The Meadow & Joy
I'm crying now.
Imagining us running in meadows
playing, tickling, wrestling—
blissfully happy.
I see daisies.
Wild flowers.
That moment.
It's balance.
it's play.
It's being so incredibly happy—
In the moment.
Looking across,
Watching your partner working,
Thinking—
“Oh my God.
I love this person.”
Because we played together
we work together.
we remember to continue—
to play.
It feels like this was taken from us.
I'm sick of all this.
It fucking matters!
The Loss & Anger
I don't want this.
I don’t want cages.
It was stolen from us.
Promises of security in cages.
I am a bird plucking out my feathers.
My bones remembering flight.
I want a winter solstice—
where we keep our loved ones warm.
Where love pours into weaving a blanket,
and it's stunningly beautiful.
And it's worth something.
And I remember that cost.
It's been so cheapened!
It's okay to want to live comfortably.
There's no shame in that.
But it's also okay to want to work really fucking hard
To see your reward in front of you.
It's a different set of values and it doesn't mean that either are wrong.
But we have to learn how to live with it
recognize how hard, hard life is for all of us.
Choosing to find joy in the first sip of tea.
Gladness in the second.
Serenity in the third.
Madness in the fourth.
And finally—
Ecstasy.
Yeah, that's okay.
If someone wants to live in a tower—fine.
But don’t dictate how I live in the fields.
And my fields don’t make their lives worthless
or incomplete
or shallow.
You have to explore to see what you like
and recognize that everybody is exquisitely, beautifully different.
Diverse.
Some souls travel across flat gender plains
And others find themselves living roles unfamiliar to them.
And it doesn't mean one's less.
One's more.
One's right and the other one's wrong.
Or to be mean to each other.
For there is no other.
There is only we.
It's recognizing that everyone has their preferences
Not stomping all over each other,
Stomping on how one another lives.
Whether or not, that's embracing all love
Experiencing every type of soul
or sticking with one,
one energy,
one soul,
for a lifetime.
Every morning, I put the water and the food on the table for us.
I hunted. We worked.
We sowed the fields.
Everything's harder but more meaningful that way.
It's recognizing—
Everything is hard—
But I'm so blissfully happy you're here next to me.
So impeccably happy.
You learn for and from each other.
You grow with each other.
They’re such an amazing soul.
Everything is too soft.
A critique feels like a knife wound.
A knife wound feels like relief.
Memory & Ritual
I love the seasons.
I love warm Christmas hearths.
Eating in abundance with each other.
Winter solstice.
The promise of a New Year.
You pack a sandwich,
hike to a cliff,
Eat while the birds sing.
Smiling as the eagle soars.
It's watching your kids play.
We can come running through the fields.
And the children can scream as loud as they want.
It feels so good in their blood.
No one stops them.
Because you recognized it is all really lovely—
their playing.
And everybody recognizes love.
Because you can see love every day.
Because you're with each other.
And that's what I'm missing.
I really, really miss being on the trail.
You were who you were,
thankful for each other,
it didn't matter who you were.
You had each other's backs.
You know.
We're here.
It's hell and paradise.
You can't have one without the other.
Two sides of the same coin.
It's Nirvana and Samsara.
They don't appreciate it.
It hurts.
It's running downhill,
Wind in your teeth,
And knowing you can’t fall—
But also knowing you can.
It's knowing.
Trusting your body,
Knowing you can climb up a mountain
because you've climb down.
It's that tremendous pride.
It's actually fucking worth something.
It's joy and recognizing a smile.
It’s knowing joy is so hard to come by,
You protect it at all cost—
Whatever it looks like.
Because goddamn, the sun is hot.
I remember—
working so hard
to get a little sparrow to jump on my finger.
I remember—
working so hard with my bird to fly long distances
and come back to me
and the joy in that bond.
And I remember—
working with my dogs
and feeling like really happy,
And thankful for their cooperation,
proud to be raising them.
