Poetry

We are as insects trapped in amber
Last alive in the Eocene,
Which makes us very old,
Moths perhaps.
Our resinous coffins shaped, shined, and fondled
By Cro-Magnon and Baltic men and women
Who burn with wonder
That we were and are and aren’t.

I don’t want to be a bug in amber I cried
And it is hardly being a bug that troubles me
It is being stuck in this terminal goo forever
A prison
A shiver of fear
The terrifying reality of sticky feathers.

I love the pattern on my wings
my dusty pigmented scales
that evoke
female pheromones
and pheromone receptors
sensory neurons
olfactory sensilla
male antennae.

I did not intend this amber fate
He says, as they rest atop one another
atop the branch
on which they are delirious and invisible.

Oh blessed entomology
What is possible
What is true
There is me
And there is you.

At the end of my first thirty day yoga teacher training course (which I took with Anna Forrest in Santa Monica in the 1990’s) the attendees were offered the opportunity to speak for 3 minutes and I offered this “poem,” which is meant to be chanted at a pace to be completed in under 3 minutes. Out loud. Try it. Mean it. Or not. Even disobedience deserves a gratitude.

Gratitude is an attitude
Not a platitude.
Be Gratitude.
See Gratitude.
Sculpt Gratitude.
Wear Gratitude.
Where’s Gratitude?
Here’s Gratitude.
Practice gratitude.
Standing. Gratitude.
Death. Gratitude.
Breath. Gratitude.
Downward dog. Gratitude.
To the injured. Gratitude.
To the healers. Gratitude.
In suppression. Gratitude.
For expression. Gratitude.
Courage. Gratitude.
Caring. Gratitude.
Not caring. Gratitude.
Wish it were different. Gratitude.
Wish I were different. Gratitude.
Accepting what is true. Gratitude.
Openness. Gratitude.
To pain, to pleasure, to change. Gratitude.
To jealousy. Gratitude.
To crow pose, to lion, to life. Gratitude.
To the teachers. Gratitude.
To their flaws. Gratitude.
To the slights. Gratitude.
To the mind. Gratitude.
To the heart. Gratitude.
To muscle, sinew, joints, and bone. Our gratitude.
Electrons. Gratitude.
DNA. Gratitude
Our spirit. Gratitude.
Ancestors. Gratitude.
Continuity and flow. Gratitude.
To distrust. Gratitude.
In trusting. Gratitude.
Pranayama. Gratitude.
It’s a feeling. Gratitude.
It’s all thought. Gratitude.
Love of beauty. Gratitude.
Look before you leap. Gratitude.
She who hesitates is lost. Gratitude.
No matter how much I try … Gratitude.
It will never change. Gratitude.
In the rocks and in the stones our gratitude.
Step in the stream. Gratitude.
Don’t give a damn. Gratitude.
I’d give my life. Gratitude.
For our genitals. Gratitude.
And our effort. Gratitude.
Inspiration. Gratitude
Transformation. Gratitude.
Warriors I, II, III. Gratitude.
To the liberators. Gratitude.
Thinking. Gratitude.
Don’t know mind. Gratitude.
Fish, fire, phoenix. Gratitude.
Mother, brother, straddle. Gratitude.
Tomorrow. Gratitude.
Bird of paradise. Gratitude.
In beauty. Gratitude.
The hoop of our people. Gratitude.
Loved and lost. Gratitude.
Humility. Gratitude.
Futility. Gratitude.
Magic. Gratitude.
Tragic. Gratitude.
The arrival. Gratitude.
The departure. Gratitude.
The explicit. Gratitude.
The unstated. Gratitude.
In the Word. Gratitude.
The inversions. Gratitude.
The unconscious. Gratitude.
All the dreams. Gratitude.
And the dreamers. Gratitude.
To be small. Gratitude.
To be huge. Gratitude.
Active feet. Gratitude.
Chanting. Gratitude.
To the monk. Gratitude.
To those present. Gratitude
And those absent. Gratitude.
To our graces. Gratitude.
For the dolphins. Gratitude.
Tears and fears. Gratitude.
Competition. Gratitude.
To the guys. Gratitude.
And the goddess. Gratitude.
No one asks. Gratitude.
Bring it on. Gratitude.
Forward bend. Gratitude.
In the dark. Gratitude.
In the light. Gratitude.
Namaste. Gratitude.
Blessed silence. Gratitude.

