Let the flames die down a bit

soften the nasty innuendos, slow down the rumor mill, get off message - just for a moment

back off the simple but twisted soundbites, let up with the anger, don’t be so demeaning

cast a few less aspersions, tone down your blog, drop the macho posturing for a minute

toss the neckties, slip off the tight dress shoes, stop demanding that ‘God Bless America’

don’t just read their speeches, quietly say no to TV makeup, drop one or two multi-tasks

don’t fear to say waste needs cut and taxes need raised, don’t check the polls Every day

maintain your own image, reduce coded rhetoric, quit lashing out just to provoke anger

let artificial suntans fade, reconsider self-entitlement, come out from your walled compounds

look just a bit beyond the next quarter, ease up on the open contempt for any foreigners

lose a little weight, try a few meatless days, exercise a bit, don’t drink quite so much

question some military outlays, quit inflaming ignorant hatred, think beyond simple GDP

slow the oversimplifying, let shades of gray dapple the black and white, even take in the outdoors

recycle a 3-piece suit, forego just one phony filibuster, tone down that greedy Christmas hype

think a bit about our food supply, soften the sarcastic smirks, lower all this furious static

don’t be quite so shrill, dare to be both with us and against us, reduce the angry righteousness

un-popularize polarization, de-emphasize animosity, come out from behind closed doors

let the flames die down a bit, say it a little more quietly, tend toward that Middle Way

lighten up on those who read and do the math, don’t shovel the unread so much red meat

maybe just speak one at a time, lower your own decibels, watch that blood pressure

quietly turn away from shouting matches, face off against problems instead of each other

nod in silence until they just stop talking, socialize with their families, isolate their hatred

lower the fog machines, take walks and naps, have a deep breath and sigh it out slowly

maybe don’t always vote in party line blocs, share the tiniest foothold upon common ground

let splinter groups form eclectic coalitions, weigh this petty enmity against the infinite darkness

reform catchphrases in your own words and see if they make sense, start here and now, with yourself

roll down the windows, sit in the grass, be mindful of the cherry blossoms as you make decisions

really feel the rain of blessings, stand outside the camera lights, lay off some of that fast food

don’t demonize until co-operation is traitorous, know yourself instead of your marketed image

move away from career politicians, maybe it doesn’t have to always come down to money

attend more to the infinite miracles proceeding at light speed all around us, often remain quite still

reasonably consider human over-population, integrate manufacturing into natural systems

try cooking from scratch, give quietly back for all you are receiving, remember the past

get some small things right, listen until they hear themselves, point out just one sunset

laugh with a bit less scorn, consider progress instead of mere victory, pause in a soft light

stumble back to the ancient path, leave less anger in your wake, spread a little less fear around

look a cow in her gentle eyes, find some reason for a joyful tear, smile as life passes so quickly by

NAN - Not A Number

 
    NAN – Not A Number: a purported numeric representation found invalid by any CPU

Face down with my eyes closed for a moment on a brilliant summer day

Switching my thoughts from dry and empty words to illustrative imaging

Arms outspread and feeling for earth’s smooth rotation underneath me

Smelling the moist brown sod beneath the green grass that’s tickling my nose

Ears pricked to catch the silence of our planet’s revolution about its star

Feeling the moon tracing around us, constantly changing her expression

Alert to the momentary minuscule changes in the output of our sun on my back

Aware of its rotational plane with respect to our own Milky Way

Observing as I move slowly upward and somewhere away from myself

Brain waves smoothing into that ancient, nearly-forgotten, frequency and rhythm

Relaxing, smoothing and soothing every part of my conscious anatomy

Anchoring at a center from which all things move away at the speed of light

NAN is not a number but it is the sum of all of my small experiences

My own unique personal version from one of the uncountable different infinities

Feeling my heart slowing as it nonetheless inexorably tolls my 3 billion allotted beats

Hearing an old German church bell again on that quiet Sunday morning in October

But, jet-lagged and sleep-deprived or fit and well-rested, my dust will be the same

