Poetry is an oral tradition. Sounds created in the throat, rolled from the tongue, and tickling the eardrums into the body communicate something which can never be transmitted silently. If you don't believe this, imagine the presumption of learning a dance without moving your body, or telling someone about making love without ever having experienced it.

Read poetry to someone aloud and slowly, savoring the sounds. Or lacking someone, read slowly to yourself aloud. Feel the sounds tickle some of their meaning into your body, bypassing the mind, straight to the heart.

 

Grief Prayer

That's it, I said.
I can't watch more till this year's past.
Am I not wet enough in this pool of grief?
What sense this shaking, these tears?
It was not my son the fireman.
Not my wife who jumped.

But when the wave rolls over,
Is it less because I wasn't there,
Nor anyone whom I called mine?

I thought to walk with open heart would feel like bliss.
Instead, I've lost the difference
Between my grief and that boy's.
The one who afterwards could not sleep
Till given a bear sewn from his dead Dad's shirt.

Make me still bigger,
Till no grief's outside,
And I also cry for terrorists' kin.
And for our Nation's pretender,
Who poses, demands vengeance,
Then counts the votes his war has gained this week.

 

 

After meeting Neelam

Am I bathing in love,
Or catching fire?
I can't sleep.
I'm giddy and confused.
And closed places I barely knew are crying.

Catching fire? No.
This fire can't be caught.
It's a speeding train
I tried to grab as it passed.
But I slipped and fell.

Now, ground under those wheels,
My life is bloodied and unrecognizable.
And I can't find my worries.
I don't know if I'm aboard for the ride,
Or just crushed underneath.

But anyway, I'd advise
Throwing yourself on those tracks.
Be completely destroyed.
Bleed out the drama you love so, first cousin to mine.
Shake off the dust of what you called your life.
Together, we'll pick up what remains.
Then, finally,
We can all go dancing.

 

Let Love Wash You

When you wash, let love wet you.
When hungry, eat love.
Dress in love from head to foot
Tread love that squishes between your toes.

What else could mix light with shade
into these billion rippling forms?
See it, savor it, or not,
as you please.

But if you get full like this
a secret smile wears you,
You're like one who sees rainbows, day and night.
Then nothing is needed and all that comes, satisfies.

No Exchange

It is possible that this life I am turning to,
peopled with beings and patterns still only imagined,
is only fantasy.

Such things can happen in lives made too small with comfort
and too few wildflowers.

But something has surely changed
and without remembering how or when I got here,
I find myself in a new land with strange customs and knowings.

Currency I hoarded and carried all my life holds no value here,
earns only the food merchant’s blank stare.

I walk on down the street unsure how to satisfy my aching belly,
while lightening my pockets of the weight of useless coin.

 

I'm embarrassed!
All those years of missing you.
Frantic love poems,
Messages sent through others,
Writhing about in therapy,
"How can I cope?"
"How can I make her return?"
I've been busy.
I hadn't noticed.
How long have you been sitting there?

 

Birth

It was an error,
Thinking love a choice I could make,
An action I could take,
Given the proper object.
Making equations of "I LOVE YOU",
Spending lives trying to solve it.
Seeking lovers, children and pets,
As reasons for that which already IS,
Without reason.

Love, explode me!
Dissolve this I and its objects,
Till nothing's left which loves,
Nothing's left to love,
Nothing remains but Love,
And Love's become a wild stallion.

 

Wrinkles

On this planet, no one can miss the allure of youth.
Blazing glory of vitality and fertility,
our genes were made to love that smooth-skinned beauty.
Seeing the beauty of wrinkles takes a deeper vision
which may require all our years to notice,
if we’re lucky enough at all.

In that furrowed brow, can you see the sacredness of grief honored,
in that wrinkled cheek, decades of smiles?
There’s anger, there’s joy,
their signatures carved in our faces in 6 billion variations.

Praise youth, yes.
That beauty no one can miss.
Then hope you’re lucky enough someday to see that other beauty.

And if you’d like to practice, softly gaze into your mirror with a gentle eye.

 

Power Song

Written at the end of a week camping in Denali National Park tracking wolves and grizzlies under 20 hours of light daily

With my Friends, I am wheeling,
Under stars, I am wheeling,
Round the Earth, I am wheeling today.

With my Brothers, I am singing,
In the rain, we are singing,
To the Earth, we are singing today.

With my Sisters, I am dancing,
Under trees, we are dancing,
On the Earth, we are dancing today.

With the Mother, I am healing,
By cool water, I am healing,
With the Earth, I am healing today.

For the Children, I am running,
By a river, I am running,
Over Earth, I am running today.

With my Elders, I am willing,
Here and now, we are willing,
For the Earth, we are willing today.

 

The Body Makes Its Own Joy

We talking heads are always checking,
“Am I happy enough now?”
“Why not?”
 “What’s wrong?”

We’ll never understand how the body makes its own joy.

Just turn the prisoner loose
On bongo drums,
Or don dance shoes,
Or dive into a cold ocean wave.
Or run a hillside filled with wildflowers,

And see if you can keep from grinning.

 

More Poems by Paul