Little things fall away  as big things become more clear.    I can no longer open jars  or carry two grocery bags at once.    But I can perch like an eagle   on the edge of the vastness  in any given moment.    I now walk into the kitchen  and forget what I was after.    But I can recite Basho’s instruction  to Kikakou in 1689 and join  their conversation.    I now stop near the top of the hill ... Read more

This whole journey is a rising and falling, a breaking into repair, a stubborn hike into acceptance, a give and take that lets the soul breathe.   And I keep building nest after nest, for I believe that everyone can fly. I keep trying to understand, a nest in itself, only to give every- thing away, the surest way to fly.   Like a note that stirs your heart and mine, I don’t know if I am the key waiting... Read more

I confess that though I see all for a second and nothing for a long time, I believe in all. The nature of true knowing is fleeting, though the deepest knowledge is constant. The great Jewish philosopher, physician, rabbi, and astronomer, Maimonides (1138–1204), offered this image about the transient nature of knowing: At times the truth shines so brilliantly that we perceive it as clear as day. Our nature and habit then draw a veil over our perception, and we... Read more

I was in the hammock  watching the breeze through  the willows when you and Zuzu  climbed in. We laughed, your  feet in the crook of my arm,  Zuzu’s tail thumping on my  chest. The hammock swayed  from the weight of us all  huddled there together.  It seemed a secret whispered  in the chaos: huddle together  and the hammock of time will  sway, for a moment, and carry  you the way the sky carries   clouds. This moment of sway  renders all... Read more

On the way home, a magician   stops you with his banter as he   discovers a quarter behind your   ear, and suddenly there’s a soft-  ness in the back of your throat.     And, as you admit to being soft,   the magician pulls a gem from   your sleeve that you didn’t know   was there, and you start searching   your pockets for what you need.     A Question to Walk With: Discuss with a friend or loved one what magic means to... Read more

Because eating-air-without-holding-back tastes like   music. It’s why I stop when kissing your shoulder,   stalled in the wisdom of your skin. Look how we   keep growing despite the impediments. Look how   weeds bust through the cracks in the road. Look   how the streets are filled with beaten-down souls   rising through the hardness of their lives. Oh, the   pianist is learning how to play, as the piano maker   is learning how to string the thing that saves us.   And I am learning... Read more

  The drop of a glass brings us running  but we have to climb to see the view.   In this, the vow to love: to be there   when we break and to never stop   climbing.   And to enter the vastness, side by   side, is like walking through a   forest at dawn.   And listening to each other squawk,   again and again, is to stand firm   before the waterfall of trouble.   Day in and out, we share the... Read more

In what you suffer and miss   and hope for, you are alone.   No one can feel your pain   or fear but you.     Yet on the edge of your   canyon, I am here, eager for   the view, waiting to lift you   and hold you.    We could have been born   on different continents or in    different centuries but here we   are, loving each other through   the silver weeds of being here.    It is a tangled knot in the   fabric... Read more

  In a moment of weariness with  who he has become, a sex trader  tells the six frightened girls cornered  in the back of a laundry that he will  let one go. They pull hairs and the  longest is left behind. That night,   on her father’s small farm, a little   worm carrying blight tires and lands   on the elm, sparing the willow. The   next season, a sudden gust through   the willow pushes the bee to the next   flower, which given... Read more

  When I try to describe you  to someone who doesn’t know  you, I smile deep inside, as I do  when remembering a hike up a   mountain or a day at the ocean.    You give your all to everything.  Whether tilling your garden, or   mitering a joint, or wanting to   drive to New England to see a   certain type of tree, you hold   nothing back.    This is what it’s like to be loved  by you. You will go... Read more