it's a zen thing

dying
was never really the issue....
where do you find death
in the midst of so much motion?
slowing down to look and see
would be a death all it's own,
for if the motion stops
i'm not really certain of what
will be left-
are you?
it seems i have left
small pieces of me
along the way-
erosion was inevitable,
almost desirable,
like dropping ballast
to rise above the storm....
never really certain of
coming down again
after the thunder stilled.


i wrote this poem years ago, after one of several stints in detox. i knew then i was losing.....my way, my sanity, my life. my whole existence became centered down on one thing....going fast at any cost. i was trying to stay one step ahead of the darkness, and losing ground every day. betsy said to me "you want to die"..... it was a statement now, no longer a question.

i didn't die. at some point, i chose to live.

now, if there is any desperation in my life, it is simply to find the quiet places. i soak up silence like a sponge. i have dark days, but there is always, always light on the other side....... peace, after the thunder stills.

i have these moments now, split seconds where time stops, freezes in place, before moving on. they catch me unaware. i never expect them.

i get them chopping wood. when i take a second swing of the axe, and it lands precisely in the notch created by the first swing, there is one moment of perfect silence before the whole becomes two, and the log falls away.....energy from my arms, to the wood. connected.

sometimes they happen when i shoot my bow. i shoot instinctively, without aiming. i simply raise and draw my bow, softening my vision in an attempt to feel the target rather than see it. i miss alot, but more and more there are those shots that hit exactly where my heart saw, with a sharp sound of certainty, and not a quiver of the fletchings.....energy from my arms, to the arrow. connected.

i sometimes wonder at the miracle of these moments, and how i got here from that day so long ago, so lost.

living
is suddenly the issue
in that airless endless moment
of thunder rushing down
of prayer god please
let it stop
now.
a million shattered pieces
can still make up the whole.....
i cried save me
long ago.

i wrote this poem a few months after the first...... in rehab, finally, to stay. someone looked at the two poems together, and said "they aren't done. you need to finish them. there is more to this story".

it has taken a long time to find the ending to that story. it is better called a beginning though, because it is about promise, and progress, and pleasure in those single moments of time. i have come full circle.....