A God Infused Time

My dear friend Laura passed.
I wrote this to her family.


There are no words for this time.
This is a sacred time.
God infuses all of your space
your being, your sense of reality.

This is a God infused time because
this is a time of
profound soul work.

Laura's soul work, as well as your own.

Be exquisitely gentle with yourselves.

I love you.

The Mundane Made Sacred

Each month, as I sit to clip my nails,
a necessary mundane act;
I have reason to Thank the Dead.

Not for the heady, kaleidoscopic
grandeur of their significance
to my life.

Not for their many profound gifts
which crept into my being, my cells,
my knowing of this Dear World
which formed and continues to
inform my daily thoughts and behaviors.

No, each month while performing this mundane act,
I have reason to give it sanctity, with
Their Remembrance,
and gratitude for their
simple, sturdy steel clippers
which I use.

How Do You Talk To A Dying One

Tonight I spoke with my friend Laura
who is dying
who has been dying gradually gracefully
courageously
these past seven years

with peaks and valleys of good sometimes better
days and nights
learning to know a body wracked by the devastation
of chemical cocktails brewed with the best intentions
by trusted physicians with license to dispense
patches, wholesale cellular slaughter and pain,
which forestalls, which forestalled for Laura,
the inevitable.

But hospice has been called in
those guardians of the dying
those brave souls who are not afraid to attend
and witness.

Tonight I told her the depth of my love for her.
I told her "I'm not sure this is OK for me to tell you,
but I want to tell you
I want you to know
before you become totally incapable of comprehension,
before the encephalopathy worsens,
I want you to know how terribly I will miss you."

And I asked if she had forgiven herself,
of everything, of nothing, of the specific thing,
of the little and big things
that we all regret and don't let go
sometimes till it's too late.

The act of forgiveness makes necessary
acknowledgement
and heartfelt repentance
for some too human wrong
we failed to see at the time.

If needed, could she do this for her daughter,
and she said she yes, of course she could
forgive her daughter for anything
continue to love her....always.
Then can she also forgive herself.

And I asked if she had forgiven the others,
of everything, of the specific thing,
of the little and big things
the too human thing the almost inhuman things
that were done to her.

I could not settle asking about the weather
what she ate the particulars of how her body feels
the specifics of her day.

I had to ask the thing I would want asked of me
as I ready my soul for dying
as I grapple with my soul for living.

Grape Seeds 6,100 Years Old (N.Y. Times January 11, 2011)

Oh my, to live in a world where we can discover
grape seeds 6,100 years old.
Where we know with certainty that these grape seeds
are 6,100 years old.
To know that these seeds were part of the ancient
process of fermentation which produced wine
sacred wine.
To understand that wine was actually being produced
at least 1,300 years prior to the 6,100 year find,
to know that humans were altering their consciousness
7,400 years ago, and of course much much longer,
with grapes, with love, laughter, dance, song, music.

And the real miracle... these 6,100 year old seeds will be
planted in today's soil; will possibly sprout, grow, thrive
to produce grapes which we will make into wine
sacred wine.

The Elixir of Creation

An antidote to despair and hopelessness
exists in the magnificent evidence of
G-d's exquisite creation, which

always appears in the sky

as a setting sun
plain or brilliant, just its fact
evidences beauty

unsettled, vibrantly colored clouds
all shades of white, pink, orange, gray,
all manner of shapes, streaks, variation, forms

birds about to take flight, birds in flight
the arch of wing, the grace of intuitive motion

the eternal gloss of our moon
her daily perceptible changes

stars in or out of our mind created
formations, designations, constellations

the rainbow's glowing gay colors
now with my newly forming Jewish mind
showing Adonai's covenant with Noah,
with all humans

and the too infrequent shooting star
which always always leaves a trail of
awe and glee in hearts fortunate enough
to look.