Sample Poems

Building a Shrine

My life so far
Has been like
Trying to put a very large love
Through a pinhole.

I have tried to make myself
Small enough to fit into this world.
But finally the shell has rent in two,
And the shrine of my being has emerged.

We are guided home by an invisible thread-
One day the distance between the hole and ourselves
Simply disappears.

And then the love fits perfectly.

There is so much work to do in this world
When we could simply choose
To be ecstatically happy.
To take rocks and driftwood and build an altar
To all that is good inside of us-

And set our one
Shining life
On fire.

I Am

I am a gatekeeper.
I am an entrance point.
I am a huge water-filled urn
Reflecting power back into the world.

I am the grey- blue mountains
Joyfully sitting among members of the landscape.
I am a spring- green tendril feeling with delight
The roots beneath me.
I am a lightening rod anchoring
Wildness from the summer sky.

I remember all of this now, like a gift.
Like visiting an ancient stone cairn
And remembering helping to build it.

Like weeping into my hands
And knowing
That I have found my place
In the great circle of things.

I Cannot Make Myself Small

I cannot make myself small for you
I cannot reduce the layers of expression,
Nor shrink from
The Large thoughts in my Mouth.

Would a Flower refusing to Bloom
Make the world any more Beautiful?

We drink from the same bottle,
Each cool sip Washing down into the Earth like rain.
No where
Do we feel this more
Than when we
Take the lid off
And let the thirst-quenching Thunder run down our chins-
The Stains on our Chests
War wounds
Of a Life
Fully
Drunk
Up.