So much depends on the skywater, fights, fowl, flora
The liquid sunshine falling on Turtle Island.
The two inches of topsoil in-between,
that sustains us all.

The salt from mother Mary we taste on our lips as children,
becomes the salt of the brow from father Joseph,
becomes the bread of our own beginnings.
The salt off the backs of the Magi shedding from miles of heavy joy
becomes the incense of journey,
the myrrh of ending,
the gold of beginning again buried deep in the basement of the earth.
Passing ‘round, again and again.

When the pipes burst we were lucky to have friends and neighbors
The donkey quietly reminded us,
with smiling eyes, just next door.
Nothing is lost in our passing that can’t be found again by kin. We are all kin.

A spider is making it’s way,
Across the speckled white ceiling toward the Orchid,
That probably doesn’t get enough light to bloom.
Or perhaps away from the stinkbug on the windowsill.
So much life in the quiet evening room!
How could I ever be lonely,
Learning to talk with You?

On this day, give or take a season or so, twenty centuries ago,
three Folks were half-way through a journey …
And three were fixin’ to make one . . .

A Mama- probably wondering w̶o̶r̶r̶y̶i̶n̶g̶  about many things, sleeping when She could. Hoping, at the least, this kid would latch on … 

A Dad- definitely busy.
Certainly confused:
at the Register of Deeds, “That’s Nazarene with two "e’s” ,
at the passport office (“Yeshua H. Christ this line is long”),
at the saddler (“does the kid saddle face front or back?!)”, at the travel agent (“where exactly are those wadis?, yes, all of them, between here and the Egyptian border”)  … 

A Child sleeping that haloed sleep of babies, pooping, and yes, crying (don’t believe the hype).
Blissfully unaware of what was about to go down …

A Donkey eating all he could- having seen this scene before. 
And an Innkeeper was probably looking forward to...

There are Twelve steps on the Path of Love.
Some are taken to perfect the love of Oneself.
Some are taken to perfect Our love of Others,
Who, let’s be real here, are just You, incognito.
Such a trickster You are, Beloved!
Catching you out of the corner of my bluest eye,
I spill the coffee,
Watching us repairing the World.

It’s said the seven dots of the ladybugs’ carapace
Represent the seven sorrows of Mary.
John David is a joyous One.
Yet my back, too, bares the marks
Of passage through this World.

In the Judaic tradition the spark of creation,
The Big Bang -
Is described as a piece of light from the Creator,
Gifted to every living thing in the expanding universe.

In Hebrew the opening and playing with this gift is called Tikkun Olam.
The light We are Given is to shine us onto the part of Creation left for Us to finish.
If you see a part of the world that is broken and you see how to repair it that is your Tikkun.
If you see only brokenness and despair it is the light you use for self repair.

How lovely and difficult a gift!
How much trust Divine Creator offers stretching’s the umbilical light cord through spacetime!
We patch the frayed cord to avoid burnout,

We fix chinks in our own boundary wall to avoid interference,
We are clear the Channel of mud and bark.

How wise a Creator to give us this impossible miracle amidst a bounty of taken for granted ones:
Salt Water.
...

Yesterday I found the ghost of Tom
Not by his tomb
Indeed it looked like few of many had been there
Recently, unsurprisingly –
This is not a season of writers but doers of the Word.
I found some spirits in the ancient Maple and Oak
Going chestnut and saffron for the next vinyasa.
I was given the intention,
To see everyone:
the bubblegum blond bagging groceries,
a magenta tobacco farmer at the Trump rally,
the bum on a corner with tawny mange,
the mullahs of Iran,
the addicts in church basements seeking a higher Power, one tradition, one less drink at a time,
as the created Word of God.
An easy task.
Once I stopped the judging of myself in Them.
Moving quietly into the brush of Winter,
In my Fathers’ sheepskin coat,
culling those parts of my divided self
For the compost bin.

Gentle steady rain
Beats in cadence
Through Autumn leaves down spidered gutters
Syncopated as my thoughts
Infected with an unfamiliar wanderlust
Awaiting Gods’ will for Us.

How do we grieve?
I remember standing over the dead of Columbine
Children just as I was, who thought themselves adult.
Latchkey kids of the 1990’s
Whose parents lived in other rooms and other hours,
Not on others phones and customized news feeds.

How do we grieve?
Some will go to Facebook, they can’t use Twitter
for the list, not of the names,
but merely the places is far, far too long.
Too long this nation, founded on the freedom of the gun,
Has watered it’s trees with the blood of the Fourth Amendment.
It takes time to grieve the leaving of Spirit
Yet it’s passing is in an instant.

How do we grieve?
It seems a white hot anger,
A coal with no shuttle,
No place for holy fire.
The world burns, the waters rise
To an arpeggio of fiddle string
The wave breaks over us.

We cry.
We call our representatives, hoping to dislodge the check from the the NRA
From their shoulder...