To Mother - From The Road

April 11, 1976
Seattle to the Grand Canyon by Bicycle

Today my eyes sting warmly from the sun,
And all about I look to cliff and hill.
My many thoughts have rolled into just one,
The memory of you, so very still.

The road is long and weary in the day,
I wish for quiet places I might hide.
Sometimes a tree will beckon me to stay,
But always in the morning I must ride.

Today, beneath the juniper I lie,
to write my humble love into a song,
and wonder what you do for us, and why.
Your gentle patience never turned a wrong.

I like to go away on journeys thus,
to breath and see the newness of the earth.
But always as I look into the dusk,
I ponder heavily my place of birth.

And one who I know lovingly you bore,
you sang and taught with joy so plain to see.
Played games and laughed the gaiety you wore,
that person, I am sure, is almost me.

So when the evening comes to end the day,
I look towards myriads of stars above,
and reaching out to them my soul will pray,
To bless my mother with a world of love.

Given again, 36 years later, and still almost me....

Later, on the Train

Later, on the Train

Click clicking, thump hooting, chug northward between stations
brief glimpses, blurred houses, riverponds, rolling past.
Neat sequence, clouds lifting, oh so slightly, over marshes
New maple, all fancy, all broadleaf, all May Day

The world, my friend, spreads inspired from a train,
the hum rolling forward into a good future.
Some destination where loved ones wait there at another station
Sweet anticipation, and still the trees, sky, light on water.

The seat shifts backward, only a twist of the toggle -
way back, twice as far as an airplane seat would.
No security xray, foregone shoes, invasion of gear.
We passengers stride boldly past chugging engines, to find our car.

Train, train, I wanted you since childhood,
gazed longingly down your tracks and wished to climb those steps aboard.
Six years old , I could not know this luxury,
To buy my fare while sitting in my office chair.

Ah, there, slides by, a small house with
the porch light on, an answer against this gloaming.
So recently a rain, over spring's thick greenness, muddy land,
everything newly wet,  porch light illuminating apple trees in bloom.

Passengers, we share this car, this brief ride North
Out of the window train thoughts I hear:
One stray cell  conversation closed with:
 "I ain't forgot aboutcha love."

Sunday night

April is coming to a close. This spring seems warmer than the last two. I stop at Farmington gardens and people are lining up to buy their trees and other plants. We get so excited by a few warm days.

The grass grows madly, voraciously, intensely, unhindered, exuberant. My poor little electric mower gags and chokes. I feel like a torturer to push it through the damp fields.

Tonight I dug out compost. This is always a small miracle, the way the vegetable matter of a year can turn itself to dirt, heavy with worms working their magic, happy worms. I try not to cut them with my shovel. I greet them like little friends, take them out to my larger garden and watch them disappear into the soil of my desires. Where ever they go, I am as happy as they are to have it be spring, warm enough to wiggle around, think about colors and birds, witness the blueberry bushes and fruit trees covered in blossoms.


There is dirt under my finger nails. I have planted my first starts of cabbage and tomatoes. It does not seem possible that the earth should be so good to us. Fickle friends as we are. The earth, an ever forgiving mother, an unceasingly tolerant friend.

             Friday Night

In the morning I will lead Sadhana with my yoga teacher trainees. We will begin outside in the cool morning air doing the energisation exercises that Paramhansa Yogananda developed. They move more than just the muscles. They awaken more than just the mind.

Tonight we did 2 hours of restorative yoga, as the light faded into night. What peace and release there is in that. I thought afterward, as I drank my cleansing water, about how I want to give that experience to others. I hope I get the chance soon.

Now it is time to go to sleep, reading words of inspiration, looking for the prayer for morning meditation. How fortunate I am, that this yoga community has moved to land on Chehalem mountain. I am a neighbor, and a friend, a member of the practice, and the teaching group. I am encountering myself in a new way, in a new place.

