A Collection Of PoemsNovember 11, 2025 A GRATITUDE LETTER TO FEAR I awoke this morning, without a thought or a care until you poked me, like you often do - sometimes with an image, sometimes with a thought, and sometimes with a subtle clench, somewhere in my body that I used to think was me. But when you nudged this morning, I smiled, and almost effortlessly rolled onto our sweet cousin - vulnerability. And there I rested, still smiling, in the truth: I am dying. No, I don't have a terminal disease, not as far as I know, but in a way I do: It's called being human. Even now, cells in my body are dying, old ideas that I thought defined me are falling away, and everything and everyone I've ever loved is changing - right before my eyes. Vulnerability lands me square in the truth, opening me to the inescapable fragility and temporary-ness of everything - which makes everything more precious, sharper, more immediate, more alive. So it strikes me that while vulnerability is true, you are just a contracted, grasping reaction to it. I'm not mad at you for being that way and for hanging around. In fact, you're becoming less like a problem and more like a friend. For where would I be without you poking me, nudging me, reminding me, Wake up! This is temporary! Wake up from your dream of imagined control. Wake up from your dream of endless seeking. This is it! This is all you know for sure. And isn't it extraordinary? November 12, 2025 THE PRODIGAL So hard to return home when you know it's gonna hurt. So easy to stay "out there" with all the distractions and things you think you can do something about. Going inside means greeting the vise-like grip at the base of your skull, or the quivery sensation in your chest, or the unnameable, uneasy sense of grasping for something solid. But returning home we must, for the deeper truth that lies beneath is the grounded, steadfast foundation on which it all appears. Every attempt to cross the threshold, every step inside, wears a clearer path between the spinning plates of searching, and the only reliable home the wandering human will ever know. November 17, 2025 DEATH When death walks beside you life becomes clearer. Shallow desires and ego-driven efforts all fall away, fading from view, while the potent immediacy of the moment becomes the vivid truth. Energized by a new yet ancient juice you see what really matters: the colors of the morning, the miracle of your body, and the interactions with others - be they tense or loving, pinched or open. Death cuts away the crap, the shitpile of stories, built upon other stories, all created year after year, through each phase of life, to keep you from seeing the terrifying void of nothingness, that walks beside you, always, and your fear of falling in. But falling eventually happens, maybe all at once or maybe a little over a lifetime, and when it does you see that death was not the enemy, but Life's illumination - the black eternal night on which stars shine their brightest. November 20, 2025 SURRENDER I awake this morning as I have most others with the great arms of the old pecan tree filling my bedroom window view. But this morning she is bare, almost black against the soft peach of a nearly risen sun. And there's a lightness in my chest - a soft and subtle joy caused by nothing in particular, although it feels hard-won. How many years and tears of letting go of bracing like a warrior against an unknown opponent - nameless, faceless, ghost-like projections of all the bad things that can happen to a person? But this morning I feel free. And I don't know how, except to say that at some point Life became less like something to pin down and conquer, and more like a benign and patient friend - a constant companion who doesn't try to fix and who doesn't have opinions. And this morning I awake with very few of my own - my arms splayed out and empty, against the rising light of the unknown. November 25, 2025 INCREASING TOLERANCE FOR THE UNKNOWN Tolerance grows from the seed of experience - how many feared things that didn't happen and how many surprising things that did, and how it all fell into place the moment I unclenched and dissolved into that invisible soup of nothing that is everything. I'm not sure how I did it because there's not a lot of me here anymore who does anything - she died a thousand deaths on the cross of trying to control. And now she is free, relieved and spent, and Life smiles her benevolent smile, meeting my soft, pliable tenderness with hers. November 27, 2025 A NEW BUT OLD HAPPY Is it fair that I should be so deliriously happy? Caution tells me otherwise - she tells me not to let down my guard because after all life is hard, life is mean. See the evidence all around you? See the pain? See the trauma? And yet she's fading now - dimmed by the brighter light of something older, less conditional. Of course I know well the unpredictability of this Life - the twists and turns and moving parts, and I've lived them, but moment by moment I've learned that happiness is not a feeling to chase, attain, or try to hang onto, it's an indwelling state that rides below the comings and goings of more transient feelings - reactions to things not going according to plan. Maybe it's gratitude, maybe it's self-love, but mostly it's a quiet joy that springs from an unknown depth -a bottom you hit when you've given up trying. November 29, 2025 IN CLOSING So grateful to live another November, with her deep long shadows and low amber light, and the soft way she settles, into winter's deeper stillness. We all resist this letting go, in whatever form that takes, but November shows us how. She is the letting go of the letting go - the peace that follows the fight, the bright dependable bridge between what was and what comes after.
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I am afraid of dying.
I am afraid of living. I am afraid of all the terrible things that could happen - things of which I have no control - terrible things that would take away, forever, those beloved people and things that make my life bearable, worth living. There. I've said it. And not only have I said it, but I've allowed myself to quake while I've said it. I've allowed myself to feel the subtle trembling beneath the layers of competent, gathered-up, you've-got-this self-programming. The fact is, we don't got this: This scary, unpredictable life will always have its way with us, and our illusions of control only serve to add layers of gathered-up bracing to an already braced and frightened organism. But fear is not a problem to be solved. Instead, it is an energy to be lived - an energy that is as natural to the human condition as the erratic, tail-flicking scurrying of a squirrel, or the timid wariness of a deer in an open field in autumn. We are nature, with a natural dilemma: How do we thrive in a world where anything can happen? Here's how: Face your fear. Now I don't mean to buck up and look at it as if you're about to go into battle with an unknown opponent. No, I mean settle into your body and feel how it vibrates. Allow scary images, thoughts, and beliefs to arise. Breathe, and feel yourself in your body as the stories swirl and circulate and agitate, until they settle down into the one and only true terror - your own annihilation - falling apart, going crazy, or actually dying. And when you hit this bottom, or maybe even before that, you might notice a quivering sadness. It's the chin-quivering sadness of a little child - your little childness. Breathe, and wait with this vulnerable tenderness. She is a miracle. She is your salvation. She will open you to yourself and the bands of practiced protection will release from your heart and through her eyes you will see the vivid perfection of this delicate, fragile thing we call life. Colors will be brighter. Smiles will be sweeter. And you will know that you are not separate from any of it. And while all the Its that you used to be afraid of may indeed still happen, you realize that this isn't the point and that trying to prevent or outsmart them was not really living, but blocking you from the deeper truth of yourself - as openness, as compassion, so good and so tender that it can survive anything - even death. |
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