It's in the blood

It's in the wind

I can hear it in the song

That the ancestors sing

Carry me home

To the eastern sun

Where the spider holds the story

In the silk she has spun

Where my blood runs fast

And my mind never falters

Where my roots come alive

In the cold, briney waters

Carry me back

To the land of high water

Where the sun bursts open

On its red fiery altar

Where my vision expands

Away from dry land

Where the light fills my head

And my arms are wide open

Take me back

To before it was written

Where the white buffalo is born

To transform all that's hidden

Where the freedom we seek

Already resides

In the air that we breath

In the ever-changing tides

It's in the blood

It's in the wind

I can hear it in the song

That the ancestors sing.

He saw it there standing

A shadow on his path

A pit to dig deeper

A shovel to grasp

He was born from dark water

In a fast-moving flood

With eyes made of light

And roots in the mud

He grew tired of running

From the shadow he cast

With no sun in the sky

It stood on his path

He'd need to walk with it

To keep himself whole

Through the valley of shadows

The dark night of the soul

He asked God for guidance

A way through the night

He broke through the surface

And bent toward the light

He threaded the light

From the stars to the brain

Like the web of a spider

Life's a fragile thing

He'd find peace again

In the wind and the rain

In the sunshine, in the shallows

In the deep seas of pain

Shadows are cast

From a backdrop of light

When we cast away darkness

We lose sight of the light

Only with contrast

Does life become whole

He walked through the valley

The dark night of the soul.

Sometimes I dream

I am lost in the forest

Where herds of white horses

Run wild and free

I can't see the end

Where I am heading

Then I see the white horses

And I follow my feet

When I was young

Barefoot in the forest

The green briar thorns

Stung at my feet

When I was young

Lost in the forest

The future was there

Calling for me

I come from the fog

I come from the forest

Where herds of white horses

Run wild and free

The future is wide

I dance in the distance

The horses surround me

When I cannot see.

She set off to wander

Where the pines grow tall

Far away from the towns

And their ivy-choked walls

She followed her feet

Until she got lost

She stopped at the place

Where the sun formed a cross

They warned her of serpents

In the great sunken lake

In its watery mirrors

Men drift away

They warned her of monsters

That the mind itself makes

In the canopied cathedrals

Where the light falls away

The birds grew silent

The wind died down

The heartbeat of the forest

Rose up from the ground

She laid on the moss

On the green, breathing earth

In the still, golden silence

Under stands of white birch

She communed with the spirits

Long held by the land

She closed her eyes

And opened her hand

There were granite halls

And moss-covered paths

She sat ever-still

As the world circled past

It wasn't a dream

The unseen was vast

The ravens grew restless

The green darners danced

She shook off the static

That clung to her skin

It passed through her body

And left on the wind

They were hers to brave

The dark groves and deep lakes

She needed the distance

The unconfined space

She was never afraid

Of the serpents and snakes

What she dreaded the most

Were the hours and days

Outside of the walls

She could wander away

She could summon her demons

And chase them away

In the forest cathedral

In the white birch stand

She closed her eyes

And opened her hand.

You were born in the springtime

When the wind bends the sky

When the ground opens up

And the ocean is wild

You were born from a storm

That broke open the sky

In the belly of the ocean

In the deepest of night

You are made from the rain

On an earth, breathing fire

You bleed blue into red

To make indigo sky

Dancing through the summer

Stumbling through the fall

Wading through winters

Where the earth never thaws

When the sky opens up

You open, too

You were born in the springtime

When everything blooms.

She saw the world

Before it was

The snake in the tree

The spider in the web

She heard the world

Before it was

The earth's long sigh

As the seasons ebbed

She felt the world

Before it was

The sun on her eyelids

An outstretched hand

She knew the world

Before it was

With arms wide open

In the lila, she danced.

Doubt meets its death

In the great divide

Where the earth is cleaved open

And the canyons grow wide

Where now only numbers

Are considered new prophets

And the chosen few

Hold their science like crosses

Where the true believer

Is beholden and landless

And every doubt dies

As soon as it's planted

Where the eye turns blind

And the heart loses vision

Where we make our own tools

To build our own prisons

It's the same old muscle

But a different strain

It's the same old road

But newly-paved

A good consumer

Buys what they sell you

The future is written

It's alpha to omega.

