November Journal: Death and Waking Up

A Collection Of Poems

November 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.