life: acoustic & amplified

thin places

The ocean,
all movement,
seems so still,
the surface of a mind,
the waves coming in
against the grain.

Behind me
two horses,
mine and another,
wait together
grazing in tall grass.
They are friends,
they know the way.

I sit and wait,
not for something,
just wait.
The afternoon floats by
overhead, white and puffy
in the blue of God.

You come up
out of the sea
to me though
it seems you have walked
down into my waters
and disappeared.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net 

My father was trying
to fix something

and I sat there just watching,
like I used to,
whenever something

went wrong.
I kept asking where he’d been,
until he put down a wrench
and said Listen:
dying’s just something

that happens sometimes.
Who knows
where that kind of dream comes from?
Why some things

vanish, and some
just keep going forever?

Like that look on his face
when he’d stare off at something

I could never make out
in the murky garage,
his ear pressed
to whatever it was
that had died—
his eyes listening for something

so deep inside it, I thought
even the silence,
if you listened,
meant something.

Ellegy for a Broken Machine by Patrick Phillips

I gaze at the stars
the night air and sounds
seep soft through open windows
crickets and coyotes mix with dogs and cars
the occasional child crying
then the soothing sound of a mothers voice
I lay on a hard mattress
my neck hurts
my heart aches
(the wonder is it’s not worse
what with the echoing, empty canyon
of my worried wallet)
I think about the wonder and grace
of this life I am living
how much I have learned
how that is only the surface
the stars are fading
the big dipper is going to sleep
my eyelids are getting heavy
time to find dream answers
on the other side
of my living
where anything can happen
messages waiting to be received
wisdom is unveiled in its proper time
the compass points the way home
❤

Amy Lloyd

Because the most difficult part about making something, also the best,
Is existing in the middle,
Sustaining an act of radical imagination,
I simmered a broth: onion, lemon, a big handful of mint.

The phone rang. So with my left
Hand I answered it,
Sautéing the rice, then adding the broth
Slowly, one ladle at a time, with my right. What’s up?

The miracle of risotto, it’s easy to miss, is the moment when the husks dissolve,
Each grain of rice releasing its tiny explosion of starch.

If you take it off the heat just then, let it sit
While you shave the parmesan into paper-thin curls,
It will be perfectly creamy,
But will still have a bite.

There will be dishes to do,
The moon will rise,
And everyone you love will be safe.

❤

Thursday by James Longenbach

https://youtu.be/_R552UFoXaA