Transformational Poetry

When there’s a truth you need to face…

Truth 

The birds cease their song. 

Small animals scurry for cover. 

The wind waits, breath held.

The earth quivers with knowing.

The horse of truth is coming.

There is no way to prepare for this force—it will storm your every field, frothing at the mouth, slick with sweat, hooves thundering and churning the parched soil, forever altering the imagined order of your life.

You stand, gasping in awe and wonder, thrilled, terrified, trembling.

How futile the stories you cling to alone in the dark.

The way you want life to be knowing it’s a lie.

Your feeble attempts to control, like grasping a handful of water, surprised as it seeps through your thirsty fingers.

So you drop to your knees, kiss the earth, weeping, laughing, grateful to be alive, to be brave, to surrender to all that is.

Because you know there’s only one choice—the only choice there ever has been—to wait, in peace, until Grace comes. 

When it’s time to find your voice…

Now

The room is full of the conversation we are not having 

I stretch, reaching for a reply like ready fruit on the highest branches  

Yet each word that is about to be uttered lingers heavy on my tongue 

It’s agonizing, the tendency of the mind to construct obstacles in one’s path, when life has given us none

Later, perhaps I will long to grasp my hasty words from the air, and stuff them back inside of me

Or perhaps I will shrink from the weight of my icy intellect, that steely silver church of criticism 

Or perhaps I will bask in the warm liquid light temple of my heart, so certain of my safety and acceptance

But for now, I marvel at how authority rests on my shoulders, the same way sun tangles in my hair, as if that’s exactly where it belongs 

And so I speak and bow to what will be created….

The present is 

A lovely barbarian

A strange beauty

With its disturbing liberation

Rumbling whisper

And silent roar

When you want to lighten up…

When

I know when it happened 

When the space between seconds began to stretch

When the spark of a thousand stars found a home in my heart

When I scattered everything neatly poised to be put in place

Now I ride the night high above the city

Watch clouds crack to release rainstorms

Track the gleaming treasure veins of mountains

Catch kisses floating in the air like pollen 

The lives of mortals are like a flicker of sparks

And I wonder… is this what angels see as they are soaring?

When you want to surrender to love of yourself, the universe, another…

Trust 

Tonight the silence is whispering 

A message I cannot yet understand

Outside bold indigo strokes the night’s blue-black air

And I think of you 

Of us

Of what we may or may not become

The cargo of so many thoughts to review, polish, store away 

Or release

Final clearance sale

Everything must go

The prerequisite 

To be so cautiously reckless 

To be so wonderfully terrified 

To love so fiercely 

When it’s time to take the leap and transcend fear…

Leap

Untethered by the exuberance of an idea

Head full of 1000 spinning stars

Ideas rush like lightning through my veins, hellish and hot

My heavily starched resolve crinkles in this presence 

Fear burns bright as a bonfire feasting on my bones

I stand at the edge of a sharp steep cliff

Falling off will mean either flight or annihilation

The unknown is so strange and marvelous, peculiar and stunning

And then

An intake of breath desperately swift

It might belong to a hummingbird darting across the cerulean sky

Yes

I will trade false knowing for infinite uncertainty 

Yes

I will fly upon that feather

Yes

I will drift weightless upon that dream

Yes

I will swim in that satin holy water 

Surrender, that incandescent deity, enables everything

When it’s time to get unstuck…

Remember

The cascading moon rises, softly framed by silver clouds

Stars begin to wake, a handful at a time, right above my head

They twinkle and hum, burning blindingly white

Sharp taps of rain call me to attention, to remember

Listen

Most things in this world are attainable, my sweet

And those that aren’t can be found through a door that will lead you to another 

For what do you seek?

Distraction?

Is your head filled with stories of your future that sparkle with adventure and promise dark delicious dreams?

Or

Deliverance?

Hasn’t life shown you to breathe the rare air of one who knows what they want, and is not bothered by the wanting, because they know all they touch is already theirs?

Death is scampering at your heels, my sweet

Remember

Choose

When it’s time to celebrate your growth…

She

She holds the preciousness of herself deep within

She is changing, expanding to something new and hopeful and devoid of fear

Her words more often feel like satin versus sandpaper

She is no longer impatient as a boiling kettle 

Instead she softly strokes her power, a master soothing the tiger who once paced restless in her lungs

Now she marvels at how the simple act of stringing certain words together can change the very shape of a soul

Now she pulses like the thrumming of hummingbirds 

Now she is penny-bright as a summer day

When it’s time to reset priorities… 

Small Things 

Never underestimate the big importance of small things, she said 

The transient moments of radiance 

The infinite storms of beauty 

How like calls to like

Courage calls to courage

Love calls to love

The humming of a bee hive

The sun breaking against the horizon, how it cracks and spills across the hills 

I look at you and feel 1000 doors opening wide inside of me

I feel an unwinding and settling, a dropping deeper into an anchored sense of myself

And I notice how we’ve chosen to emotionally return to each other over and over again, rather than let our bond be discarded by the side of the trail when it felt too heavy to bear

Small things 

Big things

When you’re overwhelmed or discouraged…

Found

Sometimes it feels like I”m trundling slowly uphill, wondering when I will ever arrive

Others rattle by me with wobbling loads, strained faces 

Where are we all going?

In a place called lost, strange and wondrous things can be found

Like thinking at last you’ve discovered that elusive answer

You glimpse it there, in the corner of your eye one moment

The next, it has vanished completely, leaving an empty impression behind

Sometimes it feels like there’s so much to unpack, unravel, unlearn

Sometimes it feels like self-honesty is the only savior

Then you realize surrender is truly the only answer

So you stop bobbing shyly around your issues like clots in a lava lamp

And with your heart clear and gray, like rinsed fog

You sift your full life, separating out what is essential

And the sifting takes many seasons, as you freeze and thaw

Until one day the happiness you feel is so enormous it’s overflowing—an infinity pool

And you understand that being lost is the prerequisite to being found

And you suddenly see that whatever is merciful in the universe lives inside of you

And inside of everyone

When it’s time to reconnect with the magic all around you…

Listen

Outside the night is still and streaked with silver threads of light

The clouds have abandoned the moon overhead, shedding beacons in the dense dark 

I am listening

But not with all of my ears

Only the edges

The way you would look out the corners of your eyes

The lonely wind sings lullabies, lilting, humming, high-pitched things, filling the space around me

It reaches out swirling around branches, boulders, and finds me

It speaks of how fear makes phantoms 

And of the people and things that shape us, how they round or sharpen our edges 

And of the exquisite wonder and pain of life and how they often are bedfellows 

There was a time when my form was smudged at the edges, blurred on either side, as if I were moving very fast

Part of me was 

And part of me was just standing there, waiting to catch up with myself

Now all of me is here, compact

Yet my physical compression feels anything but slight, not intrinsically small like a mouse, but coiled, gathered into myself 

Like a cat preparing to leap

Or a tree deepening its roots

I’m listening now 

with all of me

And I notice that when I walk, the invisible golden strings of the universe are plucked and cause the faintest vibration in the air

And through these strings the old magic flows

And I come to know things others do not know because I am tied to these strings

I can read or sense the information and wisdom that courses through them

And the strings are tied to everything

To the past and the future, to other people, to creatures and plants and stones

When I listen to the strings I remember that I am connected to everything 

And the world becomes more vibrant and bright 

And I become a conduit through which the ancient powers can be concentrated into visible good

And the generosity of all that is becomes so clear 

I am listening now

I am listening

I am