Full Moon over the Passion

You know, I have always loved the word 'passion'. In fact, you could say that I am passionate about the word passion. Tonight in the Zocolo of Mexico City my honey and I witnessed the pageantry of Mexican Catholicism playing out under - dude- a full moon. Really.... floats of statues depicting the stations of the cross, Roman soldiers stabbing Jesus or stealing his clothes, and his mourning mother dressed in black following behind. The 'sorrowful' mother. I do remember all this from childhood.
  In recent years I have become more enamoured with the painting of Easter eggs and the search for a decent chocolate marshmellow bunny. The passion of Christ is a mythic tale, full of metaphor and emotion, imagery and tragedy. The human condition elevated to endless yearly reenactment to remind us if, we had forgotten, of how shallow and fickle humanity is. (The republicans have done a fine job of that this year, they should get the passion award).
It is exciting to see the excitement, and even  the full scale fireworks, the street performers and the little kids tossing glow sticks in the air. The priests lead funeral processions to the droll beat of the death drum, or the keening chant with call and response. What have you done to betray a good person, they ask? What indeed.
It never hurts to look inside, to wonder about infinity and the transitory nature of this life. If statues and songs can bring people back to who they want to be, how they want to live, maybe a tear shed for someone already gone on to the big unknown, this is one way to start spring.

On Easter I will not look for any eggs in the Zocolo, only candles and statues illuminated by the full moon of April, the first full moon of spring.

Mitakuye Oyasin

Mitakuye Oyasin - To all My Relations

This poem goes out
To all my relations - future and past
The grandmothers I knew, and those I did not,
The grandchildren i can feel, but have not yet
seen
You remember the clear water flowing
near your camp, your village,
under the good dirt of your gardens
Springing from the rock of the earth
where water is kept safe and sweet

My grandchildren, you deserve
this sweet water
You, who will come near the end of my own life
and gather your own present to yourselves
You deserve good dirt, untainted by chemicals unwisely spread in ignorance and haste
You deserve good air to breath
rain washed, sun warmed, like
the elixir of love to inhale
you deserve
space on this planet, the space for a home
a garden, the look at trees and mountains,
birds singing when the light changes.

How can I give these things, store these gifts,
wish these life things
For all my relations?

From the Drain Pipe at Wilburton

I have known her,
How many years now, I have to count....
from 11 to 56,
she knows just about my whole life

She sat in the drain pipe, wearing her favorite dress, cotton plaid, knee sox and sturdy shoes.
There, I found her, me wandering alone
the new kid,
dressed in some Sears outfit from a smaller town south,
where farm kids lived.
Me looking dorky but still longing for a friend.

I asked her something... "What is it like in there, why are you sitting in the pipe? "
She answered, "it is the best place to be on this damn playground..."
Me, fresh from Catholic School to this public one
"You aren't supposed to swear.."
Like she cared..
She told me, " Oh,
everyone here does it, soon you will too."
She was absolutely right.

We wandered through our adolescence, crossing paths
in our various survival endeavors
 like going to a big city black school - "reverse bussing'
Her courage impressed me, while
my timidity brought me back to
that snobby High School in our
"premium suburban bedroom community"

All that happened soon was never part of my dreams.
She was always there, 2 blocks away.
We could walk the forested hill and talk.
She went to Europe and wrote me long letters.
I wondered why I was not in Europe,
what courage, even to live with the Irish during
The violence of the 70's

I have boxes of our letters from all those years
They chronicle what we loved, how we lived, what we never learned to understand.

She still writes me letters, by hand.
It is in this later part of life we have our parents health issues
Our sons, we both had boys who brought our mother hearts 
to full passion

This story is not over, this friendship
The years keep piling up
And the drain pipe image keeps returning
How I had the sense to ask her a question,
how she desired to answer the awkward new kid
and there
there we began on a rainy September playground
the sawdust cool and wet
Us not wanting to return to the classroom
each for different reasons

Later, we
began to write poetry
and laugh.
This story is not over, wait.
I will tell you more -and if you want
you can find someone sitting quietly away from the noisy world
of girly girls and pretense.
Ask a question, look vulnerable
It  may be a friendship thread you can pick up
and weave into your life forever,
in the way which will keep you alive.