edge of the day,
discover treasures that belong only to them
and those who ride like it’s the first song they ever heard.

Horses are with her when she dreams,
whether she remembers or not,
a herd that beds down in her heart,
ready to gather at dawn.

I know my daughter will belong everywhere horses run
and anywhere she can dream.

We can conjure together sentences that make you feel seen,
known by that important person,
words that are a salve,
words that uplift.

We don’t need to know exactly what they are,
just that they are the sutures to draw together torn parts,
to sing to the mending being that lives inside of you,
wake them, put them to work,
birth that confluence-river of love and safety and warmth and mirth.

We can tie these new words together and bury them outside in soft, damp dirt.

You and I will know they are now part of the soil,
healing things, helping life flourish.
The person you wanted to hear speak them may not be able to deliver them to you,
probably not in the way you wanted,
with a bowed head,
and a true heart.

Still the words are here,
in the world,
waiting for you,
holding you,
abundant and yours.

Maybe souls are not a given thing
but something we conjure in each other,
from a Mothers first glance,
and the endless friendships that are the quilt of our childhoods,
to the attention of our beloved animal companions,
silent but seeing us truly, always,
and all the nectar and wounds of lustful partners that may batter us,
but also rebirth us,
making a single life into many lifetimes.

Isn’t it all conjuring soul?

My dance with you has placed me at the edge of an endless pool of Being.
I waver for a moment,
before slipping in,
again.

In my dream I was the first to wake up in our summer sleeping cottage uphill on our land. We had several beds in a communal space, enjoying the play and freedom of kids on summer break. Immediately upon waking I saw a strange bird zipping by the glass doors. It was built like a predator, thin and hard, hunting other birds no bigger than itself. Streaking across our land it pierced a bird, harpoon it, ripped it apart and ate what it could before quickly discarding it and moving on. It was completely savage, without remorse. Who knows how many birds it had already killed while we slept?

I had to do something about it, I had to stop this bird. I headed down to the house to find some solution. Just as I arrived it slammed itself into the screen door I was opening. It struggled relentlessly, digging in deeper, shredding the screen. I quickly grabbed it and examined it. Its beak looked lethal, part bone, part spear, but it was also beautiful. Each feather was layered with rainbow colors that seemed to glow. I knew that despite its extraordinary nature I was going to have to kill this creature, it was decimating the bird population.

Sure enough my hatchet was right there, leaning up against the door. I grabbed the bird and laid its head on a stump, and though it hurts my heart to kill anything, I cut it right across the neck. Its head dangled, barely attached by a dab of skin.

I went into the house to discover my wife already in the kitchen. We’d invited guests over and they would arrive soon. I hastily prepared a meal, adding the bird I’d just killed as part of a rich stew. We had a homestead and prided ourselves on using as much of what we’d raised as possible.

In no time there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, a husband and wife were waiting with their future son in law. Their daughter would be there shortly. It turns out she was late because she had a peculiar habit of turning into a bird every day to hunt.

“Yes, we know it’s strange but it’s part of what makes her so unique. She’ll be done soon, turn back into her human form and join us,” they said.

My heart fell to the floor. I realized immediately what I had done. That lethal bird I killed was this family’s daughter, this man’s fiancé. We were all destined to eat her in the meal I’d prepared.

I couldn’t let that happen. I had to tell them.

“I ahhh … you’re not gonna believe this but I just killed a bird, a bird I’m going to serve with dinner tonight. This is horrible I know but it sounds just like your daughter, just like your fiancé.”

“No,” they said, “it can’t be.” They were polite, they couldn’t imagine their host could do such a brutal thing. “Describe her.”

And so I did in great detail, the size of her body, no greater than my hand, her sharp semi-transparent beak, the rainbow feathers that seemed to hover between worlds. I left out no detail, even though it broke my heart to say the words.

“No no no, ” they said, “that’s not her. It doesn’t sound like her at all. Now where is that dinner? It sounds delicious!”

I knew what would come to pass: each one of them would eat their share of this young, magical woman I had mistakenly, stupidly killed. She would get inside them, gather in their bellies. Then and only then would they be struck by the horror of what they had done. They would know that they’d eaten her and surely go mad with grief. I would sit there, watching them feast on the meal I’d made and see their illusion shattered.

Then a voice whispered in my ear, it said “isn’t that just what writing is like?”

I was stunned awake by the realization, sitting bolt upright in our sleeping cottage, my wife and kids still in their own dreams. As a writer it is my job to take something true, perhaps a hard, savage truth, and serve it to those who do not understand it. I was here to serve people, but to serve them something that could crush their denial, slay them. I had been too precious in my writing, I needed to be willing to add more painful things to my stew.

