Poetry
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I Want
I want to ponder the radius of the earth as if it was yet to be discovered. I want to burst through doorways with a clear voice singing, intoxicated with life. I want fistfuls of cloud spilling out of my pockets. A poet is hungry, a poet is very thirsty. A poet dies every day,… Continue reading
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Towards The Fire
When things unravel with such fury, we conclude that something should be held responsible. We look for a place to lay our blame, though the source of our pain often has the power to be a catalyst for growth, a facilitator of movement in stagnant waters. If we can un-stick ourselves from the quicksand of… Continue reading
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Reception
Friends, I toss myself aside for you. I become available for you. I eat, drink, mumble, run hands through hair for you, scramble down the gulch for you, carry wood, fold socks, scrub pots, ever-fearless, requiring nothing. These are not the days of time’s inhalation pulling way up under the world’s collarbones, stitching together the… Continue reading
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On Working With The Creative Powers
This is a wonderful excerpt from the book Blue Pastures by Mary Oliver. It is not about an artist’s discipline, that is an entirely different subject. Rather, it’s about making oneself available at all times to one’s ideas and creative powers. “I am absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social obligations. It is as it must be. … Continue reading
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Let Me Become
Let me become a master of listening, a student of surrender. May a strong and blossoming tree grow from the root of all my fears, a tree with the innate knowledge of how to bend with the wind. I have much to learn from the ferryman who spends his life taking people across the river,… Continue reading
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Dream Catcher
A dream of bamboo groves and flickering candles. A dream of sitting in meditation, of the alchemy of bees bringing about the reality of honey, of the heart lifting, of a tormented heart and eyes grown world-weary. A dream of desire stirring below the navel, of a starry sky like a great milk-swelled breast, of… Continue reading
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Intersection
A swirl of motion disguised as effortless. Notions innumerable, channeled by a single consciousness and dismissed. Pandemonium, orchestrated as if by grand design. Sirens, horns, voices, shoes, wheels, engines, commerce, commotion, patches of persistent quiet. A rich harvest of information passing through the needle’s eye of a moment’s fraction. Another wave breaking in the audio-visual… Continue reading
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Genesis
Good morning swollen and veiled moon, trees whose blossoms are about to erupt. Good morning sun, disc of fire piercing the place where stars froze and crackled in monumental quiet only moments before. Good morning to the owl’s hushed song sliding outward from a deep pocket among the boughs, to the banshee-wailing of belts beneath… Continue reading
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Many Brothers
Connection erases age, weakens constraints, strengthens the bond of brotherhood. I have crossed many valleys. I have loved many brothers. Treetops creak and bang the way the screen door did in my own lost boyhood. A wind has risen. Dying leaves pray for us all as they descend, knowing how to honor their own wisdom.… Continue reading
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Scraping the Windshield
I’d better leave these northeast winters before my sullen brooding turns to a measure of joy, as I grow content that the edges of the road are caulked with mud, frozen slush, listening to the clatter of another semi’s jake-brake as it breaks open the shell of another midnight highway whose sound could easily be… Continue reading
C.M. Rivers 