Commissioned Poems
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This poem was etched on a glass front door that reflected on the wall as the sun came through the door.
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It is the resting place from impermanence,
asylum for authentic conversation, for reconstructing heaven, for unraveling from the world. Our pots and the art that moves us are only the archeologist's proof of existence, of how long the apprenticeship lasts until we surrender. The tyranical self tires of the uncompromising honesty of a true home. In the end we give away everything that saps our energy. At the window the feminine moon is slowing down, and at the sink we survive our mistakes, our grief, our joy, with robust celebration, the door open the kettle on. |
This is a water color of this poem for a wedding done by a Scottish Artist. 2008
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You two, who frame the door at last, coming together for the sake of your lives, for the sake of that fierce loving that brings you to this moment. These are no ordinary vows. They are the ones that will take you across your own territory, through sometimes difficult terrian. We are all believers in fairy tales, despite our lack of proof. Your words, spoken from that resolute place against all odds is the constancy the world needs now. By your lovemaking you feed the deprived and neglected. The way you remember to say goodnight kindly, or welcome each other after a day's work, is the reason God loves to get up in the morning. |
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For David
November 24th 2008 For your 75th Birthday “J’aime cet homme incroyable, elegant e tres soigne ... I need a greater language, a more imaginative journalism for the man I have married, the soft, vulnerable bass, the lullaby that settles a child to sleep with the gods. I had shut the door on the standard man, his inability to dance (even metaphorically) and chose relative quiet until you caused havoc in heart’s household. And the grief in you for the loss of your first long love tender and transparent. And the best of ourselves forged in the workshop of time, our two families coming together rare, and complex, for Bunko and snowshoeing. Your found time, my impatience, your football, to the the thumping jukebox at Cozy’s and my need for silence. The grace of your fountain pen an old-fashioned technology, its finesse shames the banter of vacuous e-mails, Your literary selections diverse, it is the mystery novel that makes a lecture palatable from the back of the room. Your tattered briefcase, a portable kingdom, should be buried with you for detours to divine cafes where you feel the pulse of home and what is true in human lives, where the authentic expresses itself no matter what city or village in this universe. Even to an ex-nun, aesthetics do matter. You are easy on the eye, refined and elegant, and I am glad that I rise each day to your faith that has no need for prophecy or proof. Your independent and refined heart, your star-like love of children, and your silliness a pure and sacred warmth. I am blessed and blessed again. Some People Should Never Die
For Paul Schell Mayor of Seattle 1998 -2002 Some people should never die, even though their expertise is wanted in the place we try to imagine. Those who rise in the morning convinced the day has abundance, and pastures always green are the spirit’s blue collar workers, who daily dance for the sake of light; making things that matter work. Who find the workshop that fits the community, who makes the world more graceful. What would the planet do if the Alps or the great Sierra Nevada suddenly disappeared? A noble mountain range. Think of the grief of the flat earth. What do we do without your face that has lit the neighborhood, figured things out and walked enthusiastically into problems knowing there is a remedy. We must hang on to your legacy, keep talking outside the city hall, greeting respectfully, watching for what makes the town lovely, supporting those that support and more than anything cherishing the partner we have chosen so that when we go they have a warmth that attends them and holds them in an angel’s embrace. For the marriage of Nik and Sooni
June 20th 2015 Just as the winds gather in far corners of the world, over oceans, prairies and mountains, you two have found each other, having straddled the globe, for the sake of beauty and preservation. In that devotion together will take you to new territory where love's power of tandem strides towards possibility. Neither, confined in childhood to a single culture or future but in tide pools of the Pacific and footpaths of England, in play of infancy, that sows a longing in the heart, for what lives. The breathing in and out of seas And saving of waves to one perfect tide that swept onto the sands of South America a shell in the shape of a ring. Perfect for proposal and answered because love has created every cell in your bodies. You have heard the sacred sound of the bells clanging on cobble in ancient cities, you have seen wilderness, mountain ranges fisherman, farmers and how landscape shapes faces. You know what it takes as stewards of all we stand in peril of loosing. What farsighted angels gathered at your meeting? What wisdom creates a brace of lovers who walk in amazement and awe deeper into this life? There is magic in the moon, by the vow she exists And by the vows that you two now exist. Where Joy is Scattered