Merging with smaller galaxies we encounter, on a route that seems to be directed

Tracing a path through the cosmos without conscious purpose and to no planned end

Aware of the bee as she buzzes about a neighbor of mine standing here in full flower

All that dry space between the raindrops

in the icy waters tumbling

          actually dancing in that shining spume

in the blowing hoarfrost crystals ignited by the wintry sun

          beckoning through their many prisms

part of the gentle sounds of spring creeks flowing

          splashing about upon their rocky floors

souls of patterns seen in far-off clouds

          also glinting from mosses, green upon the stones

neither evil spirit nor mythic god

igniting any reason for their invention

glimpsed while considering galactic clusters

          filling probabilistic emptiness within the atoms

inside the sound of wind and rain

glowing golden in the lion’s eye

neither possessed of emotion nor conscious intellect

          touching yet deeply and yielding wisdom

in the colors of the birds and the fish of the oceans

shining from her eyes without her even knowing

deeply moving yet quite untouched

          without a will but quietly consistent

unaware of the pulsing life force

          but part of the larger cosmic evolution

all that dry space between the raindrops

          mysterious force that builds up rivers

sense that makes the oceans restless

          unnecessary beauty of the morning

answer to all the orphan’s questions

          nameless void from which life briefly sparks

beautiful patterns left without any explanation

          tracings there as if something passed

things we finally learn we should have always searched for

          mystical back-drop, mute to all our wasted folly

what the children are afraid of

          why the old ones have no fear at last

riddle of the victim’s expression

          blur of twenty years sensed in a single instant

revealed in the short lives of crushed dragon flies

          meditated upon near one huge, decaying stump

on the golden line of sun reflected in a breaking swell

          of the snapping and the popping of our campfire burning

feeding the feeling arising when making music

          grateful use of ideas that arise unbidden

joy we take as children play with puppies

why we cook and sew, safe and warm at home

neither in the snow nor of the coldest winter

          sensed by the wolf and he begins to howl

all these tiny life forms dancing, fully animated within but a raindrop world

Just one snowflake swirling

Just one snowflake swirling during the height of the mighty storm

A single quark in an atom of a protein molecule on one cell in my brain

A single note in the chorus of the marsh as the sun grows warm again

Just one voice among the billions either dead, alive or as yet unborn

Just one moment, quite important, except light years away in any direction

The only tree in miles of forest where lightning chose to strike

Just one small planet of an average yellow star midway out in a common spiral galaxy

One billion years of geological change witnessed by absolutely nothing

Colorful patterns emitting subconscious messages from the wing of a butterfly

Just one boy notices for the briefest moment as she alights just one time

Just a ripple of the many on a single lake when the breeze comes up one day

One mossy, glacially-striated granite boulder in that vast northern woods

An eye falls upon a single pebble among hundreds of thousands strewn about

Just one neuron fires in the hiker and no conscious thought emerges

Just one photon emitted long ago speeds past a blue-green cloud-rippled paradise

A billion cries for food and shelter turn into white background noise

Water dripping from the glacier has not yet become the river we will experience

Just one small flame from the roaring bonfire rends a single word of my book

Just one dream may fuel a people’s imagination for entire generations

A single skeleton encased in stone gives rise to a moment’s pause

Just one instant in the implacable present, so quickly gone despite my many efforts

Narrow beam of reason disappears in a fog of ignorance and superstition

The pallid sun of December briefly lights the room and then the long night falls

Just one more acre cleared will help to feed us and cannot do much harm

Just one life condemned to ignorance, hunger and filth cannot sway our faith

Just one salty teardrop falls drying in that hot, red desert sand

A single prayer cast outward into the twinkling black of the celestial firmament

Just one more futile gesture in a city fueled by desperate need

Just one more forgotten moment in a string of days from many years, now all long gone by

