Reflections

“Man gazes,” says Turgot, “upon the profound ocean

of being, but what at first he discerns is not the bed

hidden beneath its waters, but only the reflection of his

own face”

Salutation To The Sun

Would you dare look at the sun?
Only when it rises in my eyes.
I feel the sacred promise of love –
Warming every heart as one …

gfs

summer passing

it seems
a little sad
to grow
into wanting
feelings of missing
the colors of days
shared with
flowers blooming
honeysuckle scent
and summer afternoons

lazy times tanning
not caring
of the world
its hardness
its acres and acres
of diamonds
just sandy beaches
washing away
our shadows
in the sun

wide brimmed hats
and day dreams
seabirds calling
sandpipers swift
on their feet
passing the sounds
lost in the wash
lines and waves
in the sand

sea grass
and seaweeds
tide lines
and sand castles
seashells collected
all are ways
where
the child
remains

nearer the water
the land and sky
waiting as ever
for mothers
and fathers
to show them
the way
homeward
again

Image: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-sand-castles-corey-ford.html

Buy me a River

The Tetons – Snake River (1942) by Ansel Adams

Buy me a river
a place in the sun
a warm sandy shore
is where I belong

You there beside me
forever in love
ours to remember
days of our youth

Lost in the feeling
a forever embrace
waters will rise
releasing in grace

Falling before
cascading in blue
we tumble away
as waters renew

Life where we were
and ever will be
eternity whispers
come unto me

A place of feeling (solstice)

What of words to pages writ
love letters lying here
Not read into the memories
of thoughts still living where?

Churning colors in the mind
a restless rolling wave
of willows bending in the wind
can be enough to save

all the lessons learned about
the stories we’ve been told
melting into empty tears
as seasons will behold

reaching to awaken from
a dream that fell into the rain
soaked with shivers underneath
the place to be again ~

no, such time has always been
another solstice come to find
inside a vision searching for
a light that leaves us blind

to love that leads us always back
into another time and place
Dimensions turn awakening
passed without a trace

Was the empty hollow sound
another reason to unfold
Words of always into one
more tales of lifetimes told

Waving

Wind moves on water

Ripples waving endlessly

Flow into our lives

House of Glass

In a
house of glass
(I see you)
calling far away
(a name)
knowing the wind
will answer
a heart longing
(again again again)

things there will be
(words written)
and millenniums
sink into stone
of distant dawns
sky awake with fire
restless seas
rolling

waters washing
life imparting
longing sunlight
(asks of us)
endless questions
each a star
in rising shadows
(moonbeams fall)

across the land
footsteps fade
the meadow’s grasses
(willowing)
the sacred hoop
revolving still
the reason
we became

gentleness
passion beguiling
(trusting)
sea and sky
(angry thunder)
tells again
the hunger always
(aching)
spirit longing
to be free

A Radiant Dawn

Sun sinking slowly
into the sea
a gull circles, floating
lost on the wind
Her home on the beach’s
shadows below
weary wings waiting
to rest on the shore

In solace from longing
and memories of travels
people and places
afar she once knew
The feeling now melting
with sun passing into
the edge of the sky
horizons now gone

A circle in life
is what she feels setting
there in the water
draped in the clouds
Dreams slowly fading
before time revealing
the silver moon rises
a promise of hope

Faith in tomorrow
morning’s reflections
unfolding before
her new day of love
A radiant dawn
will rise in her heart
from promises shared
last eve on the shore

As they silently slipped
into her mem’ry
words softly spoken
there on the wind
Surely the daylight
arises from shadows
tomorrow’s light always
shines in her eyes

Photo: http://www.wallpapersland.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/sunset-at-the-ocean-wallpaper.jpg

Ripples on Water

The morning sun breaks over the mountain’s peak
Before me the waters of this pond rest in stillness
Earth moves silently beneath the place where I am
A lingering cool morning mist embraces my being

Insects buzz, hovering as the sun warms the day
The calm surface ripples as a night’s hunger is filled
Waves move together as they blend and merge
Life’s constant motion, in this mirror of the sky

A soft breeze caresses my face, embracing me
in love from a distant shore, another place and time
This wind has always been and ever shall be
My breath mingles there along with ancient voices

At moon rise, the smooth surface of the water speaks
The cricket calling in the distance becomes my way
And nearly sleeping I walk upon the glassy waters
Leaving not a trace, as I wander toward forever

A River Runs Through It

What cool water there must be in Montana, as the crystalline mountain snows melt into streams and make their way down river, leading ever to nourish the landscape, and ultimately after thousands of miles to their home in the sea.

Norman Maclean was fond of the water, and was graced in knowing the land and the water and the air the way he did. Without ever studying Zen he became entranced by these elementals, and came to know his God on earth in a way that would make many of us envious – jealous, and in so doing we slip farther away from our own salvation.

In his lifetime the analogy of the water is rich with meaning. We view a pond and standing at the shore we cannot see the bottom, since there is a wind and the waters are stirring, there are waves on the surface, ‘ripples on the water’, and these obscure what is below.

The mind is like the waters, deep, often dark and mysterious. Nature, the world around us, the senses and the perceptions are the wind and the waves, and the bottom of the pond is our destiny, our true self, the one which we seek, and are bound to know.

Looking at the water in this way we can see that until we still the waves, the constant motion of the mind flitting from here to there and back again, then the bottom will always be obscured, and our journey will be long and restless.

When we can rest on the waters edge, and the winds calm, as the sun shines warm upon our skin, the surface of the waters become a clear glass and the bottom … our eternal spirit … comes into view. Fleetingly at first, but evermore we are changed. In the moment of serenity, we know our God is within, and live renewed.

This is the Spirit Norman wrote of, and sought in the rivers that parted the earth throughout his boyhood, and to which he returned in old age. This is the Spirit the Native Americans knew. This is our source, the place we are bound, the place of our origin.

“I am haunted by water …” (Norman Maclean)