samba pa ti


Santana      Samba Pa Ti       “Sacred Fire” Live Concert in Mexico 1993
 
 
 
 
there are a lot of things i am not.           one of them is a musician.

if i was.   if i could be.     this is what i would play for you.

there are many beautiful musical performances.   many.

but this.    this is the one that says how i feel about you.
 
 
 
 
forgive.   i no longer care so much about being polite.

dare i risk seeming sentimental?          i do.
 

      dance with me

 
 
 
 

when i was nine years old

when i was nine years old i didn’t write like this
 
 
 

Lost Heart

Have compassion and forgiveness,

for people that are lost in their minds,

and can not reach their heart,

and the love that is held within

the middle of their heart.
 
 
 

Love Saves the Day

Every person in the world,

is too dark,

without love.
 
 
 
sahara sunday spain   excerpts from if there would be no light.
written when she was nine years of age.
 
 
why this?   because    because i know some people who seem lost this way.  because sometimes i have also been this way.  because i learned, no matter what, it is always, always, a matter of choice.  i have worked hard to make those better choices, better meaning more alive to life, meaning, more loving.  that’s why.

i trust expression.   some of you may have read my “about” pages, as well my posted writings, and know i turned to writing decades past when in a significant state of confusion i made a simple prayer, “what should i do next?”   response came, “write.”   just that.   nothing else.   one could take that many ways.   i took it literal.   but why that response?   not in doubt, but wonder, and i realized a large measure of me was that i did not communicate much, with anyone.   i was alone, no matter what.   expression does one elemental thing – expression creates movement.   have all the thoughts and feelings you want and will.   hurt and pain arrive when you don’t let them go.   all of them.   so, let go.   the physical and the emotional, they are the same.   movement means the ability to learn and to grow.   practice makes a difference, so i write.   writing for me is an act of faith, because i made a promise.
 
 
 
 
a note about using these excerpts.  i am generally respectful about other peoples published work.  however in this case, chances of finding this long out-ot-print book, even used, are remote – so no harm done.  then again, maybe you’ll find it some day and consider getting a copy for yourself.  the book includes a generous river of her drawings.   the poem of the book’s title name is purely brilliant no matter the persons age or experience.

 
 
 

history as seen from a boat

 
 
there was a little boy     the boy was me     verbatim
he loaned some of his comic books to another boy
then that boy refused to give them back
this was the first time the boy felt doubt     like for real

notice how much the world can change from the smallest things

imagination

when clouds fill the sky     no stars to navigate     it is what i say it is
faithfully drawn to scale

years later the girl two houses down toward the railroad tracks
she liked him and he liked her     summer sun and our talcum skin
then her father said     we’re leaving town going to another home
it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t his     they parted without feeling fault
as they liked each other regardless of the curving of space
that’s a way how it could of been

years later the boy fell in love easily, generously     because
he always felt that way       fearlessly

so there’s history     taking a breath

thus pronounced true     is genuine

no doubt inside

 
 
 

i spy with my little eye

one man’s vision quest of short-lived memories     you stand warned

 
 
 

what if you are how the universe loves itself?

 
 
 
 
i spy with my little eye another stray cat prowling in my back yard       they’re all my friends       some have ready claws so move please like you mean love

i spy with my little eye a greyhound bus moving down my street       i feel some romance for the lure of diesel fumes       adventure not yet arrived

i spy with my little eye a woman with her full bag of groceries walking home on the sidewalk in front of our home       not much farther to go

i spy with my little eye a bottle of milk on someone’s front porch       closer than a stone’s throw away       and i have no stones, none at all

i spy with my little eye a big black steam engine billowing smoke and pulling so many clack-clacking wheels a block to my east       one way to gauge intent

i spy with my little eye a grilled cheese sandwich with potato chips delivered to me on a plate       must be heaven i think to myself sitting on a stool

i spy with my little eye a line of trees all covered in ripe plums       the sun working to make perfect more perfect     succulent

          i am right about the “heaven” thing!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
please note, this page will look best when displayed on a browser’s wider screen

one   more   beauty

this light in you everywhere
 
 
 
 
one more beauty painting me

i have not yet seen what or who that   true beauty is

not concealed     just not yet arrived          i am a seed
 
 

       alone

 
 
like my Father     like my Mother     is

am i a rabbit in a hat     my feet in sky     will Ursa Major devour me?

it is hard to love the truth     language is a lie          loving    but a lie

it goes the other way you know     one day all my words will be used and gone
 
 
 
i am exactly the way i am and exactly not the way i am not        no argument

i pray       may kind compassion be my kin
 
 
 
i see Light moving through your Face

what words to plant?         my finger pokes this hole in the dirt

i am one drop in a sea of Light       this is how oceans are made
 
 
 

i’ll see    poems before    becoming words

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
image as graced by Bridgette White  Sunset Slow

Harvest Moon

worth repeating          something sweet for no good reason at all

 
 
Harvest Moon
Neil Young
 
 
Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say

Just like children sleepin’
We could dream this night away

But there’s a full moon risin’
Let’s go dancin’ in the light

We know where the music’s playin’
Let’s go out and feel the night

Because I’m still in love with you
I wanna see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar

When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart

But now it’s gettin’ late
And the moon is climbin’ high

I want to celebrate
See it shinin’ in your eye
 
 
Because I’m still in love with you
I wanna see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon

Because I’m still in love with you
I wanna see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon
 
 
 
          listen        this is how i feel about you
 
Written by: Neil Young
Album: Unplugged
Released: 1993
 
 
 
 
beautiful moon image by Bridgette White, her post, Blue Moon
my deep thanks for everything

 
 
 

clear as mud where the tadpoles live

 
 
is it fair game to steal from myself?     I think it is.

