The garden plants are beginning to take on that sense of rested, effulgence and inner repose, as if holding their collective breath in the growing heat. The French doors are opened to the still summer air from early morning, the cat moves slowly between the heavy stalks of hanging flowers, gold legged bees accompanying the framed hunter as it follows its own naturally growing gravitational pull of feline curiosity through the green warmth. All afternoon I work on my mother's roses, clearing their feet and trimming their heads from their neglect after my recent trip to the far side of the world. Inside and outside married through open doors, through birdsong, blue sky, the gift of warmth, another kind of invitation to come out, to be welcome in the world in another and different way after the winter's besiegement of a Northwest winter.
MIDSUMMER PRAYER In midsummer, under the luminous sky of everlasting light, the laced structures of thought fall away like the filigrees of the white diaphanous dandelion turned pure white and ghostly, hovering at the edge of its own insubstantial discovery in flight. I’ll do the same, watch the shimmering dispersal of tented seeds lodge in the tangled landscape without the least discrimination. So let my own hopes escape the burning wreck of ambition, parachute through the hushed air, let them spread elsewhere, into the tangled part of life that refuses to be set straight. Herod searched for days looking for the children. The mind’s hunger for fame will hunt down all innocence. Let them find safety in the growing wild. I’ll not touch them there. from River Flow: New & Selected Poems: Revised Edition
I am hearing your words resonate with people I work with. Summer… to sit near water. To travel to the unknown. To let the soul drift like a child's sailboat in a silenced fountain. We are one humankind❤️
🌹Dear David, during an unforgettable workshop with you in northern California many years ago, your distinctive cadence and resonating tones became embedded in my cells. Thank you for reading these timely offerings aloud.❤️