Week Eighteen Poem: Still

It is impossible to write

When my heart is peaceful.

There is nothing to grab onto,

Stick words to,

And ruminate upon.

There is no outrage or heartbreak

No adoration or elation.

Stillness of the mind yields

Stillness of the pen.

Peace, refracted through

The prism of my mind

Casts rainbows of contentment

Across attic beams and foundation stones.

I cannot write, unified, void of duality.

In the beginning there was the word

The word that started it all

Before the word there was only Being.

I cast a stone into the Stillness

Try to get a rise,
Manifest a raison d’etre.

The ripple will need a voice.

Take a breath and raise the pen,

Ready to catch the wave and
Sketch the boundaries that separate

This tiny piece of Self from the Source

It is no use and I laugh out loud

at the effort to instigate a chain reaction.

That Peace has its own gravity

The ripple falls back into the Still Lake of Being

It’s impossible to write

In such a place

Where words have no meaning

One can only Be.

Week Seventeen: Mockingbird Haiku

Simple pleasures abound in spring! Each day I walk from my office building to lunch and on this short journey I play witness to the earnest and most delightful display from the mockingbirds. Love is in the air...as the song goes...and the mockingbirds seem take that notion to a whole new level.
Happy Spring, everyone!

Mockingbird singing

The songs of a dozen birds

On a branch alone

Arrangement varies

Adds in a whippoorwill call

And car alarm, too

Sings “raucous crow” call

The one that wins her favor

She lights on his branch

Mockingbirds singing

Protect their nest of younglings

Medley lullaby

Week Sixteen: Come, sit in my garden.

There is nothing more deeply satisfying than digging my fingers into sun-warmed soil in springtime.  It’s as if my body needs to verify that, in fact, the long dreary winter is well and truly gone.  The earth turns in my hand and releases the aroma of possibilities; what will sprout here, this year?  I inhale deeply in appreciation of the dormant potentiality held in my hands.

Each year the garden beckons me from my winter hibernation - where I had been dozing dreamily over seed catalogs - out under the open sky to greet the sun, wind and rain.  My host of trusty shovels, rakes, hoes and gloves, dusty from the months of disuse, are once again employed in my endeavor to connect with the earth and watch the magic happen.

For what could be more magical than dropping tiny seeds into warm earth and then sitting back to behold the unfurling of a tentative leaf?  Or the opening of a bud that swells into a rose whose purpose, it seems, is to entice the bees?  In this tiny world sheltered by my garden fence I feel at one, at peace and whole.  Here, I am part of the cycle of life that flows through all beings.  And when I reach for a snap bean or sprig of rosemary and nibble them with soil covered fingers, I know this is my place.

Some say time spent in the garden is a hobby or maybe even a business.  To them I say, “Come!  Sit in my garden and look with clear eyes and see the mystery, magic and delight in these simple things.”  Then they know that I am one who can hear the whispers of the plant people and am here to share the wisdom of sustenance.

Week Fifteen - Random haiku snapshots of my week

Green pasture beckons

Waddling geese nibble new shoots

Cattle have flown south

###

Betrayed my trust

Hacked into my private files

Resignation penned

###

Liberation comes

To one free of attachments

Maybe, maybe not

###

Still water reflects

The scudding clouds of summer

Pond remains changeless

Week Fourteen: Sleepless

As part of the exercises I regularly do to hone my writing craft, I create pieces gleaned from the imagined views and perspective of characters I am developing along with a healthy dose of romantic, dramatic flare. Makes for some interesting and varied reading. I hope you enjoy!

Blessings! Cass


Sleep won’t take me to the shores of dreams
Drenched in moonlight and beckoning
There is no rest for my wretched heart
Ticking like a time bomb and aching.

I beg and cajole that Sweet Slumber
To steal me away to Dreaming
There rules don’t rule and
Love’s erotic play plays out;
In that silvery landscape, there is no limit
We can have whatever we imagine.

A sensory feast to savor is what I would dream.
Rich and warm and sultry.
I want it all; Hands, heart and soul, too
You give them over freely.
Tip a wine cup to anoint us,
Naked
Coiled
Unashamed
Poplar and teak, fair and dark,
Our union harmonizing and deep
Honey-scented passion play is headier than mead.
Drunk and sated in each other’s arms
That’s the dream I long for.

But sleep won’t take me to lay with you
On the twilit shores of What-if and I Wonder,
I toss, awake to seek comfort where I can find it.
Cool and impartial powers have inserted themselves
Short circuiting my plans to love you.
Integrity and Truth; cold comfort, indeed
Offer no soft ground to rest upon.

The Great Bard wrote of star-crossed lovers
In truth, I must be Juliet to call into the night
“Wherefore art thou?”
Cast the bones and gaze into the ball
And conjure up a wish-fed spell.
There is no earthly realm to hold Us.
Shall ever meet you on the shores of dreams?
I think, yes.
Unrequited.
Bound.
Hopeless.

Week Thirteen - Boys of Summer - a few 'ku and one not 'ku

It’s Opening Day
With the greening of the fields
The boys are back

Stepping out like Gods
The crowd’s great roar anoints in
A benediction

Faithful fans flocking
The season is underway
Hope springs yet again

This time they could win
The bullpen and field are strong
Awesome at hitting

The boys of summer
Reign supreme on fields of dreams
A Nation’s honored pastime

Week Twelve - Little Darlings

My “little darlings” are culled and corralled
Into disheveled collections
On every hard drive of every computer
I have ever written on.
Turns of phrase and
Bits of word-smithery
That I couldn’t bear to simply
“Delete.”
They hang out together - an unlikely assortment
In a file called
“gems to cut.”
One day I’ll sift through them
And place them artfully into
A piece of prose or an unsuspecting poem
Where they can really shine
Eclectic and expressive
Artful and daring,
These little darlings might just have been
Worth saving.