A single-celled creature living large in one drop of greenish pond water

The very first fat raindrop lost in the dust raised by its approaching storm

Just one life form based on carbon given over to a moment’s passion

Just one light ray refracted through one water molecule in a rainbow

The last waking thought in a meditation that morphs slowly into restful sleep

A single simple stone among all the rest in a long and winding gravel road

Just one shortest riff of the sound of a creek roaring in the Spring

Just one more filthy refugee trudging amid the sighing, shuffling pilgrims

The anonymous steer in the slaughter house with brown eyes so very full of soul

Simple problem that unravels systems far beyond its own importance

Just one second before the explosion and things remain quite ordinary

Just one more drink should solve the problems plaguing me like biting flies

A single golden leaf spins ground-ward on a still and sunny autumn day

A child alone whimpering in a cold building with shining antiseptic floors

Just one more winter comber slams itself upon the ancient rocky shore

Just one more bitter pill to swallow in a lifetime of mental self-medication

One and only one inattention brings on death in a quick, but casual, fashion

Just one happy smile can lift the gloom that settled in like some densest fog

The faintest chance of one small victory vies evenly with the certainty of death

A single light after miles of driving may seem either lonely or inviting

Just one brief thought spreading out from but a single soul among the billions

Just one day in an era of an epoch on a short-lived, but fortunate, planet

Just one more Monday arrives too quickly as yet another weekend fades away

Just one song in the misty pre-dawn stillness begins the entire avian chorus

In a single flash of insight an old problem is finally solved, for once and for all

Morning Rain In A Dry Land

In a dry land, a morning rain brings on an early smile

as the wet birds are calling between the drops

peace need not stir to leave, from this house

the sounds of falling drops and dripping runoff mingle

and the old ones are speaking even as she calls to me now

- the great emptiness softened briefly by the gentle rain

the earth is washing like a healthy, purring cat

and I count the blessing in every single drop,

storms that come with first light define a special day

I hear as drops plop up among the leaves in a nearby tree

A part of the rain chant known by a thousand generations

She comes in fits and starts with a fog, then perhaps a bit of hail

Raindrops ripple across the puddles and it is all, just as simple as it seems

Slowly it grows lighter but there remains a calm and easygoing dimness

The moss soaks up the moisture growing spongy, soft and green

What falls stimulates the earth to exude a misty cloud of peace

I remain in silence, engrossed within this quiet symphony

This rain knows neither here nor how in its wet and simple certainty

The mist off of the lake arises, to greet the lowering clouds

The wind stays resting, somewhere far away

And here once again comes the hope that we might yet, find our way

Rain Of Blessings

Rain of blessings falling so very softly everywhere at once, all the time, almost indiscernible

Very quiet and so gentle as to be easily ignored, so light as to go on by, normally unnoticed

Yet flowing away in every dimension, easily outpacing even the expansion of this universe

As faint as the cosmic background radiation, but just as all-pervasive, when tuned in at last

Layer dancing across layer from the pico to the tera scales, from the quantum to the multiverse

Rain of mercy, shower of grace, redemption soaks the lines of each and every smiling face

In the sky shimmers a rainbow of joy from the soft light filtering through these falling blessings

My fevered forehead cooled by the mist off the infinite sea of peace these showers fill

Spinning slowly round and round, I briefly take a place, as I turn like a blossom falling down

Rain of blessings fleetingly opens our eyes wide to that eternal harmony unfolding all around

Perfectly interweaving springs, all from the same source, balance me with calm energy

Radiating mercy from the center of grace, interweaving with cosmic phenomena, out in space

Cooling when it is too hot or warming us like a bath, our faces upturned like little flowers

Their vast and eternal flow carries off our tiny sins just as surely as it erodes all our tiny actions

Rain of blessings, falling in all directions, through every dimension, without an in-between

As always, just as soon as I really sense it, I am instantly overflowing, into those gentle tears

Reflections of rippling waters, echoes of fading footsteps, fossil starlight from so far away

Dirty, smiling, tiny children, gap-toothed old men nodding off in wisdom, gentle yak upon the trail

Cymbals sounding off the vast blue ice fall, uncountable simplicities, all so inextricably bound

Hail of joy briefly awakens sleepers, flood of compassion carries away their joyful images

In my mind, running mostly naked, a brown child glistening in this warm monsoon of cosmic blessings