______________ It’s no surprise that we lose sight of the things closest to us—most of all loved ones. Not that we stop loving them in the day to day, but we lose the larger context of their depth and beauty that comes from first meeting. But luckily, the tides of experience throw us about, so that we chance to re-see those we love freshly. This poem records such a moment between me and my wife Susan. After Breakfast Like all... Read more

______________ As human beings, we are asked to choose, more than once, if we are striving for perfection or fullness. While excellence is an admirable and useful reward for our effort in the world, our immersion of heart into whatever we are doing leads us past excellence into the experience of Oneness. This is a hard insight to open. This poem tries.   REPEATEDLY WE ARE ASKED to embody or consume; to be in kinship with everything larger or to... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you.   The greatest threshold to an awakened life is the courage to say yes. Not yes to being abused or mistreated, but... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. I’m coming to understand joy as the all-encompassing moment of full being that can hold all the other more fleeting feelings, like... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. I wrote this poem a few years ago to honor a friend and mentor of mine, Dr. Joel Elkes, who will be... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. We are constantly reminded how everything is connected. From time to time, the oddest thing will open me to this mystical fact.... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. The mind is such a gift that, unless met and directed by the heart, it will take over the show and run... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. It was years ago that I learned that our job as spirits in bodies is to let our spirit rise from within... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. We are such willful creatures. Carried by our stubbornness, we can begin to think that we are the originators of all our... Read more

______________ My new book of poems, Reduced to Joy, has just been published. The book contains seventy-three poems, retrieved and shaped over the last thirteen years, about the nature of working with what we’re given till it wears us through to joy. For the next few months, I’d like to share poems from the new book with you. Once we are blessed to have a sense of what it means to be fully awake and alive, we are challenged to... Read more