life: acoustic & amplified

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still knows bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

~ Viktor Frankl

I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering

shirt of you in the wind.

Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and

the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff.

And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the

singing voice of a careless humming woman.

One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a

bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own

talking to a spread of white stars:

It was you that slunk laughing

in the clumsy staggering shadows.

Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are

alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway

somewhere in the city’s push and fury.

Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence

under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run

away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.

❤️

Shirt by Carl Sandburg

risky

LEARNING TO WALK

So learning to walk

in evening light

like this again,

we’ll take those first steps

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 wonderfully

dangerous strangers,

someone just

coming into view,

someone as

essentially we are

and always have been:

some wild risk

about to break again

on an unsuspecting world.

…

Adapted from LEARNING TO WALK

From RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems

Many Rivers Press. ©David Whyte

…

My life is not tied up

in pretty blue bows

not many straight lines appear

on my map to this place

where I find myself today

I’ve chosen to go off grid

well maybe the truth is…

I found myself off grid

and after a while I realized it was the gift!

So I began making difficult, but purpose-filled choices,

again and again to stay there

I’ve skated thin ice and jumped with no net

over and over despite my own stable-craving nature

these tough years teaching me so much

in solitary silence

I’ve learned that somehow the ground always holds my weight

the universe conspiring to help me

and so, I live mostly on the edges

where adventure steals

all the comforts of an easy chair existence

where there is no sinking into the clouded cover of ‘safety’

when risking it all in the danger zone of unconditional loving

takes everything you have

a complex living

of big picture purpose

of loving the world enough to sacrifice pride

to stay small and humble

does anything I do matter?

sometimes Im not sure

But,

If anything does –

then everything does!

and so it goes

and so it goes

💞

Amy Lloyd

The most cat that ever was

As pastel colors stripe the sky leading to the magnificence of sunrise

I share wise counsel and deep conversation with the half-pint cat

Whispering things of wonderrrr and purrrfection

Sometimes in your dustiest of life wanderings

you learn unexpected things out of sheer necessity

Because, in order to be the human you want to be,

you must step into places you never thought your feet would take you

and wash the weeping and wounded you come upon

Somehow those hard things you chose to learn have saved the lives of another and then another

Sometimes those very things thrust into your unsuspecting, yet willing, hands

Become so important to your life’s philosophy

You begin to see a new way to be in the world

All these things open you to venture into expanded doorways and enfold you under loving rooftops

They enlarge your heart by a thousand times a thousand

They allow you to become intimate with life and humanity in a million myriad of tiny ways never understood before

Sometimes you stand on the Morning shore of your life

with the blazing sunrise radiating into your very soul

and you understand your life’s journey from a whole new perspective

you step out of that realm veiled by your former self eyes

illusions vanished

and into the subtle brilliance of this Holy Week of remembrance

Suddenly seen from a shadowy flash of sight through the eyes of Christ

walking the Via Delarosa

seeing the courage of all those faithful

pilgrims who walk the broken road again and again

Knowing exactly where the hard dirt leads

steps may falter

but never turn away

from these most valuable gifts, full of brutal beauty

knowing the only life worth living

is the one laid bare from love

the one lived knowing

Only love will save us from our selves

Only love will bring us home

💞

Amy Lloyd

maybe

Maybe my poems will lay on the floor in a pile like leaves in the fall

Or gather like a cloud over my head

Maybe words will rain from my pen like a summer thunderstorm

Quick and lightening sharp, tearing souls asunder

Maybe all the books of poetry ever written will rise like a flock of birds

and fly south for the winter

Maybe I’ll find just the right words needed to paint the perfect sunset

until then I’ll stand in simple wonder with bedazzled eyes

Maybe the dance of the cobra will arise within my hips

Every time I listen to the high tide at night or the sound of your laughter

Maybe the most beautiful love songs will drip from my mouth in waves

drowning the pain of your broken-heart

Maybe one day I will speak with the tongues of men and angels (While having love)

and watch the world change forever

💞

Amy Lloyd

good news first

The good news is that we don’t all fall down at the same time…

We stagger our joys and sorrows,

Our baptisms of awakening and drowning .

We are scattered and sacred,

Evening watering of half a planter and pulling weeds here and there and yet,

Holy and honest in our compassion for others.

Sometimes consumed with what is so wrong, witnessing what is dangerous to the human soul.

The good news is that we don’t all fall down at the same time…

We stagger our joys and sorrows,

Holding family up when illness comes ,

rejoicing when babies learn to walk,

when toddlers have favorite bedtime books to read on mamas and daddy’s laps;

When summertime is a different pace,

So our memories of why we do what we do, grow.

We are scattered and sacred,

Lost in pockets of space and time…

And yet, we pray for the grace to slow down,

For the colors in sunsets to rob us of clocks that tick,

To redeem us and bless us as the radiance rises up within us.

May the God of love who adores us ,

The God of life who knows us,

Who continues to create beyond our understanding,

But within our capacity to hear, to heal and to help,

Move us…to be radical with resurrection.

Beauty,

Rev. Donna Knutson

Strange to realize

on our very worst day of life

someone else is having their very best.

Every death

is countered with birth.

Every grieving tear

with belly laughter.

On the night we see the stars fall

the sun is rising on the other side of the world.

The human spirit cannot be conquered

we rise again with each fall.

Tides come in

as tides go out.

With every broken heart

there is an answering new moment of love.

