Out of the Blue

Fresh blooms of cirrus in muted hues of silver
punctuate the bluest sky imaginable, though
even northern New Mexico hazes over from time
to time these days, unlike thirty years ago
when we first touched earth in these north
by southwestern climes;

Cerulean heavens magnify in contrast to the splendor
of Ponderosa pines, branches now flanked with flocks
of blue jays as flickers strut up and down massive trunks,
searching for winter insect feasts while blue green grama
grasses rattle seed heads and silently tinge brown,
the not yet frozen ground speckled with bits of white
left over from the last snowfall;

Piñon jays are joined now at the feeders by their punk
rock-haired cousins the Stellars, and flocks arrive
as if by magic, now invisible in the heavens, now
appearing suddenly, recalling to mind deep ocean
diving, swimming along, turquoise waters shot
through with rays of golden sunlight,
then silvery flechettes darting this way and that,
then whole schools of pelagic fish appearing
as if out of nowhere, concealed in nature’s cloak
of invisibility;

What we don’t see is hidden only if we fail to attune
to subtleties, the pulsed calls and clicks of giant
humpbacks, the chirps and trilled screech of the red-
winged blackbird, the chickadee’s dee-dee-dee, the kee-
kee of red-tail hawks circling overhead, even the nuanced
eye language and restrained whimpers of canine
companions, bored at having to spend more time
than they would like indoors, frustrated children;
all of it, all, crying out in the perpetual need
to make themselves heard, to connect with fellows
of their own species, maybe including our own,
if we would but listen and open up
to this essential education.

Vallecitos, NM ~ bj 2022

What’s the Big Deal?

Stepping into that ladies parlor made me shiver,
reminded me of a rich friend’s house, her mother’s
shell pink bedroom with attached bath, gold gilded pink
tufted velvet chair she sat on to apply considerable amounts
of makeup and tease her platinum bleached blonde hair;

It scared the wits out of me how certain people live,
and I, her daughter’s friend, knew secrets she
of necessity would have to learn later, the pregnancy,
her firstborn running away with a beautiful Mexican
boyfriend to marry, something her mother would
never endorse in a million lifetimes;

And I thought then and I think now, what is this path
of exclusion, the shunning of dear family, friends,
people who don’t comply with another’s version
of what they ought to be, how things must look
in order to be acceptable and to whom I cannot imagine
if not themselves, the bitterness rising as gall
in the throat or feeding a tumor, black wad of hate
and resentment somewhere, now hidden, later
to be discovered somewhere in their own precious body;

We are all on this earth to learn unconditional love,
and experience schools us, molds us, polishes us like
diamonds from the roughest coal if we but accept
the tutelage, the sooner the better, in order
that we garner something of value to pass along
to a world in need of wisdom when our time here
is done.

mountains above Peñasco, NM ~ bj 2022

Shamed (Unfurling Leaves)

Are we really meant to impose shame,
humiliation, mortification upon ourselves
and others in this life? Is this really the
higher road our spirits wish us to take;
in other words, is this the desire in the mind
of the creator of stars, of galaxies,
of worlds too vast for our knowing?

As I watch leaves unfurl from the book
of my own life, I see events in the past
flashing by like pages stripped from a journal
and tossed out the window of a moving car,
tears of frustrated adolescent confusion staining
every one;

And I know, over fifty years later, the folly
in these perceptions, parents and others tasked
with shaping our impending adulthood simply
repeating patterns not found in Nature (She who
does not shame her children, She who follows
the template of a higher calling), not knowing,
for how could they? Generations of it, locked
in roles meant to be outgrown, just like
the clinging chrysalis bursting tight constraints
to reveal the extraordinary beauty within;

They gave me life and lessons, and for that,
I am grateful; and will assume, now they are gone,
that under the anthills of their own vexations,
they would have wanted for me, as I dearly desire
for my own daughters, to see them walking
higher paths, ears leaning always into the voices
on the wind, the whispers of the spirit,
urging forgive! forget! carry on! Make this world
a better place than you found it!

Fall leaves, Santa Fe, NM ~ bj 2021

Too Soon Gone

Where on earth do I belong?
I have taken up space on this orb
for nearly seventy years, many
of these spent in utter confusion,
lost to myself, leaving many
others to wonder, who is this being?
As if I, myself held the answers,
aware of my motivations, I did not;

And I get it, perhaps I am not solitary
in these musings, perhaps it is a product
of age and experience, duration
in a life spent with memories,
reflections, condensation of thirty-
five years of living in the Maine woods,
a home my heart returns to endlessly,
though those days are gone forever;

Even if I could return, I would not,
desecrated forests, polluted waters
where once I swam and floated
without human observation,
contemplating the brilliance
of streaming light from heavenly bodies
not yet emerging into view, swimming
with loons, their young paddling
behind parents, my future not something
I contemplated, rather encountered
often haltingly, day by day, headlong
and too often blindly as if rushing
into blackness, life happening to me,
instead of crafting it, shaping it
into a thing of my own choosing;

And now I sit, watching clouds gather,
listening to birds and the distant thump
of a garbage truck going about its run,
collecting refuse we cannot use,
all the detritus left as a product
of living in the twenty-first century,
too many people, how has it come
to this where, despite wilderness
surrounding me, my thoughts drift
constantly to the unnecessary waste,
not only refuse, but resentments, pain
of those growing up, not knowing years
in human form are precious and short,
building castle walls of separation,
unforgiveness, and it will be gone without warning to all of us, in the blinking eyes left to observe what once seemed an endless, open, uncluttered road of possibilities.

