He moved through a house

That grew deep in his head

He wandered its hallways

Time twisted and bent

His eyes combed the ceiling

His mind climbed the walls

To live is to fly

To fly is to fall

His pain was like armor

He held strength in his scars

Though the ceiling was black

It held every star

He was a climber of mountains

Perfection made of flaw

To live is to fly

To fly is to fall

He braved the white water

He came up from under

In his darkest hour

He swam toward the shore

He broke through the uncertain

He felt it burst wide open

A new world of freedom

A new world of flaw

It had deep oceans

Pain and love could be spoken

To live is to fly

To fly is to fall.

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 holes

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.

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.

I see the earth

Where heavens falls

So silvery and white

I see the earth

Where heaven falls

It paints the midnight sky

I see the earth

Where heaven falls

It pulls me close, tonight.

I used to draw on my hands

You noticed it

We were in your white Dodge Shadow with the "Pave the Rainforest" bumper sticker on it

It was October

Clinton was president

We were parked outside of Hoyt's Cinema in Manahawkin, New Jersey

You drove me home

It was the first time you held my hand

Each day we spent together

Until I went to Belize, to the jungle

My father drove us to the airport in Philly in their red Hyundai Santa Fe

We were still kids then

It was 3 o'clock in the morning

You were still drunk in the back seat

It was May

Bush was president

The Iraq war was raging

I was having a bad reaction to the antimalarial

My guts churned

I fought with my head

I kissed you goodbye

I told you I loved you

Each day we spent together

Until you went to Uganda, to the jungle

You drove yourself to the airport in Hartford in our gray Toyota Rav4

I was sick

It was nothing new

I stayed with my parents in New Jersey

I sat on the beach

It was November

Trump was president

I thought of you across the ocean

You landed at night

You drove to New Jersey in the morning to get me

You told me that you loved me

Each day we spend together

We drive around in our green Toyota pickup

It's August

Everything in Vermont is so green

We are older now

We complain about things together

It's what people from New Jersey do

We battle with our demons

You dance to make me laugh

I use the wrong word to make you laugh

I had a dream about us

We saw Sirius rise into the night sky

We watch TV together

You hold my hand

I love you.

She lived in the Polish projects

In the city of deep blues

The new world ghetto - Newark, New Jersey

So many souls there, passing through

There were heavy-hearted immigrants

And barroom brawls that spilled into the street

It was a heavy world for a little girl

And she felt the weight of it

As she tried to sleep

Her head was filled with magic

Kaleidoscopic images danced through

She could hear the angels singing

And they swept her away from her room

She gathered coins in the morning

That the night time had released

Flung from brawlers' pockets

Cast out by the drunken ruckus

In such a fleeting world

They were something she could keep

She took the train into New York City

She was fifteen, and carried a knife

She watched the strangers

She danced with the danger

Alone, she was free to be alive

She could harness the fear

That was already there

Haunting the dark corners of her life

This made her fearless

A special creature

Beautiful, raw, and composed of light

She learned her prayers in Polish

At Saint Casimir's Catholic School

The holy dove, inlaid above

Painted gold and red and blue

She told me ghost stories

But they were her stories

In the darkness, there's a light that shines through

She didn't need to capture it

Or prove it was magic

That was something that she already knew

It was in the kaleidoscopic images

In the angelic voices

In the colors of the flowers she planted

And in the places she danced through

It held her close

It never left her

The clear, bright light

Shining deep inside her

There was magic in the world, after all

It was the love that had come

To guide her heart through.

He was clearing out the cobwebs

From all the seasons passed

The years were coming quicker now

And quicker still, each passed

If time can move so quickly

Then why does the mind stand still

He knew that there could be no God

And that hell on earth was real

These cobwebs are relentless, he thought

They're always coming back

He'd sweep them away on clear, sunny days

But the north wind always blew them back

He was jolted into the past

In no time at all

But he sat there in the present

So no one ever saw

He was a time traveler

Always going back

To walk inside his shadow

On the long and winding path

He was the miner of what can't be forgotten

He was the heart that holds the war

He carried with him the stories of many others

And through his veins, that history poured

He had walked through a hellscape

With a specter close behind

It always hung around him

But at night, it came alive

He was not awake to fight it

And the veil, it wears so thin

The war, it filled his beating heart

In this life, there was no end

He watched the earth break open

He saw the sun turn black

From a stranger's foreign shore

He never could come back

He held the love of many others

But they weren't the ones who knew

They could see the edges of his pain

But the contents were only known to a few

The war, it never ended

Within him, it still grew

How many lives can one man carry

He already knew.

I'm gonna go out west

Where the suns gets tall

I'll pack up my dreams

My shovel, and saw

I'll finally see the desert

And the old redwood trees

Where the future grows tall

I'll build me a dream

I'm gonna go out west

Where the thunder clouds roll

I'll dig in the earth

Where the dirt turns to gold

I'm gonna go out west

And get myself free

Where the blackbirds gather

I'll plant me a dream

I'm gonna go out west

Before I get old

All my wandering thoughts

Will turn into gold

I'm gonna go out west

And never come back

With room in my head

And treasure in my hands.

The stars, they move

Across the night sky

The heavens meet

In celestial riptides

Capricorn is rising

In the eastern sky

And I am alone

Chasing heaven tonight

Long live the light

That drips from the boughs

The fruit weighs heavy

The branches sink down

The roots descend

As if heaven's crown

Tonight is the night

I chase heaven down

Sometimes I dream

That I cannot see

My eyes, they weigh heavy

They burn from the day

I reach for the water

I reach for the night

On that dark, lonesome road

I chase heaven tonight.

He came from a town

Dug in by the sea

The coastline held treasures

That not all could see

Many made the journey

To the town by the sea

They spoke of its beauty

Its calm, lifting seas

When they came, they built bonfires

That lit up the night

Never seeing the ocean

As it held the moonlight

He understood its wildness

Its destructive tendencies

They came once a year

In the season of peace

He'd seen how its waves

Could swallow men whole

How the ocean collects

What men think they own

He lived in the mud

In the storms and the floods

It was the cold, gray water

That ran through his blood

He needed raw weather

The bays and backwaters

Without open water

His eyes could not see

He would stay there forever

Dug in by the water

His gray eyes held the treasure

That not all could see.

The sky has grown heavy

With the weight of mens' dreams

Once, it was empty

Just the moon and the sea

It contains every sorrow

Every vision and dream

The stars serve as anchors

To the things we can't see

The sky weighs heavy

In the age of tangled dreams

The stars, they are falling

To grant its release

Our lifetimes move quickly

In feverish sleep

They are only small windows

From which we can see

In the age of falling stars

I can hear the sky scream

We are born to forget

What we're destined to 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.