We might to feed it to them carefully, sensuously, even though we know that when it settles in their bellies they’ll feel like they’re dying. Indeed, some half truth would die.

Transformation is sometimes hard, it can involve brutal truths, but it cannot be avoided forever.

My son becomes stronger without me,
adding weight to his lean frame,
becoming keener,
as he always has,
honing himself like a Hawk balanced on the edge of a hunt.

He is his own heart now,
has been for more years than I would like,
if it were my choice,
and it’s not.

He can hold the portions of life served to him,
savor them, begin to sculpt them into a path that winds well enough.

Still, my part is not yet done,
he hasn’t held my weakened body as everything of me fades,
leaving him with my haunting self.

I have a yearning prayer that my son will find soft purchase somewhere, anywhere.

He is my bones,
he will take them and make new songs in the world.

I’ve been held up within myself this winter,
gathering the smaller pieces of me,
sorting them, remembering them, releasing them,
cherishing a few.

I’m ready for green sprouts as the heavy sky releases its gift.
I would be buried in rain hands of remaking for days if I could stand it.

When the sky is done shouting its glory,
Dog and I will walk out into the intoxicating cathedral air celebrating each other,
and the trees and dirt that know us so well.

I don’t know if I’ve ever needed this rain sky so much as now,
something to remake me,
something so that I can feel new again,
ready to birth a small portion of splendour
back into the world that has held me as an unexpected treasure all of my life.

I see my daughter and praise our universe of infinite, separate things.
I follow her mind as it wanders down strange staircases she makes,
painting new worlds insider herself,
running with them out into the day,
scattering them everywhere.

She’ll share her stories with you, whether you want to hear them or not.
Suffering bruises, small wounds, she heals easily now, already having learned that way.
I think she’s decided, after some great time of braiding tall grass into crowns,
that growing up might not be such a bad thing,
someday.

If she arose out of emptiness,
the great fullness of possibilities,
with her strong hands and weaving ways,
then something profoundly glorious must be right with that place.

I will visit the memory of the wish of her,
it surely must still be there,
the first words of the first lines of a life waiting to be written,
like poems that wait for me in the place I thought was barren
but turned out to be full of radiant beings
waiting to be born,
given the chance to fly,

just like her.

A brief break from poetry, to talk about another creative stream in my life—sacred movement.

Out on the dance studio floor last Sunday, letting the music open me up in that familiar way, I found myself pulled back to the moment dance became a gateway to something much bigger for me. Our movement facilitator, Lynne Herbert, holds space for all who venture onto the floor on Sundays, inviting us to allow whatever needs to show up to arrive in full splendor. I guess that morning, that studio was the right place to revisit my experience.

As I started to look within, I saw the brightness of that day in my teens. It was in its otherworldly state, the way things looked after I’d accidentally altered my consciousness through movement. There had been pain that day too, of course. But by then, the pain was all gone.

I don’t like to admit it, but my body usually hurts, if only just a little, since I was young. Truth be told, if I gave up sugar and food from the nightshade family, as I did for several years in my twenties, I would feel perfectly fine. Still working on that one. The effects of a case of serum sickness (an immune reaction to some bad medicine) impacted me and a cohort of kids back in the ’70s. I didn’t really realize everyone’s body didn’t feel like mine, so I learned to push through it—which usually worked. Except on really cold days like that one.

I was, of course, underdressed for tromping through snow and skating across ice to get to high school. Many parents will recognize my teenage propensity to pretend I wasn’t frozen to the bone as I headed off wearing something that looked cool but was completely oblivious to the weather. I think I had a trench coat over a T-shirt, over torn jeans, topped off with Chuck Taylors. Too cool for the cold.

My joints were starting to feel like molasses as I worked my way across the ice. Instinctively, I leaned into my ballet training. If I could flow from the street up onto the sidewalk, it hurt less. Anticipating small heaps of crusty snow, I landed toe-ball-heel, extending a pointed toe to the next drift coming my way. I was really starting to enjoy myself. Not a choreographed masterpiece—more like dance turning me into a river of body that could flow over everything. I squeezed every bit of momentum out of each step, every gesture, paying it forward to pull me like satin over the rough terrain.

Before I knew it I was totally high. Not only did my joints not hurt, I actually felt pleasure moving through me like warm soothing honey. The brightness of the day took on an etheric quality. Scraggly trees and snow topped bushes glowed from within. The world itself had changed, I was walking in a totally new terrain. Somehow the intensity of my focus along with releasing held energy in my joints had brought me into a completely different state of mind.

The world had revealed its true, radiant self. Moving easily across the floor, forty-five years later, I could still feel the essence of that glow. What a gift that day was.