High desert sky, northern New Mexico, 2022 ~ bj

Gifts

I realize what it is, this gift I am given, it is enough, the wisdom of the word, when for others it is the peace of prayer; where to sit in meditation with this restless energy seems futile, not indigenous to the personality, and so I walk, cycle, move, contemplating flow;

One axis brings healing, profound from the intention up, the other holds the created universe, such as humans are capable of manifesting into being, in peaceful hands, fashioning useful things of lasting worth, and that gift is likewise enough;

One holds relationships higher than the value of self, whilst another overturns the moneylenders in the temple, and yet another holds visions far beyond what most are able to perceive;

Let it shine, let it stream through the fingers that type the words, let the roots settle and not strangle, tending always the ground of our fertile, living, dying existence, from one paradigm to the next.

Rio Grande, Taos, NM ~ bj

Point of Origin, A Koan

I woke up this morning and Got It,
I mean, kinesthetically in-my-bones
to-my-soul Got It. All was perfect,
the heaviness the damp brought about
was gone, and in its place, an incredible
lightness of being;

Of course the mind stepped in
to save the day, or so it thought,
to analyze, compose, order this new
awareness, as it were, to card catalog it
under A for anomaly, or perhaps label it
enlightenment, something it thought
it had defined but clearly had no idea,
No Idea. For this had little to do with that,
leaving the mind floundering,
as it were, on the shoals
of its lonely self importance;

But you Can be useful, I said
whilst mopping its tired, beaten brow,
but give it a break just now, I am content;
as something deeper recalled the voice
of Dorothy, I have traveled all the way
to Oz, seen the Wizard, cringed in fear
at the flying monkeys, All This Way!
Only to discover, Auntie Em, there’s
no place like home!

New Mexico sunset ~ bj 2022

Pause

There is a pause, before the rosy light of evening
blinks her last, as fragile hummingbirds cease
their whirling dance around feeders
and the incessant cackle of jays, the waterfall
trilling of blackbirds, retreat to the deep arms
of the forest as night creatures emerge
from hiding to seek sustenance;

Can they comprehend, these young progeny,
how invisible luminous threads connect us,
one to the other, in the busyness of the everyday,
illusions that prop up economies, small dramas
of striving toward loves we sustain patiently
without question, the push and pull drawing them
toward consciousness or away from the light?

Coyotes howl in the distance, owls softly hoot
in snags across the road, insects scurry about
seeking their own forms of shelter and it is
so simple, these rhythms of the cosmos,
the silent grinding whirl of planets in orbit,
moon and sun taking turn in the daily business
of living, the opening and closing of days
and lifetimes.

Piñon Jay, New Mexico ~ bj

Ink Not Yet Dry

The longing to be loved is profound,
the soul sings life into being,
a journey not yet taken, yet once
in progress, so often reprising
experience already inked and dried,
fading on paper not meant to last;

The manuscript is not complete,
we are all unfinished works
in the making, and repeating
what once was
brooks little space for a new
unmanifest destiny of envisioning
all we may dream into being
by dint of our own acts and visions;

Be wary of casting others into molds
too snug to allow for expansion,
human proclivity of those seeking
sentience whilst ignoring the limiting
tendency to love with condition
merely what is befitting,
rather than embracing
with wholehearted acceptance
the splendor of a liberated co-creation.

Monstera maze ~ bj 2017

Futuristic

When the spin slows down to a pin-drop lull,
and time moves forward, collapses,
telescopic Trickster demonstrating the folly
of what most consider solid;
When accepted illusion no longer holds sway,
capturing the monkey mind in sticky spider web
trappings of its own making;

All synapses point click to Now, as perhaps
they always have done, and what can be said?
How can this finger snap in time be configured
into sentences, concepts, a thing written down
and shared, how can word forms be crafted,
steps away from that immediacy
(as they are bound to be), concept wired
to mind controlling hands on keys, eyes
riveted now on print moving?

One day, perhaps, telepathy will become
accepted, sweeping elephantine humanity
into a prismatic jet stream, speed of light
transmitting what is now thus laboriously
midwifed into being.

 

‘Cauldron of Creation” ~ Bela Johnson

Wisdom Watch

On the gentle winds that swirl around,
I hear the echoes of past, present, future,
voices of the ancestors, whispers
only the smallest attenuated bones
of a dog’s ear can hear, but:

Listen;

Just under the threshold of consciousness,
word images form, wisdom that comes
in an archaic language long forgotten,
and yet in dreams, understood;

Extraordinary hearing is not necessary,
only the desire to attend to prompts
normally screened out, leaving most
unaware of their existence, which does
not invalidate them;

Ignorance is a thing disregarded,
still, simply because one does not
Believe, does not make anyone smarter,
reveals, in fact, an unwillingness to accept
the viewpoints of others;

Listen.

Learn. Wisdom can be taught,
but not if one’s ears are shut.