Category: Nature Poetry

As a breath of air fills my lungs,
I hear a bird-cry.

I do not recognize it and think to myself
how good.

Most of my thoughts
spend themselves on people,
on internalizing their rigid delineations,
so that I can say
“this is I”
and believe it.

But this bird I cannot see,
only hear,
is far greater than I could ever be,
as its song is much deeper, much humbler,
than any poem I struggle to write.

I say this because its song is not for me,
its breath not mine,
and no effort is wasted
on my delight.

Its song asks nothing and says nothing,
avoiding the greatest of all follies,
and speaking truth.

For what is truer than a bird being a bird,
and air being air,
and a foolish child misunderstanding both—
calling their combination
“song”.

I.
There is only The Way
The exhaustion of the body through hard training
The winter air that meets hot skin
The stream that rises into space
The spirit
is of body, mind, and nature
Here, the Self is again

II.
A warm hermitage
The musty sweat of one’s life
The pure air of winter
Heat and cold meeting and dancing
One is the offspring of a cyclone
Pure, flawed, and innocent

III.
It is easy to remain still while submerged in peace
It is harder to be a stone in a coursing river
But one must learn

IV.
There is the quiet of one’s life
In it one may find the riches of dreams
The garden of one’s mind is abundant
Flowers are in bloom at every moment
A single moment’s realization is all it takes
The source of all treasures is oneself

I want you to know
that this life of yours
is the sunshine shimmer
on a pond’s surface.

You may not feel this,
you may be overwhelmed
by guns firing inside your head,
but believe me

you really are
the morning and mist
on leaves.

When you open your eyes, you begin
the World.

You are born every day,
and every day
you are found mixed within particles of earth:

cool grasses of evenings
soft and curled underfoot,
seasons praying
in every natural tongue and tone,
snowflakes alight with firestorm passions
sacrificing themselves for a flower’s growth.

Yes, I know
the demands of the day seem not to end,
that debts continue to grow fatter and more deformed,
that friendships lose their color and grow old,
and that loneliness sometimes creeps in
at festivals, on roads, in waters,
above cities, within
quiet along the ledge
of the limits of your pain,

but please, do not ignore the simple truth sprouted:

the body that is your mind that is your World.

Always remember that you are rooted
deep within the womb
of time and space and matter and breath.

Do not ignore the rising of your chest
as you stretch the branches of your arms beyond
the rippling blue blanket that drapes
dreams and hopes,
songs and prayers,
in the miracle of sky.

Between your fingers,
those gentle twigs,
beams

the sun
of the Individual.

It wakes after the night
breaks

and falls.

     Do you hear that?
     A baby’s first cry,
     the first ripple in the pond.

Despite many years of trying,
I am not
any more or any less
human.

I am neither the transcendent
nor the fallen,
neither star nor worm.

I am
what I have always been:

the lonely pen by the river
and the page waiting to be filled.