Yes it was pain that led me there, but once I became aware that movement could open up bigger, deeper places, I never forgot. Every style of dance, every martial art I trained in after that day was a way of cultivating a sense of presence in my movement. Everything was a doorway to something bigger.

When I move with Lynne and the others who show up, I feel totally connected to that place of endless possibility, knowing that each step forward I take might lead me to a new movement that transports me away from pain and more deeply into the present moment. I never know what will come up next, but because of my younger self, I’m more than willing to trust.

This morning, I woke up at five a.m. and (after feeding many animals) found my way to the circular canvas mat at the foot of my bed. Its creation was inspired by years of training in Aikido in a dojo with a large circular mat. In graduate school for my arts degree, I made a mini dojo mat. It became the place I used to cultivate combining shamanic journeying with movement, drawing again on that space I discovered so many years ago. The circle I have now is the third incarnation I’ve made over the decades, as I’ve dragged it through the many phases of my life.

This morning, as with so many others, I put on a blindfold and grabbed my rattles. I now know many ways of altering my consciousness through music, percussion, and movement. After only a few moments, my body becomes a gateway as I dance into other worlds. Recently, my helping spirits encouraged me to deepen my experience of the Ocean, dissolving into her currents. It is an experience so sensuous, transcendent, and relieving I really can’t convey it. You have to dance it to know it.

Maybe if my joints hadn’t ached and ballet hadn’t given way to those knee problems, I would have become the dancer I dreamed of becoming as a young man. It took me years to let go of the grief of that loss. But I have known the world in a way that few Westerners are given the chance to know it. I have felt the soul of the Sun pulsing through the conscious, living bodies of a forest. I have flown as many beings into places few humans have ever gone.

This morning, I learned how the Snowy Owl prays.

It’s amazing how those cracks that open up suddenly, unexpectedly, in our lives can lead us straight into the hands of divinity.

Hope to see you on the dance floor soon…

I practice Ocean flowing through me,
all the tiniest creatures of me,
with their glistening shells and spiral swims,
cherished alongside the goliaths of my heart,
all dissolving into the motion of the embodied breath of life.

Pray like the Ocean prays
with open stretching arms
and a receiving body of fullness.

Ocean yearns for the One and Ocean is the One.

She does not want,
instead She Desires from her depths,
to hold it all,
the singing master of the chorus of everything.

Along with the sunrise Ocean makes way for the winged hunters
that dive and thrash
feeding on the body that will never stop eating,
and nourishing.

Praise the Ocean flowing through me,
pray and praise for the One who is Ocean
and everything.

I’m far less than half a saint,
my grief, anger and frustration,
levying penny taxes on us all from time to time.

The scrapes I make are never too deep,
even a glance from love will do,
but in the mending we weave ourselves back into each other,
and the world.

This morning Dog and I ran in shallow spring snow,
a gravel trail written out by her calloused winter paws.
This is how the world mends me -
a day conjured of dog-magic,
singing through the puff of a widower’s breath,
inviting me always
to say yes,
and again yes,
to all that I have been given,
and all that has been taken.

I’ve needed to mend the hand sewn quilt
made by a mother who is gone,
letting threads that reach from here into the next world
guide me.

That’s how I learned to become a Father who mends.

She will teach me to be humble, kind, protective and always practice good hygiene.
She will be alert to all sounds and smells that come our way,
hopeful that a friend will visit,
or at least a worthy adversary.

Ravens are not to be tolerated because they steal marrow bones.

She will trust me and nuzzle into me, snuffling with deep satisfaction,
not talking about sacrifice, or damnation, or surrender or divinity,
but never holding back a wag,
that would be a sin.

As we walk together our story of the day folds us in its arms, affection growing as we tend it with food and play.

She reminds me it’s OK to eat anything you want, and as much of it as you want, so long as it’s not broccoli.

She accepts that we all have to wander off by ourselves from time to time,
but only for a little bit.

She will demonstrate with elaborate care the many ways napping can be prayerful, saying a firm yes to the grace that has delivered the place on the carpet awash with sunlight, yet again.
She will do all of this without speaking a word or being foul tempered.

I will lay down tonight with her days benedictions resting in my heart,
imbued with sainthood because of her.
I fall asleep meditating on the revelation of a mountain stream on a summers day,
when you have a dog with you.

No religion has been truer than a day with her.

More than breath,
water makes us who we are,
wending our bodies through life in a receiving way,
reminding us how to fail at being rigid every day.

Water is our true genius.

When I can feel the softness of you,
through your gentle hands,
water is whispering ancient stories in that touch,
of rolling over rocks,
down throats,
frozen for eons then cascading into fjords,
sailing as mist or falling as life giving rain endlessly over our world.

Water is the way blessings come into being here.