Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

Jump

8/4/2024

Photo by Haut Risque, Stockholm, Sweden

Because my car is twenty years old
and the gizmo that goes ding ding ding
when you leave the lights on
has been busted for at least a decade,
I’m always contending with a comatose battery,
always approaching strangers to ask for a jump
in the Trader Joe’s parking lot
or on a deserted street in the growing dark,
where a man in a python-green Porsche
affixed the red and black alligator clamps confidently
yet incorrectly, killing the thing altogether,
resulting in a 10 PM call to AAA,
an hours-long wait in a 7-Eleven,
and a midnight ride sitting in the cab
of a tow truck whose driver had just been dumped
by his wife of eleven years
and desperately needed to talk about it.
These are the adventures you may have
if you tend to leave your lights on, as I do,
at dusk when the light is tricky — the hour
between dog and wolf the French call it,
when the distracted mind is too full of shadows
to remember what the body did just moments ago.
By now I’m an old hand at setting up cables,
fitting black to minus, red to plus,
but I’ll never get over the small miracle
of how fast it all works, the spark arcing
quicker than thought
as soon as a benefactor turns their ignition switch;
my own car springing to life again
like Sleeping Beauty after just the right kiss;
the way a smile will ricochet from a stranger’s face
to my own, or one kind word retrieve
a flailing soul from the abyss.

- Alison Luterman

To Learn From Animal Being

7/28/2024

Nearer to the earth’s heart,
Deeper within its silence:
Animals know this world
In a way we never will.

We who are ever
Distanced and distracted
By the parade of bright
Windows thought opens:
Their seamless presence
Is not fractured thus.

Stranded between time
Gone and time emerging,
We manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always
Looking out from
The here and now.

May we learn to return
And rest in the beauty
Of animal being,
Learn to lean low,
Leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses
Feel the earth
Breathing with us.

May we enter
Into lightness of spirit,
And slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.
Let the clear silence
Of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts
Of corrosive words.

May we learn to walk
Upon the earth
With all their confidence
And clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds
Might be baptized
In the name of the wind
And the light and the rain.

- John O'Donohue

Joy Chose You

7/7/2024

Joy does not arrive with a fanfare
on a red carpet strewn
with the flowers of a perfect life

joy sneaks in
as you pour a cup of coffee
watching the sun
hit your favorite tree, just right

and you usher joy away
because you are not ready for her
your house is not as it should be
for such a distinguished guest

but joy, you see, cares nothing for your messy home
or your bank balance, or your waistline

joy is supposed to slither through
the cracks of your imperfect life

that’s how joy works

you cannot truly invite her
you can only be ready when she appears
and hug her with meaning

because in this very moment
joy chose you

- Donna Ashworth

Rift Valley

6/2/2024

The Great Rift Valley, Kenya

Between one world and another,
Lies the rift and the increasing separation,
As the plates of one mind slip away
From the plates of another mind.
I do not question which way I am to go,
But call to my heart to act on the decision made
To follow the soul
Or I will be split apart too,
As so many are,
Between violence
And Beauty.
The violent demands of our everyday life
And the strange beauty of Spirit afar.
I must choose Beauty
No matter the cost in this life.
I must choose and leap
Across the widening valley;
We cannot rest between.
Leap!
Ah Beauty! Receive me in your open arms.

- Deena Metzger

Sweep the Threshold

3/31/2024

Riverbed Comforter
Painting by Duy Huynh

Sweep the threshold,
unlock the door,
put the busyness away--
what comes is far
too important.
Build a fire,
quiet the house,
all your sensing is required.
Hear the hoof beats?
The full horse breaths?
Mice may scratch in the walls,
spiders rattle the roof,
you've nothing to do
but be home.
Movements beneath your skin,
flashes of thought,
quickening heart,
allow them.
This is a welcoming.
You don't know who approaches
only that they must.
Freedom blooms
as we set
a place for everything.
What you carry in your blood
has voice--
Let her sing.

- Willow Annan Rose

Quiet Place

2/18/2024

Are you looking for a quiet place?
But friend, you are already here.
The repose of your blood between pulsations.
A secret chamber in your chest where
you have no enemies,
no one is to blame,
and the endless journey
has never begun.
Here even prayers for peace need no speaking.
You can disperse into
the finer element you are before you breathe.
You can be the sparkling sky
in the lungs of a hummingbird,
smoke of sage in desert air, aureole in emptiness
where the flame just blew out.

Here you can burn away
because you remember your body
is made of vanished stars.
You can stumble and fall
into your own rhythm, which feels
like you are not moving at all
because your mind is at rest in flesh
that needs no discipline of stillness.
You are a nest inside the egg,
a mother's womb that carries
her own savior, the seed
of what you have always been seeking.

Now flower
on a Winter night.

- Alfred K. LaMotte

MCGA

1/14/2024

Photo by John Noonan

Sometimes I get it in my head
to turn over a new leaf
and try to be a better man--
more kind or humane,
more patient or giving.

It works for a while
and for a while after that
I white-knuckle the backslide
into comfort and habits
of self-involvement.

All along
there's a crowd in me--
who go to rallies, wear
Make Chuck Great Again hats
and watch only Chuck News--

I'm embarrassed
to admit that I love—yes
love what's in the way
of love in me, though I see,
precisely and often,

who I could be, and how
I fail—even as my death
comes closer—feeling it
turn me like it turns
the leaves.

- Chuck Madansky

Hold Out Your Hand

12/24/2023

"el sol y la selva siempre estan contando sus historias"
the sun and the jungle are always telling their stories
Art by Troy Farrell, [email protected]

Let’s forget the world for a while
fall back and back
into the hush and holy
of now

are you listening? This breath
invites you
to write the first word
of your new story

your new story begins with this:
You matter

you are needed—empty
and naked
willing to say yes
and yes and yes

Do you see
the sun shines, day after day
whether you have faith
or not
the sparrows continue
to sing their song
even when you forget to sing
yours

stop asking: Am I good enough?
Ask only
Am I showing up
with love?

Life is not a straight line
it’s a downpour of gifts, please--
hold out your hand

- Julia Fehrenbacher

Nobody Cares

11/19/2023

photo by Leah Berman

Nobody cares if you stop here. You can
look for hours, gaze out over the forest.
And the sounds are yours too—take away
how the wind either whispers or begins to
get ambitious. If you let the silence of
afternoon pool around you, that serenity
may last a long time, and you can take it
along. A slant sun, mornings or evenings,
will deepen the canyons, and you can carry away
that purple, how it gathers and fades for hours.
This whole world is yours, you know. You can
breathe it and think about it and dream it after this
wherever you go. It’s all right. Nobody cares.

- William Stafford

To Lay One's Heart Upon the Ground

10/22/2023

Kali on Shiva from a Tantric Devi Painting

Mother, tonight I have taken my heart
From its cage and laid it at Your feet.
The rapture of this was indescribable.

For one thing, I didn't die as I thought.
I discovered that hearts were for giving
And not for having. This was the first

Lesson of the night. The second came
When I understood what it felt like
To lay one's heart upon the ground.

I wept to think how many years of life
I wasted not knowing where a heart
Belonged. Those were lessons enough,

But then You rested Your foot upon me
And I saw the Universe from the bottom up
The only way it could be witnessed.

That was as much as I could bear,
And there was no lesson in it, for it was
More than anyone could learn.

In the end I've decided to leave
This heart in Your keeping. Do with it just
What You do with the Universe,

And that will be good enough for me.

- Clark Strand

<<Previous