life: acoustic & amplified

rest in the miracle that has always already happened!    – Fred LaMotte

When the world does not conform

to the story in my head

I get a feeling that

“something’s not right.”

Why is the story in my head

not down-loading properly?
Why do I sense that the world

needs to be fixed

and I must repair what is “wrong”

by imposing my story

onto the mystery

of the ineluctable?
Yet the world is not a problem.

The problem is

there’s a story in my head
but it’s not quite the same

as your story, is it?
And so there is conflict,

there is suffering,

even if our stories are about

salvation, about justice

and equality, the perfect

marriage, the cleanest

environment, or gaining

enlightenment…
Happiness cannot arise

if we slather the world in the thin

veneer of our narration.

Happiness is the dance

of atoms ordered by

the dynamics of chaos

in the heart of the now

when we let both story

and teller disperse

like a fine mist,
when we let things clarify

all by themselves

the way silt filters and falls

through a mountain brook

in liquid transparency.
Now rest in the miracle

that has always

already happened.

Just shut up and see.

A rain cloud vanishes.

There are crystal drops on

blades of grass, each containing

the sun.
💫

SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT by Alfred LaMotte

Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light…

   Vincent Van Gogh 

these anniversaries 

the marking of dates

building Ebenezer memorials 

from the stones of help

bringing me to this place

tasting again

the bitter herbs

the roasted lamb

the flat bread

the milk and honey flowing over everything 

the fresh dates and figs 

of now

sitting with this

bitter-sweet

sweet-bitter

this life

this love

this past

this practice 

this present 

this grateful 

that gratitude 

that changing

this constant

this birth

this death

this resurrection 

always this love

ah this love

just. 

this. 

love. 

always the path of thanks

always the gifts presenting 

along the diamond road

this is my tradition

my version of holiday 

each one

my best of days

my worst of days

feeling it wrapping around my senses

these memories clouds 

wrapping around me

enveloped from behind me

me always facing forward

always facing toward the rising moment just ahead

the path before me the most important 

always remembering,

along with that other Southern Belle…

tomorrow is another day…

the best is always yet to be! 

🗓

AL 7/23/16 gratitude/tradition

Life

                                    truly             

                            is beauty                

                    beauty                                     

           salted                                                     

        by rare moments                                           

of exquisite suffering.    
 Life

  truly             

    is suffering               

              suffering                                    

  peppered                                              

           by rare moments                                           

of exquisite beauty.    

         

🌹                   

https://www.claudiuskeepsakes.com/collections/frontpage/products/duality-of-life-mug

there’s this summer song

of cool wind on my skin, 

playing sweet percussion through the tall, lush marsh grass

gentle water

invisible birds singing in surround sound

my heart resonates with the language we have spoken

the songs we have sung

the rich vibrations of our connection

over the past few days

the new sun warms my back

my shadow sits large

writing poems

this silence my gratitude

this morning my pleasure

this day my gift

this moment my life

thank you for reaching out 

for breaking through the darkness

for holding my hand
💞

AL

The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well. 

     – Frederick Buechner 

      The Final Beast

Then I walked 

straight forward

out of the gate,

through the wood,

along the river,

toward the mountain
and I thought of the future

I could make in the world

if I walked toward it

like this,

with my face toward the hills

and my eyes full of light

and the earth sure

and solid beneath me,

walking

with a fierce anticipation,

and a faithful expectation,

with the sun and the rain

and the wind on my skin

and that old sense…

of many paths

breaking from one path.
So learning to walk

in morning light

like this again,

we’ll take our first 

light step

toward mortality,

walking

out of the garden,

through the woods,

along the river,

toward the mountain,

its simple,

that’s what we’ll do,

practicing as we go

and

we’ll be glimpsed, 

traveling westward, 

no longer familiar,

a following wave,

greeted, as we were at our birth,

as probable 

and slightly 

dangerous strangers,

someone

coming into view,

someone about

to find out.
Some wild 

and improbable risk 

about to break 

on the world again.
..
David Whyte

Adapted from LEARNING TO WALK

From RIVER FLOW: 

New and Selected Poems