When the accusations grow wildly like leaves in the jungle, there’s no room for light. And everyone just keeps hiding and running until far enough away from all the insanity, a single truth like a single leaf floats to the ground and it seems there’s nothing left to lose. And in the sudden stillness, where the bombs couldn’t reach, you can feel the throb in your hands and the throb in your mind. And wanting to start over, with less... Read more

As a boy, I would stare into things a bit too long for the adults around me. They told me I was sad and that I should cheer up. I know now that I was feeling depth not sadness. Later, when I was silent too long, those afraid of silence warned me that being empty would make me lonely. I know now that I was not drown- ing in emptiness, but gliding like a small bird in the spaciousness that... Read more

It’s 5:30 am, the sun is creeping over the horizon, and it’s stunningly quiet at the gate. Each of us waiting for flight 4975 to open its honeycomb doors. Each of us in an unexpected pause, our lives in a slight ellipsis between here and there, between trouble and peace. Dale, the wizened gate agent, cautions us not to carry too much. If I had only known when I was younger. The beautiful old woman next to me is thinking... Read more

For the hummingbird, the instant the nectar enters its beak. For the dolphin, the moment it slips back into the wave. For you and me, the slice of time we slip through when what we look for—in here and out there—is the same. Like the moment a wing is one with the wind. Or the moment that love and truth gather in the back of our throat when everything we care for is about to leave or arrive and we... Read more

In the middle of the war, a red poppy trembled in the rubble. It made him put his gun down and stop. He had entered the eye of battle and knelt before the poppy, bullets whizzing, thinking, if we could just lie down with the poppies. And in the middle of the hunt, the old hunter saw the fox before anyone else, staring at him in a long patch of light. But he couldn’t shoot it because he suddenly wanted... Read more

Things you never imagine come to pass and your life becomes a crucible in which the lessons are ground into a fine powder you can taste in back of your throat. In time, the crucible cracks, then crumbles, and rain soaks the powder into your heart and the taste goes away. By the time you soften, no one can tell there ever was a crucible. And on a quiet day when the sun pours through the clouds and the birds... Read more

You would have been 102 today and I wonder what you would say now that all that was hiding us has fallen away. I imagine you now as bare as the trees outside my window. Despite our tumble through the years, I miss you. For some reason, I keep returning to the moment you dropped your cane in the driveway and kissed my neck. It’s all I ever wanted. Yet, it took fifty years to unfold, the slowest flower I... Read more

You can lose yourself in love or find yourself. What we love can become everything in which case we spin endlessly, thirsting for someone else’s light to soften our darkness. Or what we love can become the veil we part to see and know what holds the world together. I know this because I have done both. And while making what I love everything has kept me from my soul, loving everything open, the way the constancy of the sun... Read more

Both my grandfathers had a hard life. Yet both loved life. Both loved people. Each had a quick smile and a deep laugh. Each gave before being asked. Each listened to whatever was difficult without looking away. They both died before I could ask. So where did I learn this? You can’t teach someone to lean in, to get up, to help out. We just offer comfort and care, the way a fire warms with its flame. Yet their presence... Read more

After walking days to meet Basho, a young man bowed and asked respectfully, “Why poetry?” The aging master, having lived through so much beauty and loss, smiled and said, “Come with me.” They hiked to a cliff overlooking the sea and Basho said, “Seeing life from near and far at once helps us live.” They watched the surf crash and roll. Then Basho added, “To listen for poetry is to stand before life on the cliff of your heart.” He... Read more