For every first kiss

a final slamming of the door –

figuratively or literally.

For every threshold we cross

we must cross again in a new moment.

We each have moments of glory

moments of defeat.

Worry is the paper tiger

which strips our moments of joy.

Illusions of control hide behind our eyes

always revealed to be a waste of our precious resources.

There is a time for every season.

In all we are to bring the sacrifice of praise.

It is the amazing hat-trick to the healing of our wounds

that in every single circumstance

we stand in the truth of that moment

and we give thanks.

Amy Lloyd

1/18/14

wearing pain so close to the skin

brutally displayed on arms, legs and necks

topical grief, as yet unprocessed

waiting patiently to be subsumed within a shattered heart

carrying an unknown feeling

can be so hard to understand

tears drown our morning

watering flowered pillowcases each night

tides carrying us here and there

life blooms upside down

inside out

torn from headlines

of familial disasters

wait in hope, my friend

all is not lost

the windmills of the gods are grinding away

ever so slowly

yet the hourglass will never stop running

the fine sands of Father Time continue

the winds will change direction

you will smile again

and live to share your truest love another day

the promise is always

Yes and Amen

the sun is just beginning to shine through the clouds

we will run, laugh and jump in puddles

together

before this day is through

🌞

Amy Lloyd

thought becomes you

The colors blend

I think about

life

and

death

the importance of doing both well

how does it happen?

how do we live and die with grace?

the longer I live I am more and more convinced

It centers around our

thoughts

which lead us to

choices

our choices are all important

to both our living

and our dying

if I want to die with grace

I must live with grace

to live with grace

I must choose my thoughts wisely

I must listen to the wisdom which tells me,

Guard your heart, child, for everything you do flows from your heart.

Amy Lloyd

6/26/13

give me a beam

give me a beam

made of wood

give me timbers

from dead standing trees

give me mortar

from the bones of the earth

.

the storms are coming

the light is heavy

I have no language but this

.

give me a beam

made of wood

give me timbers

from dead standing trees

give me mortar

from the bones of the earth

.

.

”The ancient is new”

AD> 2018, c.

I want a love with padding on it

Built with sturdy beams

Mortar made of finest clay

Conversation concerning years

Worshiping the bones of another

lusciously padded love stories

Full of loads of hope

talking love and family

about what matters most

it’s good to be so lucky

everything has brought us right here

right, here!

life right here is special

days are blessed

Even tho the food here is not always understandable,

we still enjoy every bite!

Maybe THAT’S the true secret of life –

don’t worry too much about understanding it

just enjoy everything!

shadows will gather in corners

the day will fall soft at our feet

as we slip gracefully into the fine night

💞

Amy Lloyd

learning. a new old thing.

After this and that

Before the next and hereafter

I fell in love with the shadow of a beautiful soul

within a busted bone frame

made of finest porcelain without

but sheltered from within by the twisted logic

of angry words held hostage

from learned bigotry and class structures

from the beginning of our need for ruling

and so and so

just so and for so long

because of

in case of

ideas held tightly

what the world must be

in order to provide safety

to ones inherited abuse

keeping cover through vast accumulation

I began again to learn

a new thing or two

concerning heartbreak

and it’s benefits

how sometimes those choices keep us

where we are supposed to be

and give us opportunities to fly and flourish

without the prison walls of another

without seeing all the way into Dante’s vision of hell

(just a small glimpse kept me gasping for air for years)

I begin, again, to re-define the word wealth

and realize love, that is pure love

doesn’t change

but does allow

for a transmutation of the grief

into a kind of sacred learning

a new way of dancing with myself

and as my world softly shifts

into this newly understood place

within my freshly tenderized heart

watered by the tears of plenty

of days of loss

wrestling and rumbling

with my need for connection

my desire to be seen by a beauty,

that even tho hidden from itself,

is still so glorious.

I wake up to this new day

knowing anything is possible

to those who believe

I am expecting something good to happen

because it always does

the light is on in the hallway

I give thanks as I smell the coffee brew

It hits me how true the scriptures,

‘You are what you think about’

I think about how lucky I am

to have grown up with the voice to Don Williams

teaching me to believe in love and miracles

reminded of the silver held in the stars

gold in the morning sun

Songs color my path with grace

I think about these things

My music always becoming new

I bow deep

as I breathe into this amazing diamond of a day

💎

Amy Lloyd

Amy Lloyd art

What’s the good?

Where’s the joy?

What’s the lesson?

Where’s the love?

Peace is every step.

The shining red sun is my heart.

Each flower smiles with me.

How green, how fresh all that grows.

How cool the wind blows.

Peace is every step.

It turns the endless path to joy.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Passion photo Chris Albaugh @ The Enhance Your World Show / Facebook

Other photo credits found on Pinterest

https://youtu.be/MDt9bPCPBGk

hey baby

Happy Saturday!

deviating

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

— Frank Zappa

If you are not open to the unprecedented, you will repeat history. If you are open to the unprecedented, you will change history.

–Mark Batterson

You tell me to live each day

as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen

where before coffee I complain

of the day ahead—that obstacle race

of minutes and hours,

grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not

live each day as if it were the first—

all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing

her eyes awake that first morning,

the sun coming up

like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee

with the small roar of a mind

trying to clear itself. I set

the table, glance out the window

where dew has baptized every

living surface.

🌞

Imaginary Conversation by Linda Pastan