You Say

You say you are seeking.
But you are all talk, all mind.
All prove it to me, and
analytical cross checking.

You say you want peace.
But you love drama, spin.
Searching for blue lights,
And one uplifted moment.

You say you love spirit.
But you fit this in,
when no one is talking,
or texting, or shopping.

You want your brand of holy.
Inner peace on call.
You want blessings and angels.
And nothing yet known.

You say you are ready.
But you focus on later.
New books and retreats.
The musings of sages.

It would be ironic.
If you were knocked silly
right out of yourself.
And woke up today.

How will you know
When the quiet comes in
If you are so busy searching
For you own two feet?

Common Guilt

Washed in the news of the world,
Dark times and dark deeds.
Hearts break when nature's flippant hand
takes a thousand home.

Attuned to flickering networks
that replaced hearth life,
We absorb real, and imagined, sorrows,
and one good deed.

The watcher's response?
A common guilt is woven.
Surely, love would reach out to ease.
Love must know how to act.

So many covet a clear response.
It is not granted.
A strange silence ensues.
More of everything unfolds, and yet no word.

Listen. Do not look to be seen
AS something,
Instead, ask what you are,
Whether you respond, or not.

Live without a heart plan,
Carefully played out, in time.
Bring your love as compassion,
First inward, then running wildly.

In every corner of the world,
someone could use my hands, my life.
But in this corner,
life just flows.

Helpful action may arise,
or I may leave the needy alone.
Can you leave the world to itself,
and live in the circle of your own light?

If a couple lives a quiet life,
and dies right on time.
No one asks
"Why didn't they save the world?"

If I think one life changes the world,
while the rest slip by unnoticed,
having done too little,
I am made wrong.

More than one sage points back,
in an unsatisfying way,
holding both the doer of brave deeds,
and the doer of daily chores, lightly.

How do we turn our light around
and discover whose world,
and whose deeds
are unfolding here?

To start, ask who lives here and
what knows the living?
Without claims, action unfolds
and the doer is freed at heart.

If that is home, and
it is not fully known.
Be merciless in your asking.
Return ceaselessly to the asker.

The answer for now, is to
do what we can, what we will, for each other.
How can our guilt or fear
help even one?

If you are standing next to a burning house,
and have only a cup of water,
throw it on!
Don't wait to make a bigger statement.

Tasks Find You

You think you are the mother of your life.

Be a woman of few words, then.

Aspire to attend to that which is never changing. 

Not the ever-changing, which is just you fooling around.

Who are you then?

Savor the question. 

If you have an answer, laugh.

Sometimes a day sneaks by and only a half measure is given to the rightness of it.

When someone offers you a drink, 

don't play the fool. 

Fill your cup completely!

Are you so humble you regret the grandeur here? 

You are really a king in this life, not a poor cousin.

The king does not create the kingdom, only inherit it.

Jump in!

Wholehearted attention is required, and when given, we relax. 

Take what you are given.   Go away full.  

Don't worry that you haven't mothered this life well enough.

The tasks that are yours to do, find you.