Journey

Trees in sun. Image, my own.

Hecate

A torche glitters in her hand, a brightly whishing brand lighting the ways– a choice,
the path you take, the path you don’t, all paths you leave behind– they are
equally lighted by her candle, paths you can see now and will never be

revealed again, in the flickering breath the shadows cast into the recessed
flume, the light loses its brilliance, the gravel of the third way spooled out along
the straighter path, and the second road banking darkly into the far side of some

gray and dusty landscape which even the brighted stars cannot now expose,
So what does this goddess of the dark night and her burning wooden beam
divine, does the curve of her hip signal some portent, message of direction,

no, the way, the path, the journey will not be signaled by another, you
must choose, you must contemplate, intuit, and define your bounds
your path will be yours, after all, your own, so you must own your choice

wavering again, the flame whispers from some fate-wind ahead, some
ancient breath of the beyond, you grip the paper of your healing in your
pocket and take one long breath, exhaled in the rising chill, a mist

spurled ahead, looking up into the star-strewn night the weight of the
choice comes softly on the shoulders of the traveler, an unseen cloak,
take a small but firm step toward the flume, the future

Canemah Bluff Nature Park. Oregon. Image, my own.

Clay

Molded and molding,
shaping, shifting, pressure,
smooth tension, long lines
a steady firmness, spirit of
water, sunlight, earth,
release, become

New Moon Amulet. December 2024. Image, my own.

Talisman

Can any thing be magic?
Any blob of gold or
Pressing of silver, can
An object, an item, a
Pinecone or umber fleck of
Bark be imbued with
Power or general chemistry
That brings transmutational
Ability, alchemy, divination

Canemah Bluff Nature Park. Oregon. Image, my own.

Some grief never leaves

And I know this because of arthritis
Some grief is permanent, the relationship
With a parent that you’ll never have, the
Child who never entered your life, the
Star that never rose in its proper place
There will be some things that leave
Mortally permanent scars, situations
Which will never be shifted into
Redemptive tales. Some scars
Will ever be with us to remind us
How pain and grief bring understanding
Gained in no other way,

Starlight street at night. Fukuōji Kazuhiko.

Journey

It began to ring true
Several steps from where
The grief began, the opening
of the way, the continued rock
and slosh of the water
Eyes opened on a world
And existence that was nothing
Like what tiny kernel of promise
In life began as. Nothing like
the seed of the idea of the life
you thought you’d live, the
contrast was searing and startling
at first. But then, by gradual
degrees, it became whole,
sound, founded, and sacred
opportunity

Jackie Chan

People. Suh See Ok. 1988. On view at The MET Fifth Avenue. Gallery 233.

Kiai!

Kiai! is a real thing
A Japanese word
A shout– ichi
A battle cry– ni
A spirit focus– san
Not just protracted
Onomatopoeia or a yell in
Comedy-action sequence

Kiai! is designed for real life
Try it on– shi
Go! A holler that signals
Attack– jou-dan
Assault– tsuki
Let’s make it noble– roku
For purposes of this poem
Make it count– rei

Don’t hurt someone
undeserving– youi
What’s something in your
Life that you wish would
Dematerialize
Infinity in a kick, jab
What would you like to caterwaul
Into counter-offensive– gedan

Just know that when
You chop their solar plexus– chuudan
The center, they may be
More fragile than you imagine
Just a human heart– shinzo
In a suit of skin, sometimes
No breath returns–shichi
Hachi- Yame

Fumi Yanagimoto. Contemporary Artist. Painting.

Sushi

Get in my bell
You gorgeous cut
Of perfectly raw
Snapper and White tail
You delectable rolls
Of seaweed rice
Naked salmon
Perfectly nicked
Lemon save that
horrible cream sauce
For another palate
The best advice
Ever received regarding
Sushi is that if it’s good
No additives are the
Way to go
No unnecessary dressings
If it is perfectly toothy
Scrumptious sushi
Undecorated ditch the
Wasabi and Ginger
Eat it by the mouthful bare

Buddha, Chinese, early 7th century. Probably Amitabha. On view at The MET Fifth Avenue, Gallery 208.

Kali

She cradled my head in her hands
a portal opened to my heart

My body silently convulsed
at the chaos

The truth was I needed love
more than I needed life

I needed touch more than I
needed bread.

I needed tears more than I
needed water.

I needed someone who understood
breath, meditation, muscle, sinew

Connection, bodies, I needed
someone who understood

What being left felt like
I wasn’t yet beginning

To believe I would survive yet, I wasn’t able
to process the complexity

All raw edges and terrifying depths of memory,
I didn’t know I’d return from death

I’d come back into the sunlight, warm and
buttery on my chest, all senses awake

Breath Meditation N. 27. Thoth Adan.

Full Moon, Partial Lunar Eclipse, Pisces, September 2024

the earth comes between
the moon and the sun do you
feel energy shift

Lunar Eclipse. Ryan Moat. January 20, 2019.

Eschatology

Life took us to the edge of the known universe

this brink, this precipice, on a red dirt plateau,
all rust-verged and jagged,
like a tear in heart tissue,
like broken bone projecting through soft skin.

skin, bone, sinew often don’t break cleanly
so there, on that terrifying cliff,
we looked out into the blackness
and saw that it was our own

dotted with infinite, swirling stars,
nebulous arms of our galaxy, folded across
that night, that nothing. we realized
the instant we stepped to the fathomless limit

all the light we carried in our core could somehow
save us, from this end. So into the starry,
inky ebony we leapt, being careful to be
sure that we crossed over the boundary between

everything we’d known, into every
night we’d ever feverishly dreamed.
this jump, this real act of
self-preservation flung us into

the heart of the unknown cosmos
and there we were to greet ourselves
at the gates of our unknowing.
we opened the tiny, golden latch on the

impossibly large, swinging metalwork gate,
stepped slowly, quietly over the threshold of
revelation, everything open and waiting
for us in that pitchy gloam still had

to be sensed– felt, touched, tasted, smelled–
not physically, but by the fingers of
the formerly known soul that now
bore this greater knowing. this

was not the end but the beginning.
a larger excursus on the limitless
infinite than we had previously
known. we’ll never know if there

was only one way to this beginning–
the ledge, the leap, the jump–
our tiny, finite, blink of a guess gives us
the idea that, no, there are

many precipices, many pinnacles, many paths
to the infinite edges of the unknown into
new reaches of galactic consciousness–
seeing and knowing more than we

could possibly have imagined yesterday

Breath Meditation N. 22, Thoth Adan.