When he entered the haze

He drifted for days

He was more at home

To be farther away

Possessed by the pieces

A mind filled with pictures

He kept to the fog

To gather his distance

An untethered soul

Adrift in a world

Where the sky opens up

And swallows men whole

With no roots and no soil

Living things cannot grow

But what holds men together

Collects its own toll

He looked toward the ground

His demons crawled out

From under the roots

Came a low, rattling growl

He would need to dig in

To give up his wings

To begin a lone battle

With a great many things

The men who descend

Are the heroes, uncrowned

With no light to guide them

They fight their way out

They slay great beasts

That no one else sees

With no weapons in hand

They battle for peace.

A great earthquake came

That shook heaven and earth

The circle closed

And the four seas rose

Over the ocean

Across the sky

The third shaking of the earth

The opening of the eye

The coiling of days

The constriction of the snake

The rush of eternity

Hopi prophecy

Atomic gourds of ash

Shook heaven and earth

When the circle closed

It opened the sky

I awoke

To a song

Handed down

From the sky

Don't they know

It's the end of the world

It ended when you said

Goodbye.

If they take my eyes from me

I have other ways to see

My vision reaches back

To before men could see

Let it carry me

Let it deliver me

My vision

In the darkness

Like stardust

Surrounds me

It sings to me

It brings me dreams

One day

I know

It will grant me my wings

I will fly away

From all earthly senses

The leaves will all fall

Away from my branches

I will move freely

My vision, complete

A star in the sky

A soul gone to peace.

I break through the surface

I touch bottom again

I see the sky

It's black again

The tide drags me

I let it carry me

I feel the turnover

Warm blood touching cold water

I feel the pull

I let it carry me

Floating under the surface

In the arms of the ocean

I bleed my heart out into the sea.

Whistles the wind

Your name, to my ear

Listen, my love

The song brought you near

Will I still know you

When the clouds start to clear

When the wind dies down

And deftens my ear

Will I still find you

Under a different sky

Where the stillness is heavy

And the ocean is wide

I will find you again

On the long ocean pier

Where the wind cannot die

And your name rings out clear

I will know you again

No matter how long

I will draw you close

By heart and by song

When hearts intertwine

They bleed together

A song, so alive

It rings out forever.

There's an old house that grows

At the end of the road

Passed through generations

Where no one ever goes

The oak trees grow bent

In peculiar fashions

Creeping moss weeps

From the wandering branches

It was difficult to leave

Once I had entered

I fell through the floor

Through past wordly possessions

The house, it had roots

Time had not changed it

Though it kept me inside

I had dreams to escape it

I descended again

Through the breathing floor

In the underground

Time draws to a halt

Seas of lost souls

Move in all directions

The candles they carry

Offer false protection

They wander and weep

Through worlds of concrete

The hungry ghosts drifting

In the fog of deep sleep

I felt the momentum

Its possession of me

Its doorways, enchanting

Its lullaby, sweet

I awoke in the grass

Surrounded by lions

The white burning sun

Lifted my eyelids

I chased them away

I gathered my strength

I walked down the road

In the red, winding clay

Another dream, another body

Another night, another day

Should the house call me back

I fear I might stay.

When I return

To the island

Where I was born

I reunite with the ocean

The force of the sea

Steadies my feet

My mind, made still

By its motion

I walk on the edge

Where the land meets the sea

I drift from my head

As I study my feet

I breath in the sky

And the song of the gulls

I sink down through the sand

As the earth rises up

I draw my name in the sand

As I sing in soft tongues

I ask the wise ocean

Of what is to come

It speaks to me

At night in my dreams

I reunite with the island

In the arms of deep sleep.

In an old French fort

In Vietnam

The shrubs were pruned

Into elegant swans

It seemed out of place

In a time of war

Green swans, backlit

Under rounds of mortar

The MACV supply sergeant

Kept a rock ape called George

They'd walk hand-in-hand

When he wasn't caged

When George grew restless

He'd go to the bar

He wanted to fight

After all, it was war

My father was stationed

At the old French fort

His room, down the hall

The phone, by the bar

Each morning, he rose

To make the day's call

George came from the darkness

His eyes filled with war

He was tired of living

Caged behind bars

It wasn't a living

He could have foresaw

He and my father

Had that in common

Both lived in bars

Tangling fates with the ARVN

He was sick of being mortared

In the sweltering heat

Chuck made the call

George remembered his teeth

He went for the neck

As my father recalled

So by the hackles

He grabbed him

And tossed him over the bar

If they'd sat down together

They would have agreed

Both man and rock ape

On a great many things

But as fate would have it

The ape intervened

He knew only war

He never knew peace

Strange things happen

In times of war

Men live with rock apes

In old French forts

Where mortar rounds fall

Onto rows of green swans

And each time you wake up

It's still Vietnam.