i write because my hand moves through words like
through water.
 
 
as i get older, closer to the end of me, only a couple more sips of milk at the bottom of the glass, that I am making less and less common sense, but maybe the real me is finally finally becoming visible.

i like how that feels, even when sometimes I’m a little scared.

is that poem enough?     is that a poem at all?

ssshh     i think everything is a poem in its bones

god told me so     but i shouldn’t say that, i suppose
 
 
one lesson about writing

i write better when i am writing to a specific real other person.
i care more about my honesty.     i want them to feel my affectionate regard.     less hiding by me.     never protected anything anyway, just more loneliness.     honest expression is an open window or door.     always always.
 
 
no lie.     when i was a kid i remember bare-foot wading in the little mud pools beside the creek, and the season when the wiggly black tadpoles lived in the mud and came scattering themselves around and over my toes in the soft silty mud.          wonderful feeling          being alive.
 
 
yea     i gotta work some to see it that way.

is that anywhere in the neighborhood of faith?

 
 
 

nursery rhyme of another summer

 
 
 
Music changes forever
music changes Forever
 
 
Music changes and changes and changes and changes
and changes forever changes        more voices landing
 
 
music changes Forever and changes Forever and changes
and changes and Forever is never again the same forever  more
 
 
 
 
why are we all alone in this Paradise?
 
 
 
kiss the face of the beast who scares you most

now     who are you?
 
 
 
 
i wouldn’t be this me if you were a different you
 
 
 
 
 
Comptine d’un Autre Été
 
 
 

seeding

falling to the center of this earth
 
 
 
 
i will lay me down to be this seed

you might already be too old for this hoe
you may already be past using this braille

but more creative limbs are coming this way

they satisfy curiosity reading these furrows in the dirt

thus do i in far disguise arrive       again       again

water and sun       i rise

 
 
 

a statement of well-Meaning

 
 
dear folks reading this     meaning you

This is my real updated message to you about me    about us.

Not my taste to linger on personal physical issues.   Not the issue I want us to focus on.   Not something that serves you knowing.
Just plain, not fun.

Howsoever, my ability to connect with you is becoming impacted, partly making me less present here on the internet.   Risk is you might feel ignored or unappreciated.     shameless as I am

Truth is I appreciate all of you.   No matter the shape or volume of interaction, you make a difference in my life.  Said simply, my gratitude

I will do this once.   Once is enough.   Better uses for our labors.   And no, no sympathy please.   Don’t help, does it?   Neither desired or welcome.   What I do ask for is something else I’ve long invited and desired.   Lets browse some here.
 
 

Physical issues

Waldenström macroglobulinemia.   There’s a mouthful!   Most of the time I forget the name.   WM is a type of lymphoma, but rather unique and rare.   Incurable, but can be held at bay for an indeterminate measure of time.

That’s cancer with a small “c” to me.   Cancer never scared me just because it was what it is.   Just another issue to deal with, and I have an exceptional oncologist.   Thanks also to a certain medication the WM is currently mostly inactive.   Someday that’ll probably change, but we will all have that someday some day.

Treatments can have their issues too.
Enduring, unforgiving tiredness.   Probably the medicine.   It slows me down, a lot.   Harder to focus, to reach farther out from myself – to you.   I’m sorry for that.

Additionally, for whatever reasons, my memory is impacted, short-term especially.   As a writer, that scares me more than most all considerations.   What do I do when my language skills are compromised?   That is a very real question I face continually now.

I mean no joke when I’ve said poems save my life.
Figurative – and – literal.

Writing is integral with my purpose in life.   With purpose I have a reason for being here.   Simple as that.
 
 

My reason for writing

I’m sure I’ve said somewhere sometime why I write.  Once upon a time, from my state of confusion I made a prayer to god the spirit, “What should I do?”  I was thinking something more mundane, like a job, that level of change.   Next day an answer came.  The heavens did not open, no Monty Python god booming from above, just quietly one simple word – write.  Don’t know how I ever had the good sense or faith to take that to my heart, but I did.  Write was the message, nothing else.  Not write and receive fame or fortune, not even “write well,” just write.  Not write and publish.
That’s a big one.  Most writers care a lot about that one.  I don’t.
     Publish for me means this blog here, writing directly to you.

Over the years I’ve fallen away from writing even for months at a time, but I always come back. I pray I am learning as I write, not just about the mechanisms of writing, but the experience of being a real human having a real human life.  Not always easy.
Willingness to be fully honest and visible is challenging, but a right measure for how I’m doing.

Changes in memory and focus add to the slope.  How do I deal with that?  I do not know.  I work to answer that day by day.  I want to be open about this process of change.  Maybe I can say something useful for us all.  Maybe.  Our culture has a shallow relationship with the ending of life.  No discussion, please.  Which leaves us mostly ignorant.  I don’t care for the taste of that.
 
 

Existence  01

I understand my existence doesn’t have the importance or meaning I might like to think for it. Big universe, small me. But we are that lucky mud  02  who got to sit up, look around and understand and appreciate.  I also take that stance to heart.  That’s who I want to be.

You are invited to participate in looking with me as much as you are able and willing and want to do.  I think that’s asking a lot.  But I’d rather explore what we can be, more than day after day after day of just being comfortable with less.  That’s the challenge we have been given.

Maybe we even fail to reach as far as desired, but what a worthwhile labor of mind and heart.  Process is result.

Generosity and gratitude are the only two rules.
 
 
 
 
if you haven’t already come across these prior references, they are much worth your attention

01   it’s a gift to exist
Anderson Cooper in conversation with Stephen Colbert, discussing the notion, grief.   brilliant realization

02   Lucky Mud   Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
brilliant heart
 
 
 
Thank you for reading