And then going up to my cat
and being so thankful they're keeping the rodents away
and having that blissful moment by the fireplace,
stroking her fur.
I remember that.
I remember.
I remember—
kids running around
with hoops and bicycles and laughing.
Still I remember—
carving pumpkins.
Scary faces carved—
To dream of the jungle, the forest,
So we wouldn't be afraid.
I remember—
Staring up at my harvest in August with pride.
This is what the year’s come to.
And we did that all together—
look at that!
Here's our reward—
Another year of wonderfulness.
Another year of life!
That's what I want!
That's why I read—
to remember—
I want that!
Myth & Critique
We're just all on soul journeys,
We're experiencing Nirvana and Samsara
at the same time.
There is no other world.
There is no heaven.
This is it.
We just cycle.
If we're so focused on living for a world above,
a world after this one,
whether that's heaven or Mars—
we’re never going to take care of this one.
The one we have.
There’s a Greek story...
They question war and the worth of it,
they say the gods recognized the world was too overpopulated.
So it brought forth continuous war
knowing one war would not be enough.
Then they brought forth floods
so that the people would know the gods exist.
That there were forces above us—
around us.
There was the mother Gaia,
who birthed creation.
She is mad and crying.
Hear her wail!
And here on Earth,
we toil like Sisyphus and his stone.
Pushing the boulder up the mountain
sliding back down again
pushing it up and going back down
because we're happy in the pursuit.
We're happy in the strife.
We're happy in the joys of work.
And so we created the gods as compasses
Named their domains
to remind us what was worth worshipping
and it’s not the false gods
of the glass screen,
the mirrored machine.
And it sure as hell isn't Dominance and war—
for they are lesser gods who do Creation's bidding.
Put them in their rightful place.
That's why we pray.
Thought is really fucking powerful,
along with breath.
Your spirit!
Our gods are only as powerful as we make them.
Give Her back Her power!
Reincarnation & Return
We need to return some souls to the forest.
To the trees.
I was one.
I was a tree.
I remember being a tree.
When I die, I hope to be planted into a tree.
See a thousand sunsets.
And have children play on me.
Birds on my fingers.
I hope I return as a tree once more.
Connected.
Giving thanks.
And still, we dream of return.
Not the false return of mindless slogans,
But the dream of freedom—
Forgotten in the noise.
So perhaps what we mean when we want to return—
to ‘make America great again’,
is really the dream of freedom—
While forgetting what made us free.
Teddy Roosevelt knew this dream—
Protecting the great wilds.
Dorores Huerta knew this dream—
Raising her voice with farmworkers,
Crying ‘si, se puede!’
Martin Luther King knew this dream—
Fighting for the rights of all.
And every land, every people,
Carry this dream in their bones—
A life simple, proud,
A dream of liberty
A dream of justice
A dream of belonging for all.
So here I am
Dreaming and remembering
And crying.
Because I remember
being a tree.
I was a tree.
I so dearly miss being a tree.
I used to be a tree,
And a satyr,
And a fawn,
And a stag.
And a little boy with a sack running off into a meadow,
And an unmarried aunt, daring and wild,
And a man kissing his lover, fearlessly, goodbye as he embarks the sailed ship,
And I used to be an uncle making toys for his nieces and nephew, his adopted children.
And I used to be a farmer, staring up at the mountains, thankful of their strength,
And I used to be a teenage boy awed at a big city,
who later forgot about splashing in the streams and stomping in mud with his pop.
And I remember being a parrot.
Learning to mimic and then stuck in a cage.
I remember pulling my feathers out.
I remember pacing, gnawing the metal bars
I remember banging on glass.
I remember roosting in filth.
I remember forgetting the sky
Forgetting the wind under my wings.
Forgetting how to fly.
I remember never learning.
I remember spotting an opening and leaping
I remember remembering I had wings
I remember—
Flying again.