Raindrops hit the windshield

A thousand souls

Clog the highway

The loose change

On my dashboard

Will soon be used

To appease the angry gods

Of the Garden State Parkway

I have my St. Christopher

Hanging from the rearview

He protects me in travel

From lightning and toothache

I drive the winding highway

To the place I was born

Where locals surf the ocean

Under the white burning sun

I drive the dirt roads

Out past Warren Grove

Through seas of pygmy pine

Of old black jack oak

Where sheep laurel blooms

In the white sugar sand

Where the dirt's colored red

And fire sweeps the land

I follow the bridge

Across The Mullica River

Where brackish blue water

Bleeds through green grassy delta

Where the laughing gulls nest

And the blue heron rests

Where the watery veins

Seem to snake on forever

The house I grew up in

No longer stands

It was fallen by progress

Not by storm or by sand

The shed my Dad built

Is all that remains

The gardens - all gone

White stone in their place

The old shed remains

Holding its place

As time marches on

As the sun keeps the days

It stands in the shadow

Of a time, now gone

When men and the ocean

Still sang the same song

Where the locals lived

Hand-in-hand with the sea

And their veins, like salt water

Snaked their way to the sea.

The future is growing

Like a song I can sing

It fills up my lungs

In the darkness, it breaths

Behind my eyes

It unfolds as I sleep

In a moment, I'm gone

In a moment, I'm free

I'm captured again

When I open my eyes

Like a moth, I stay still

As the sun lifts the sky

I'm reborn at night

Where the future grows deep

In my dreams, I am gone

In my dreams, I am free.

A third eye opened

When she closed her eyes

As the tides of men ebbed

She heard earth's mournful cries

It cried of great loves

It cried of great falls

It built the great cities

And tore down their walls

The guardians of eternity

See more than men can see

Her third eye crumbled

When she built up the walls

She felt the grip of gravity

A thousand hands at her feet

From great heights

Each time

She would fall

Where older souls

Would have retreated

She insisted on drowning

‘Til she was dragged from the river

She coughed up the water

Life's eternal flood

As the water released her

A third eye opened up.

I dig up the sorrow

That grows in the deep

I pull at the stitches

That time slowly weaves

I dance the old dance

I dream the old dreams

I open the wound

I let it all bleed

I mine the black gold

From the bellies of beasts

Where fire grows tall

I let the flames breath

I pull down the sky

I rise from the deep

I cross the great river

In the water, I weep

It pours from my eyes

Through my lungs, it sings

Through my ears, it answers

Through my mind, it dreams.

Quan Yin wears many faces

Some are gentle

Some are fierce

Born of eastern tradition

The goddess of compassion

She fades to the west

And burns brightest in the east

The Black Mahakala is one of her faces

He is rebirth

He is death

He's the funeral pyre

The world on fire

He severs attachments

And to the ego, he is death

He came to me at a dreadful hour

I closed my eyes

And the images poured

He studied my face

My thoughts, he could trace

He reflected the mind

I already wore

Tall flames moved around him

And molten metal poured

He was exploding power

He wore skulls, not flowers

When everyone scatters

He gathers the wood

For years, I had these visions

They waited for me

When I closed my eyes

They were there to reflect me

To read and protect me

To reconnect me

With the many eyes

I was ecstatic with grief

Entombed underneath

Under earth's pressure

I had fossilized

I'd have to walk the path of fire

Protected by the great ignitor

He had come to smoke me out

He was ferocious protection

My burning reflection

He told me the truth

In my hour of doubt

To live is to walk through fire

The slow dance on the funeral pyre

The path that burns holes in the feet

Enlightens the way out

I had a habit of going under

Of only hearing the thunder

My head was full of water

And the tide was always dragging me out

It was the fire that protected me

And I didn't want it to be

I knew I'd have to burn

Until I was all the way out

His wisdom is ancient

Old and forgotten

Faded away with so much else

He comes to let the fire grow

To burn the hole

To illuminate the places

That we last want to look

Compassion is not flying

It's more like falling

Again and again and again

It whispers to us - just keep moving

From the ash, new things are growing

You will learn to rebuild and reframe

His compassion is made of fire

So we learn to touch the pain

His path is one of last resort

So we may live to outlast the flames

He is made of light, but born of fire

Through fear and hesitation

His blade cuts through

He's our world when it's on fire

Mahakala - the great ignitor

His love for me was rare and true.