Incomplete

There was a moment of silence,
After a bit of chat and news
About places and problems,
An ongoing story that I am familiar with...
It wasn't an awkward pause,
I was with you in important ways
Talking privately from the heart,
But it was also incomplete;
I could not see the faint pulse
Rising in the soft chords of your neck,
I could not fold my hand in yours
In your moment of disappointment
In your frustration
That you mask so well with
Patience and determination;
I know these things were there.
Pressing my eyes closed
I can conjure them across time and distance,
But my hand was on the cold indifference of the phone
And it is not the same.

The Other Side

Whatever you have been told
or think that you have learned
about humankind,
about the way things are
or the way things should be,
Pause and look in the other direction
Look on the other side,
let the pendulum swing, then
linger and consider:
Some truth surely lies there.

I Think

My body has a mind of its own,
I think.
And as much as I love me
and sometimes don't,
I feel like I am waiting
for some cracked door to swing open:
Come in, join me, I've been waiting for you.

A dear astrologer friend observed that
I had my head in the air
Having been born a Libra.
The rest of me having been liberated
from that realm
of though
of connectedness
of unity.

So as children sometimes say
"I am the boss of me."
And so, child-like, I need to plumb that unity:
  the pulse of my heart, the scratch on my leg,
  the ache in my back, the swirl in my mind...
that I might find my way
to being so self-immersed and newly rejoined,
And so to healing.

Beans

I must get up today, and early, I must.
I have beans to plant
they need my help, just a little and
they will open their secrets
(add soil and water)
they will reveal their wisdom
(in the light of the sun)

and it is mine to watch,
perhaps to fathom,
perchance to know their miracle;
how they grow green
how they leaf and flower and bean
and wither and die
and then do it again,
rise to the new day...
and I wonder,
wonder and ask why?

I must get up and hold them tight
in my left hand;
can I feel their beauty
can I learn their way?
I must get up this morning,
I must get up
and try.