When crossing the border
Which you do on foot
From Tanzania to Kenya
The sign that reads, “Welcome to Kenya,”
Which has seen better days
Also marks the start of a strange little piece of Earth
Where you’ve departed Tanzania
But not yet officially entered Kenya
Not until you reach the visa office
Some hundred yards away
And it is in this very space
That dozens of colorfully bejeweled and beaded Masai women
Some with absolutely stunning faces
Have established a free trade zone
Designed to separate the tourist
From any remaining Tanzanian shillings
Left pleading to stay close to home in his pocket

Their technique is masterful
As they grab dozens of colorful necklaces and bracelets
Hold them out to you by the handful
Offer them to you at genuinely low wholesale prices
Bracelets and necklaces you really don’t want
Which they are slipping onto your wrists
And hanging about your neck
As you worry about pickpockets and say
“No, no, no,” in English, German, Mesopotamia, and Swahili
As kindly as you can

“Then keep them as a gift for your wife,” they say,
“Your girlfriend, your daughter, your mother
Take them, they are yours.”
At which moment
You first notice the young tall African man wearing the extra large,
Green T-shirt with the number 5 on it
The word Celtics on it,
And the name Garnett, your favorite player, on it
Standing on the court as it were, here in no-man’s land
Wishing you had your camera
Which is still in some illegal pawnshop
On the wrong side of the tracks in Moshi
Hoping that you will rescue it
To take pictures with it like these
Of the incongruity of Kevin Garnett
Your favorite player
Here in no-man’s land
Against the backdrop of trailer trucks clearing customs
       and bejeweled Masai women
When the man sees you looking at him
Approaches you
Asks what you are looking at or want

So you point to his shirt
To the number and name on it
To the words on it
As you say, “It’s my team, my favorite player”
And before you have put your finger down
He has pulled his shirt off
And standing gloriously thin and beautiful above his belt
Just like Kevin Garnett does
He hands his shirt to you,
Says it is yours
As you are saying “No, no, no,”
In English, German, Mesopotamia, and Swahili
To which he replies, “I am African, keep it, it is yours.”

And you want it
Want to give him some money
Or at least a young goat
But at the same moment
The bus driver has taken your arm
Hustling you toward the visa office
And a customs officer watching the event unfold
Is pointing at you,
Moving toward the scorer’s table,
Motioning that you are to give the shirt back
To the half naked Africa standing in no-man’s land
Maybe a little drunk, or a tad crazy,
Or someone with poor impulse control,
Or poor boundaries at the borders, you joke with yourself
Handing him back his shirt with regret
Enter the visa office
And exit ten minutes later
An official visitor to Kenya
About to get back on the bus
Greeted by the same coterie of Masai women
And one familiar Kenyan man
Wearing a black jacket
You cannot imagine where or how he found so quickly
How he grasped the situation so quickly
And is waiving what is clearly your green Kevin Garnett
Number five, official NBA T-shirt

And notwithstanding the bus driver
Trying to move you along
And a bus filled with Indian’s, Kenyans, Tanzanians, and Americans   
Who also want to move along
You reach into your pocket
Giving the man your last ten thousand Tanzanian shillings
The equivalent of about seven U.S. dollars
As he gives you the shirt
The Masai women screaming at you
And at him
At the injustice of it all
The ridiculousness of it all
That you are paying for a dirty green T-shirt
When you could have a jewelry box filled with treasure
For even less money
And the bus driver is blowing his horn
And the passengers are waving you forward
And you climb onto the bus
With your new shirt
Checking your pockets
And waving at the Kenyan Kevin Garnett
Who has clearly made the winning shot at the buzzer
And is smiling.

