FREE TIME
My time is not free
tangled
there is something
over there
miniature silicon chips,
intricate pathways,
tiny gates, open/close
that thing beeps
buzzes
jangles my brain
tangles my time
break free!
but it’s not just the ipad desktop laptop phone tablet
there’s my mind, my brain with its own delicate thickets
Gates, Open Close Flow
Stop Send Receive
Let go !
Free time !
and suddenly I'm in an open moment
cinnamon buns,
fresh from the oven,
gooey white icing, melts among the folds
senses open
mouth waters
LIFE FORMS
Life
forms
how?
Dinosaurs they say
became birds
Did anyone tell you that?
did you believe it?
That’s a thing to be laid out
on a wall chart
wooden pointer
tapping
step
by
step
Dinosaur
tap
tap
tap
bird
et voila!
Dinosaurs were also
bits of green/brown plastic for the kids
one had a big bulge in the center
another a spikey crown
and T-Rex growled upright
on massive thighs
but not really, right?
And then it all came together for me
in a big bubble of time
when the little ones came to visit
* * *
Bones, delicate, like a bird’s
four little four-year-old fingers reach up to rest
in my
big
hand
and down on the beach, sandpipers,
their legs a blur
as they race
their rhythms
not mine
free me
tell me mine is not the only way
of being
aware
being
here
I float released in the sea air
Air shared
with dinosaurs
I feel it real
at the Witte Museum
there in front of me, a dinosaur bone
fossilized so big so heavy
so present
we all have our rhythms
what’s 67 million years?
all here
life forms
one to another
grandmother
grandson
bird
sandpiper
dinosaur
* * *
CODA – We all have our rhythms
Soon after they arrived
the 1-yr-old chased the 4-yr old round and round in a circle because there are 2 doors
in one, out the other and round and round
I put my phone on the floor trying to record the sound of their quick footsteps, their legs are so much shorter, the sound soothes so
yes, and then the sandpipers, quicker still
and how is the sound of the dinosaur whose bone I saw the other day?
and how might its footsteps sound to other dinosaurs?
all this making me feel, like Haldane, that this universe with all its life forms is not only bigger and more mysterious than I imagine
it is bigger and more mysterious than I can imagine
HOW TO BEAT THE COMPETITION
Kill them ….
or
give yourself a chance to get better at something you care about
use your creativity
find another way
or
discover that’s not actually
what you truly wanted
and find out what it is you do desire
NESTING TIME
Last March
crossing the canal
I turned my head
Spring
hollowed me out
like rivers as they bend sculpt caverns
delicacy of that pale bright green amidst
the dead-looking grey-brown stalks
blew into me
took my breath away
And now, again, it's nesting time
And now, after all these years, it's my turn
I have been preparing for decades
working branches stiff with anger, rage, rebellion
softening them slowly till they have become tender, pliable, nest builders
into this nest I place my heart
long buried, fragile, delicate as down
I nestle into myself
protected for now from the sheer terror
and unimaginable beauty
of existence
Soon, soon my heart will be strong
Soon, soon it will know
the freedom
of flight