a mess (haiku)

there were no reasons

things wound up the way they did

people left so sad

What we do with death Part 4 of 4

Inwardly, share with me

the riddle of your passage

with physical death

while I am here

to anchor and deed with living.

Gift me with glimpses,

presence, and responses

to what is happening for you.

Take with you

how I cherish your being

and reflect for you

on the impact

you have on my life.

Find a way

to let me be with you

in your passing.

Teach me the signs

of your grace in transition.

I am calmed

as you are calming.

I journey along

but do not have

the sight or depth

unless you are the offering.

I am a servant

to the expanse you face.

I can never return from

where you now take me.

It is not that

I am dying your death

but rather I am living

a deeper richness.

You exemplify your passage

and it is answers

to my blindness.

Your spirit comes forward

as you leave

and I leave my personality

to embrace what you offer.

We are there

as never before,

revealing more

of my spirit to me

then I imagined.

You are evident

and eventful to me.

I discover a deeper love

of myself

in order to give back to you.

You are the gift given

and I am the gift I receive

from your offering

where we are becoming one

in your absence.

I am more the spirit

of myself

in honoring your life.

I do not want

memories of you.

I will live into

this connection

shared from now.

My heart is changed

for loving you now

has changed me.

They call it your death

but I live it into my life.

I am more of us

than we were.

The thanks

I would give you for this

is really to live more fully

from this place

with everyone across my life

from this day forward.

As you go

see me this way.

Call on me

any way you can.

I want to participate

across the divide

until there is none,

until there is nothing to give

and nothing to receive.

For there

as for here,

we are all becoming one . . .

detail work (haiku)

wooden banisters

polished by grip descending

at least the handrail

What we do with death Part 3 of 4

How is there joy

in caring for the dying

when there is no training

for the spontaneous turn of events

that occur daily?

It appears that the normal life

is on hold

and something substantial

is standing in the way

that requires constant attention

either by oneself

or by a support staff

that often needs

a certain amount

of input and response.

Eventually each moment

is subjected to a reframe.

It all becomes surreal.

Odd remembrances often surface.

Emotional links, long forgotten,

find contact and presence

as the river of feelings

spontaneously fills each effort

of care and concern.

A dialogue with no apparent words

continues in silence,

for the most part,

as separate coherencies

continue their journey

sharing common space

and circumstance in passing.

dark chocolate (haiku)

melting so slowly

on your tongue, not to be chewed

dark chocolate chips

What we do with death Part 2 of 4

Popular methods for the avoidance

of death issues include

denial, indifference,

service, condolences,

food, vacancy, and any activity

that does not involve

emotional honesty

in a direct fashion.

Being glued

to the physical presence,

for whatever the reasons,

is difficult.

Experiencing someone dear

in ongoing pain

and all the general

difficult considerations

and communications that occur,

even in the best of circumstances,

has a wearing effect

on being present for that person

who is dying.

It is not at all like the rest of life

as we usually independently live it.

To be patient

in unfamiliar circumstances

with the intercession of strangers

and their financial

or medical agendas is a challenge.

Protocols and paperwork

become alibis for deeper feelings

that seem to have no natural outlet

or functional presence

under the circumstances.

dinner time (haiku)

a caterpillar

voraciously downs the edge

of a tender leaf

What we do with death

Part 1 of 4

In what we do

with the story of living,

death becomes more like

the marks of punctuation

in the story line.

Death is more

the commas and periods.

Death is rarely the nouns

and ever so remotely

the verbs for the living.

Death signals last chapters

and last lines.

Death in the form

of perpetration,

infers, “the end”.

Murders and suicides

and genocides easily register

as involvements in retributions

before or after the fact.

Births are rarely

“pay it forwards”,

but deaths are many times

paybacks.

Justified in someone’s mind

as payment for

or towards a cause.

It is a summation

of another’s life

as a commodity

suitable for currency

in the greater scheme

of things.

It is the equation

where death is the “equals”

or “totals line” to be drawn.

All the subtle nuance formalities

of one’s thinking around death

are conditioned

by the social training

for the experience of death,

everything from friend

to a family member.

dreaded (haiku)

the return address

you curiously notice

“urgent” I. R. S.

