Written the first summer during Iraq war

Hope Over the Willamette

On the riverbank, a sienna night,
the symphony explodes in black and white.
It's an 1812 Overture. And we hesitate
in the patriotic.

A raging red Mars enters our sky
while the war still simmers, shock of the world,
in a cauldron of gray. And yet
a single goose sails by.

A bold gift, innocence begun? And the moon
rises on the largo like a New World arrival,
still wet from birth
and teary-eyed wonder.

Some thoughts on intuition

Sophia Speaks to Me

Wisdom comes
with the second spoonful
of breakfast cereal,
morning sunlight on my back,
and the journal,
marking concerted concentration,
unattended, left flipping its pages
of purple words into the summer breeze.

Wisdom comes when I brush
my teeth, and realize
Spirit speaks with ‘aha’
and ‘of courses’
easily coursing me to freedom
from known pathways and destinations.
Like the river flows
and slows around boulders
or even pebbles, unevenly
in the way, yet very much
a part of my day, this journey.

Like the blood flows
each month
cleansing me
from cranium to sacrum
toward that arid truth.
Wisdom comes
when I stop waiting,
pause in the writing,
that sweetly surfaced
those soulful stones.
I see the barriers,
rocks, bricks, by ways;
I thank them
for their lessons,
the rhythm they bring,
the bob and bump,
surge and spray,
the crash or avoid,
creating theme and variation
to every one of my days.

Wisdom comes
when I am least expectant
most listening,
most accepting.
She comes
when I reframe the mistakes
and when I surrender
to the wake,
when I wake,
and grin at the sun,
before coursing on.

Do you know me?

What is my identity, you ask:
I am a poet
a teacher
a seeker
a healer
a guide.
I am unique to this world
and wish to lounge
in the light of that knowing
like Sheba, the cat,
who fritters away her morning,
sprawled effortlessly, carelessly
across my unmade bed.

By what name am I known, you ask:
You may know me by
Wendy, Wandering One
Wendy Jean
Friend Wend
Wend-i-kins
Ulindy
Prima
Bella
Sulia
Sulia Grace,
but mostly, you know me
by the way I hold my hands,
which shall remain nameless.
You know me through gesture,
through the timbre of my voice,
through the scent of Boucheron, so named.
You know me by the liveliness
in my face when I am delighted
by words,
by music,
by dance, or other such passions.
You know me by the dark depth
of my hazel gaze,
which shall remain nameless,
the generosity of my heart,
which shall remain nameless,
and by others who know me.
But most of all
I want you
to know me
by the unconditional love
I offer you,
which shall be called
the One
G-D
Yahweh
Creator
Grace,
a gift to you
through me.

Transformations

Paradigm Shift

Night breeze
cooled, bare arms
and mind.
Glass wind chimes
clank, a tuneless
companion
under the inquisition
of a patio light
mid-July
mid-life.

A garden mobile,
Egyptian princess
made of weak wood
with charcoal eyes,
spins like she always has,
round and round in the breeze.
Her Mardi Gras beads
dangle heavily
from her thin neck.
She gets nowhere
in love tonight,
suspended
from a triangle of strings,
spinning
clockwise, counter
clockwise,
she retraces her flight,
the same pattern
over and over again.
Her arms reach
toward Orion,
a longing for a new
constellation of being,
yet, all she can do is spin
in the same circle,
round and round
over and over again
unless, maybe,
what would happen
if I cut her strings?

begin again on this journey of faith

It is time to start over again.

When morning begins
with a crow caw
and the garbage truck
brakes like a distant urban rooster,
it is time to start over again.
With meek courage,
I plant bare feet
on cold hardwood and groan,
“Must I, really, must I?”

When Kona coffee brews
a mild chicory, and the daily
news thuds onto the front porch,
it is time to start over this one life
I’ve been given, this one journey
I’ve failed, foibled and tripped through
like a crippled gray squirrel
Which way do I go? Which way do I go?
What next? What next?

Today, I will
eat oatmeal instead of donuts
to lower my cholesterol.
I will
pour the half bottle of cheap wine
down the drain.
I will
ride my bike to work.
I will,
with dubious courage, try
to start over again.

Today, I will begin
with poetry, a collection of Whitman
Earth, My Likeness.
The cover, a watercolor
of egrets in a shimmering
reflective pool.
Last night I dreamt
of egrets in a marshland,
a place of decomposition
where old dies
to make space for new.

Today, when an emerald-breasted
hummingbird thrums through
blooming honeysuckle and the rotting
apple tree, I remember:
sometimes we must fly backwards
in order to start over.
So backwards I fly
to a righter time of living,
a time of poetry
and meaning-making
among the towering ponderosa pine.

I start over again
in the forest with Whitman
on my narrow path, soft under foot,
“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow…”
Today, when pine branches
linger over me
I am called to rest
in my own likeness
I am called to be still,
to watch and listen.
I am called to start over again.