on meditation: 2 poems

I recently spent 5 nights at the magical Vallecitos Mountain Ranch participating in an intensive silent meditation retreat for teachers. Wow! More on this to come…

But for now I wanted to share two poems inspired by my time there.

“Suspension”

the mind is a child swinging

at birth of motion

legs pump furiously to take flight

lifted by the wind of joy skyward

after the initial peak

legs extend and point to another world

then retract back beneath

falling into gravity’s arms

up and

down, back and

forth, lengthen and

folding, inhale and

exhale, ebb and

flow, rise and

fall, sunlight and

shadow, swelling and

subsiding, expansion and

contraction

a never-ending dance in the air,

within every ark there exists an “and”

a whisper of a moment at the zenith

a magical suspension of being

where the seat floats off the leather bottom

golden braids freeze in sky

time stops to catch its breath

it is the absence of movement

a paradox of weightlessness

breathtakingly beautiful

heartbeatingly alive

achingly brief

overwhelmingly present

Meditation lives in that moment.

*****

“The Fly: Two Sits”

~1~

inhale presence

exhale presence

crap, I hear a fly buzzing

how gross, but stay in the moment

inhale presence

exhale presence

I hope he doesn’t land on me

who knows where he’s been

last night there was one all over the food

whose idea was it to eat outside anyway?

talk about unsanitary

on our last camping trip,

I couldn’t even eat the corn because there were so many bugs floating around

shoot, I forgot to get corn at the store

I’ll have to go there on the way home

let’s see, what else do I need?

sour cream, eggs, bread, cilantro, and one more thing, what is it,

oh yeah, a fly swatter

shoot I’m supposed to be focused

~2~

inhale presence

exhale presence

crap, I hear a fly buzzing

there is room for that,

too

inhale presence

exhale presence

there is room for that,

too

inhale presence

exhale presence