(For the completion of the final stage of the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts) In any good town there is the church, library, grocery store and post office. In any tale there is action, within the Act scenes and people with their fierce loves, and they demand a stage, a place for spectacle and sweep of possibilities that changes with the change. the clever clown, the urchin, the professor, the whining Romeo, the powerhouse of one voice speaking from the wayward planets of the soul, and a group of hard-working women who made it all happen - the curtain to rise, the show to begin, mystery, drama, dance, music and visual art scatter joy in the living room of the heart. Take a shy man, he becomes macho; the reluctant singer a bellowing baritone. Mr.and Mrs. Wine seller practice their lines in bed; the telephone man lives in dread of knotting his! A spotlight on the diva, librarian, janitor, retired and unemployed, and for the hero call the whistling Handyman. He can recite any speech with reasoning as he fixes your leaking sink. If your doctor has a vague look, he is Faustus; get out as quickly as you can. A village is made up of biographies, stories that make good theatre. If you have written a tragedy, suck up to the manager, in one of her sweeter moods. Whatever you do, whatever part you play, whatever set you build or light switch from which you start your day, learn to wait in the wings for the great moment. Commit to speaking from the heart, one that is not yours but one you have uncovered; how HE feels, how SHE moves. Weep as if you, too were in love or dying or ‘Looking Back in Anger.’ How can a man practice being a woman or a woman dance as if chosen by God? How can the townsfolk flourish without a stage? |
Jo and Jim
for your 50th Wedding Anniversary Marriage arrives without warranty, model number, serial number, or installation instructions, and no guarantee of constancy. An epic or a brief haiku - all manner of myths shape its ambiguity, its forays into language impossibly complex. In this case it begins with a dose of V8 juice, antidote for a reckless last night of bachelorhood. And the bride sighed in madrigal love for a smile that sealed her heart with his coat of arms. And now, since they are married, we must get more personal. A half century is a formidable jaunt. In the beginning the proposal subtle. After all, you have to get your foot in the door. And Jim did it (in a roundabout way) above the Golden Gate Bridge. “Do you believe the theory that absence makes the heart grow fonder?” and Jo’s response.... “ Well, yes, but out of sight out of mind, and if you want me, I have stuff to pick up on the way, two children and my own wild disposition!” Jim, trying to figure out the economics of it, in outright ecstasy, included them all. And here’s a tip for the unwed in the room: ask permission to hold her hand (Romeo would be impressed). Groping is unattractive, and you would not believe that manners can woo a blond bombshell and even Eros herself! If you want more details on the groom, go to the job site, the engine room, fuse panel, the roof of The Commons in dead of winter, the quiet staking of a neighbor’s falling tree. There is seduction in a man’s hips moving with the weight of hammers and other mysterious tools and his complete acceptance of yet another UPS delivery-- plants for an over-populated garden! For news of the bride, bring your party shoes. An old tutu is fine. Don’t worry, she’ll get you going , and don’t pussyfoot around. That irritates the gods. You have to dance with your whole body, with what’s burning inside you. After fifty years few arrive in tandem with a workable pedaling strategy, or survive abandonment in ditches, and few have the final EMT of indefatigable humor. A twosome is not always seaworthy. There are doubtful, inhospitable moments, arguments at the helm, and years clinging to various wreckages. But under the same moon and stars, love for each other and for each other’s becoming. With steady navigation, steadfast loyalty, and a clear moral compass, you both arrive unscathed to this place among friends, your rare dignity like a beacon in the uncertain prophecy of time. For Jane on Her 60th Birthday
Get Jane in room and no one comes out alive! Every nuance, every obscure blemish and feet of clay seized upon in rapture of humor; the swagger, the nerdish atrophy, exaggeration of grimace, no one escapes her bull’s eye of perception. Jane, the revealer of the ridiculous to the clan’s uncensored laughter and lack of composure. Pomposity and particularities gleefully exposed. Seinfeld would be intimidated by her turns in comedic adventure. Who locks themselves out of a hotel room in underpants at midnight with instant recovery and casual saunter downstairs to the front desk. And who can outrageously consume clumps of whipped cream in holy handfuls and send nephews and nieces home spouting locker room expletives or have pumpkin carving seminars like historical summit events and survive a bossy B@B with weekend reenactment, goose stepping around the house issuing orders in Kraut vernacular. Have any of us come across a golf fanatic who paralyzes the putting green with a new passion for birdwatching. Who has the rare ability to conjure with ease elegance within frugality, to find the simple line, the single voice in the dross of life? There are few in this world who can navigate the downturns with instinctive intelligence, waltz into work late to the gaping mouths of youth strutting employers, defiant head flip, not one word of justification! Jane, you are capable of giving the gods a night out on the town and cheering angels up from religious purpose. In any family each fight for distinguishing markings in the litter, but yours are vivid beautiful and loved. Bill
(For Retirement of Langley Methodist Music Director) We do not let you go easily, We want to riot in the town square, close the banks and the Post office and wrestle you to the ground, if we could only keep you. We are loosing the town's fortune. A mystic with music in his bones. The universe makes few sonorous tenors Whose voices turns us into saints. In sorrow and celebration You have taught us to fling ourselves into the river of sound That a melody can hold you ransom among Angels. How many cities have a wild, waistcoated conductor Who listens to the pulse of the neighborhood, The philosophy of the wind, The moon's silver path on the sea. An epic whose podium expands with expression, combines all manner of talent into glorious offerings. One who cannot be contained in a single story but a fusion that interests an ordinary day. If God measures one heart by the size of a church, yours is a cathedral. |