Promise
An Artist’s Poetry Collection

  • This Heart has Wings

    I clenched my heart in my hands today.
    It was dark and shiny like a beetle carapace,
    felt claustrophobic and hard-shelled
    like a pupa or an egg.

    I followed the instructions:
    invite some space around your heart,
    with each out-breath open further. Breathe.
    In time, a luminous cloud bloomed around me
    lit up by the morning’s sun rays.
    I felt the earth spread out around me like a net unfurled.
    Each knoll and valley and tree were made gold by the sun.
    Birds, I imagined, sang their morning song.
    For dawn was upon this earth.

    What I had held so tightly was released from my open hands
    and stretched out broad wings on the air
    to lift and glide and brush the hearts of all beings
    with a feathered touch and luminous glance.

  • Voice of the Universe

    Conditioning informs me that
    Your gods are not my gods.

    But my new eyes show me that
    Gods are not bound by our conceptions.

    Existence is an infinite miracle;
    Our understanding is finite.

    Until one slows enough to be still,
    Breath, wind, birds, cicadas, and song
    Will never be the voice of the universe.

    Could it not be that the spirits of this land
    Will visit anyone who listens for them?

    Have you met one who listens deeply?
    Well-guided and filled with grace?

    Your wise heart is reflected in their eyes.

    Will you listen, spirit, for the breath of life?

  • Lovers

    I admit I want to fix you,
    I have judged you, and
    Attempted to prove you wrong.
    My intention to connect
    In an authentic and loving way
    Is often lost In a lifetime’s worth of habits.
    I am trying to remember
    To come back home
    And come back often
    To my heart
    Where I hear the breath of Life
    And I can hear you.
    I can attend to you.
    Let me be quiet and listen.
    And maybe
    Someday
    You will trust me.
    The guards longstanding, unmoving, Protecting our hearts
    Will slowly drop their shields
    And then depart.
    And maybe
    Someday,
    Like the days long ago
    When we trusted love,
    I will hear your spirit –
    Your wise heart
    And we will converse
    Like delicate flowers in a gentle wind.

  • Snow Sparkles in the Sun

    There are moments when,
    Surrounded by women who love you
    And whom you love,
    You forget that you were a motherless child. But now, even childless,
    Do you know that you are a mother?
    You have never born a child, but,
    As the Buddha teaches,
    You cherish all beings
    As a mother would protect her child,
    her only child –
    With a boundless heart.

    Sometimes,
    Noticing how snow sparkles in the sun, or
    Rescuing crickets from a deep hole, or
    Building a house for two displaced mice, or
    Practicing metta or tonglen, or
    Putting my hand on a tree trunk
    And feeling the determined life there, or
    Looking into a child’s eyes, or
    Recalling why I love my husband, or
    Greeting a stranger with a smile or a kind word, or
    Knowing one day you will die and so will I, then
    I know
    That I love all beings and this earth,
    Intensely.

    In such moments,
    I feel how deeply my mother loved me
    Because it is the same fiery love I feel for all around me.
    It is a love that fills me with grace,
    So I may be love,
    So I may see that all is love.

    All is love.

Battle Cry

Raise your battle-weary head.
Feel your losses and wounds.
Weep, but also hold them
In your heart with tenderness.
Herein lies a path to peace.

On this path, let stillness seep in
As plants absorb light from the sun.
Even to your busy mind, say:
Thank you. Not right now. Instead,
Ride the wave of your breath.

In stillness, rest. Be love.
Hear the wind through the trees.
Your heart sings and birds fly.
The life force hums through all.
You belong. You are connected.

May you find acceptance and not fault.
May you find love and not fear.
May you find ease and not suffering.
May you know your wise heart.
May you know peace.

A Prayer For Healing

May all beings –
The delicate-winged fly fallen in a cup of tea, an
Inch worm carried away, a
Lost puppy, a
Cat too high in a tree, the
Horse alone in a field, and the
Cow locked into a milking machine, a
Deer with a broken leg, the
Woman who struck the deer with her car, an
Exhausted father, an
Overworked spouse, a
Woman in a nursing home with few visitors, an
Elderly man who can no longer help his wife, the
Grandmother who cannot see her grandchildren, a
Tyrant blinded by rage, the
Soldier who must carry out a slaughter, a
Wounded and orphaned child, an
Aid in a makeshift hospital for the wounded, the
Politician who must choose between the lesser of two evils, a
Broken taxpayer, the
Accountant who delivers the bad news, the
Banker who dishes out too much credit, a
Salesclerk selling unnecessary cute baby things, the
Grandmother mistaking these purchases for love, an
Elder sibling jealous of the new baby, the
New baby in peaceful slumber,
Long eyelashes resting on his round cheeks –
May he,
May we all
Be free from suffering.
May all beings be free from the trappings of mind.
May we find the wisdom and the courage to pause
And pause long enough to remember
All is all; all is love.
May we feel safe and free from harm.
May we touch great and natural peace.
May you hear these words and discover they are true.
May you know the mind’s restlessness
As a function
Like the beating of your heart
To keep you alive and growing and safe.
You are the awareness that animates this body.
You can decide which thoughts to follow.
May they lead you to peace.

Other chapbooks
Coming soon!

Thrum

Banditry of chickadees
moving tree to tree
heartbeat flit and flutter
of wings thrumming — all
around me like feline purr
while I, like hills and trees
in fields of snow that ease away
from where we stand upon the ground;
and where I become mere
landscape.