Summer’s end. Life is but a dream.
Reflections: relations.
I know you. I know these hands, these eyes.
I see you.
We have seen each other through years, months, days.
Love partners have come and gone, and we keep saying hello and goodbye to each other
And each fresh landscape that we pass through, make love with,
Make Home
Pass on
Hello and goodbye
Forever and anon
The falling leaves
That decay into winter whiteness
Composting through death
Into the blossoming spring
Ecstatic summer
And now,
Celebratory autumn harvests
My cabin smells like mold and wetness
Perpetual rain here in the northeast
I think of California and the desert southwest
And I crave the dry air, big sky, and towering mountains
There is a place called Home
And it lies within
But I want to create something
Solid
I light candles with you
And we read our fortunes
Giggling over beautiful tarot images
Asking profound yet profane questions about our love lives
To ancient spirits spiraling through our fingers and tongues
As we surrender ourselves
To the unknown yet known
It all lies within
And we know the answers already
Even as we choose the cards
With questions lodged deep in our minds
We know
Already, we know
The cards confirm our knowing
And we smile and nod
Sipping tea and looking into each others’ eyes across the firelight
Sitting on the piney blanket on the floor of my cabin
Surrounded by all the beauty that I have created in this small ramshackle cabin
Cleared of mouse poop and old mold
This Home of a year
I enjoy this laughter
The unchained freedom of old friendship and unconditional understanding
Borne of years of knowing each other
Though mostly apart
Yet together
I can tease you,
Knowing all your shadowy and light bits
Like the interplay of sunlight filtering through forest leaves
You are mysterious, complex, beautiful, complete
We hike fast, eyes in wide angle vision to catch every snowy rocky gorgeous nuance of the alpine landscape surrounding us
Summiting the highest mountain of my childhood
The mountain I stared at everyday of my childhood
As far back as I can remember
Watching the snow shifting on the mountain peak
And now, climbing it
You who know me
We laugh at each other
Practicing yoga in the most beautiful places
Bowing before the old pine next to my cabin
Bowing before each other
Bowing to the swampy majesty of a summer’s worth of weeds gone wild
All the bugs singing their final summer love songs to the blue sky
As it turns grey with rainclouds
Thunder rolls
And I jump on the trampoline in the darkness of the night
Watching the flashing lightning
And laughing as
Raindrops hit my face
And I know
I know that
This life is but a dream
Life is too quick to waste time
Every step I take is meaningful
As meaningful and delightful as I can make it
I am sculpting my future as beautifully as I can
While manifesting my dreams
With each conscious step
Each leap on the trampoline
Each bow before every trembling grass blade and lightning bolt
As all the mossy knolls we barefoot boogie upon
Is simultaneously crushed by our weight
As we disperse their seedy spores
Back into the glowing soil
Of infinite
Possibility
Looking into your eyes
Your gnarled old hands holding mine
I cry
I don’t want you to see my tears
To know my fear
My sadness at parting ways
Not knowing when I will return again
Life could end for you soon
You are old
Life could end for me soon
I am young, but life is unpredictable
Our eyes are interlocked
Our lives, intertwined
I cry
Tears of joy, sadness,
Gratitude
I watch you as you walk away
And you watch me as well
Our eyes catch one final time
See you in dream time
In dreams, you are the wise one
You are the elder
You are the trickster
The lover
The adventurer
You who come in many forms
You mirror my Self
I wake, embracing the memory of your Being in my Dream
Then realizing I am just embracing
My Self
I step out the door
Surrendering my senses to sweet summery flower perfumes
I stand, stunned
I have watched this landscape
From death to life,
And now slowly transitioning back to death once more
At the height of abundance,
Fruit falling from trees,
Goldenrod taller than me,
This is summer’s end
And death is around the corner
Compass pointing north
Self reflected in the Sky
Where
Am I going next?
I feel
Heartbeat rhymatics
Slow dancing
Waltzing with wind
Bare feet gripping forest floor leaves
Swooping down into low balances
Body arcing with tree limbs
Arms following eyes
As I follow the treeline
The dancing squirrel
As he darts about, gathering nuts
Wave-like spine, undulating
We pull and twist each other
Laughing as I fall, rolling back to standing
Leaping and diving through the air
You surprise me
Tossing me out just far enough
That I loop back
Like a planet within the sun’s orbit
Our hips bump into each other
Bone against bone,
Muscles contracting and releasing
Music carrying energies higher and further
I close my eyes and can see the lines of connection, lines of motion, lines of music
The same line that the squirrel invisibly darts through the forest
The same invisible line that connects us across the ocean and through the center of the world
Taiwan, India, USA…
All these little intersecting lines
I open my arms,
Billow out my chest,
Release my heart,
Surrender my feet,
Raise my head,
Extend my spine,
Look up,
Eyes wide open,
And smile at the Sky,
Feet firmly grounded into Earth,
Tadasana
Mountain pose
And,
I bow
Down