Appropriateness

Appropriateness is

a dance hall gal.

The tickets of convention

seemed to be dispensed

by breathing onward.

The dance card is a flat screen

of idle thought rooted deeply

in the vacancy of dreams.

The dreams that do speak

may have an innocent truth to them.

The lament is of aspirations

called out as muttering in the night.

These are the hidden elements

of self identified,

the muted themes of self

yet to be realized.

The dance is of itself

a besiege made of obstruction.

If not for a still-point of self,

remote but not removed,

that takes what dance there is

and refines its,

there would be evidence

of its interior composition.

As for the partners,

there is, at times, a passage.

The selves within are present

but distant

bumping up against

what is offered by the others.

Occasionally there would be

a moment, a touch, a glance,

even full contact.

The exchange of dreams expands.

This movement bestows.

Those connection

becomes an embrace.

The sun of selves

possibly could be exchanged,

for these still-points,

in spite of the appropriateness,

to sum their inner fates

. . . and dance . . .

dollars due (haiku)

looking in wallet

so as to sight right amount

to pay what is due

What is anger (Part 5 of 5)

Evolution is not change

but is the capacity

to expand and embrace

everything as ongoing.

Being preoccupied with character,

as others would account

for everyone,

is not about evolution

but about appearances

and about our acts

of voluntary control

at efforting

for a moral conviction.

Evolution is about

integrity of spirit

and becoming conscious

of its means and expressions

in cleansing to the awareness

and the presence of soul.

So that anger maybe

but a energized sentinel

of source

or purveying surveyor

of the interior land,

a volatile town crier

of the inward night,

so to speak,

that privately signals a richness

with and from within

that inexcusably surfaces

from time to time

and requires dedication

of refined purpose

and full body conviction

of source-fullness in being

to unfold and clarify.

That anger is a cause worthy

of engagement

at every opportunity

is to spawn,

from these as breadcrumbs

that widen the palate

for living richly

from within…….

exasperation (haiku)

exasperation

looking for your lost car keys

in well known places

What is anger? (Part 4 of 5)

There can be such intensity

in our response to something

that may have done no more

than seem to threaten

or attack some place

of hypersensitivity.

A guarded place where

there is vulnerability.

What is it

about our self-sensitivity

that eventually,

more than likely

deduction reveals themes

and messages that seem

out of context

for the apparent demonstration

of the rest of us in our lives?

How is it

to come into acknowledgment

of a greater sense of being

that does not fit the storyline

but still it is there?

Are we not more the contradictions

than the appropriate players

we so easily claim?

Is this what happens

to protectiveness

when it reaches the extreme?

Or is it that normalcy,

in is limitations

of comparative policing

and subsequent monitoring,

create agreement that is of itself

a popular extreme?

That we have placed

cognitive agreement

of the obvious

as an absolute

over what we feel and sense

and tune into yet then disregard?

Who is it in us

that calls out something extreme

as if we can have distance

from it or disown it

or disregard our self

for being of it or with it?

each leaf (haiku)

each leaf, on its own

will sacrifice of itself

to express the tree

What is anger? (Part 3 of 5)

Yes, there is anger

as if contextually bound

by its fullness to a now,

as a conundrum

of compelling disbelief

yet acted upon

and acted out.

Is there something more

than just frustration behind it?

Is the sense of frustration,

the first internal self-bloodhound

to signal something

disturbing from within?

Is frustration really a pre-process

that wants answers

without really unfolding

the vastness of the internal terrain?

Is frustration really just

an exclamation for the benefit

of expectation’s resolve

and nothing more?

How appearance-loaded is life

and backstage mum is living?

Pealing back the layers

by repetitious attention

is to discover more charge

then cause,

more inward buzz

then outward circumstance.

Is this an imbalance

of the human predicament?

Is this a circumstance

where ‘reality’ truth

overwhelms ‘energetic’ truth

by substantiation,

rational construction,

the reach for conclusion’s positions,

as if safety were at hand

or knowing that you are loved

were one of the consensus

conclusions needed

to quell the storm from within?