A poem is born
By describing what is sensed or seen
And never saying the word it
Without describing what “it” is.
Admiring yellow squash flowers
Among the riot of purple morning glories
In the gardens which greet the day.
Crows standing pensively
Rocking back and forth on their toes
In black wing tipped dress shoes
Hands intertwined behind their backs
Engaged in a familiar dialogue
About roadkill
The harbor
And their diving neighbors the cormorants.
Transplanting small sprouting vegetables
Who convey their gratitude for soil and love.
After a demonstration at the bank
Calling for corrupt lenders
To hold very long meetings inside federal jail cells.
After yoga, and music,
And even an unwelcome creeping sense of paranoia
That emerges of its own accord
And leaves the station on its own schedule.
At the end of a good day,
A present day,
Where pain and stiffness are at a minimum,
The mail is taken to the post office,
And you approach life and death with hands raised high
In the universal sign of surrender.
Welcomed home
By the lover you’ve awakened
Eating pumpkin pie made with home grown pumpkins
Roasted seed, and ginger.
.

the love life of clams
is poorly understood
and being the shy creatures we are
i can tell you only certain things
without blushing.
for starters i’ll say
we enjoy very long periods of foreplay.
indeed, many think,
foreplay is all there is in the life of a clam
and they’re not all that wrong
it’s something we clams do for hours
dare i say entire seasons without cessation
excreting eggs and sperm by the millions
sometimes the very same clam
ushering both into the world
rocking back and forth
with the flow of the tides
with the pull of the moon
laughing while switching sexes
one day female
the very next male
our essence blended
into one multi-sexual organism
open to every other clam
without shame or grief
bodies buried in the mud,
faces buried in the sex organs
of each other and of ourselves
switching sexes repeatedly …
and not only don’t we care,
but i can tell you
from personal experience
we are awash with joy
with libido and saline
free from certain sad mammalian quandaries
the chasing about looking for yet another puzzle piece
thought to be missing
the rarity of finding a mate

One drop of rain
Contains millions of separate
And also merged
Molecules of hydrogen and oxygen
Gases we cannot see or feel
Combined to make a substance
No life on earth can live without
And like those elements
We are here joined together
As molecules and drops of hydrogen and oxygen
Wet and liquid inside our sweat, tears, and blood
Hard and frozen, brittle as ice,
Rising as steam and fog
Lifted to the heavens
Fallen back to earth
Never created
Never destroyed
Only changed and transformed
Always water
Inside our eggs, water
Inside our sperm, water
Inside the promise of the future
Water
Drunk by the roots of plants
To rise in the veins of trees
Where it is sweetened.
Water falling into the lake
Water rushing over the dam
Over rocks and pebbles for one hundred miles
Entering the great ocean
Floating across the sea to China
Drunk by giant seaweed
Nibbled at by small fish
Eaten by a larger fish
Caught by a fisherman
Served to his children
Taken into their bloodstreams
Urinated into a sewer in Shanghai
Risen up into the heavens
Falling again onto the earth
We breathe in one another
Like drops of water
Absorbed by the human soil
Drawn up through our human roots
Up through our veins
Sweetened
Released into the air
Lifted high into the heavens
Soon to fall again to earth
Somewhere still unknown
Still water
Loving being a part of us
Immensely happy to be here
Washing bowls and plates
Made into thin soup
Aide to the silent kitchen crew
Aide to the walking meditators
Held here, home here
Illuminated here
Part of the sangha assembly here
Part of you
As you are part of me
Walking together
Doing good deeds
In war and peace
Manifest in our shared breaths and blood
Our shared Buddhahood
One drop of water

My first yoga teacher
Beat me
Abused me
And did his asanas every morning
With discipline and joy.
Guru does not preach the benefits of exercise
He enacts them
And lets the results of stretching
And tennis
And healthful eating
Speak as his manifestation
Of what reaching for a higher self means.
His limitations are profound
His teachers few
He reads books written by swamis
And people who believe in faith, love, and seaweed
(although only impressed with the seaweed)
A man who thinks the body is the temple of the soul
That white sugar and white flour steal more nutrients
Than they provide
And that it is healthier to eat the cardboard box.
This is what he gave me
How it felt and hurt
And although naught still lives in his temple
We practice yoga daily
And I offer him my deepest thanks.