Less than 80, Far Greater than 1

In response to the lovely and meaningful work of Robert Bruce,
How to Write a Poem.

It takes the math
for words to sing
it takes the math
for music
yes. and the heart
without heart
how flat
touch my heart

play to my head
too sharp, too piercing
bladelike screeching
fall flat, lay down dead

it's the math
the spaces
colors dancing
major and minor keys
not music, feelings

reality
intentionality
hiding the elephant
revealing what's not really
whispers

lies
truth
in between the thoughts
in between the breaths
in between you and me

I listen
a melody
where none is offered
I watch
a true story
that hasn't happened
I feel
a voice touching . . .
a voice poetic
refusing the mathematics. . .
that less than 80
can be
far greater than one.

es 5/28/07

The Mystery in the Mist

I wonder whether others can see the mystery inside of me. It's churning like a faintly wet mist. I can almost see, but not quite. The ground is unsteady, soft and unready. My feet are unwilling to walk where I can't see the vision.

Is that the vision? Is that my fear? Is that a glorious picture of potential energy that doesn't exist? The air is clouded by that faintly wet mist.

The weed tree that wasn't there three months ago, five months ago, has more than suddenly appeared. It stands as if it has always been there, in the finely trimmed ideas of who I am. It shakes in the breeze. It bends in the wind. That could be good. That could be all of the flexibile fluency with words and ideas that defined me for all of my years.

It could be an answer.

I reflect.

I don't think or ponder. Instead I am a mirror, but this time, I am reflecting me. I think.

My heart takes hold of the view. The faintly wet mist moves so slightly back so that I might see just a glimpse of the silent trees growing along the river.

My heart warms my thoughts. I can wait until I know. Unitl then, my heart will believe enough that knowing will be an idea like the rest hidden in the faintly wet mist, in the mystery of the mist.

Don't push the river. The river pushes itself.

--me strauss Letting me be

The Bubbles and the Light

Are they up? Are they down? Which way there they going? So many bubbles in a glass, gathering, separating, not really connecting. They remind me of a person or two I once invested in. Lighter than air, lovely to look at, intriguing, entertaining, but they are not meant to be emotionally sustaining.

So many bubbles in the world, you can see right through them. When we're small and young, they are glittery, glamorous, and magical. They are vehicles, wishes, fantasies. To be with one is to share in romance, is to dance without a care on a green, green lawn behind a mansion in a fairy tale.

Ah but, when we're tall and grown, they are empty, hollow, and hard to care about. They are useless, lifeless, colorless. To watch one is to see something about to disappear and to not really care. Even the mathematics is ordinary.

The bubbles of my life only beautiful when the sun shined through them. Then it was the light that made them shine. It was the light, not the bubble, that I saw. It was the light that had all of the the potential.

And the light still shines even though the bubbles have long since gone.

--me strauss Letting me be

Luck and the Little Things

The beauty of Budapest lived up to all I had ever heard. So did its mystery. Though my visit was a Zen trip taken for the moment of night in need of romance and wide skies, the details were rich and tangible. The air was crisp and still as a soundless universe. My mind was perfectly placed for reflecting on life, on learning, on luck and the little things.

As I moved over to sit on the stairs outside the city of Budapest, I thought about the things that worry me. Each year they seem to be a few inches taller, but moved a few inches farther from my line of vision. So they look a few inches smaller. They look like little things.

I haven't have the best of luck in these last few years. I haven't had the worst luck either. I keep thinking on my friend who asked me, "Do you think you are a lucky person? Why, then, would you think that all of your luck would be good?"

I smile and call him clever again. It's a little memory about a little luck.

I've had my share of luck and little things. They seem so different to me when I'm alone under a dark sky in another part of the world, sitting on the steps outside the city of Budapest.

Luck and the little things . . . everything seems a little thing when a big wild sky is over me and a beautiful city is steps away.

--me strauss Letting me be

The Moon and Heaven

Some would say it was a dream. It wasn't. I was sitting by the ocean in the dark of night. I had given up hope of being the person I was supposed to be.

Everything that I was. Everything that I believed in had been challenged, worse than challenged.

Life does that sometimes, but I had run out of the love and the energy to hold my cells in repair. I didn't have juice to make joy. I couldn't make the sun rise anymore so I sat in dark watching the moon that my dad hung for me.

The moon, the moon on the water. It danced on the waves with a rhythm that rocked like chair. The moon it was like my father glowing with love and always waiting and watching over me. Just when I thought I was lost. Just when I thought I'd give up a whisper color a faint orange began to appear. Then slid like liquid across the sky.

Just when I thought I was forgotten. Just when I thought I was invisible and drowning a most marvelous light exploded in ways I could not refuse to see. The lines were brilliant and so vibrant. The colors pulled my eyes in ways daylight couldn't compete.

And as if my own father had been in charge of the light show, the moon gently laid itself on the water and began floating to me.

Then I knew. I knew then I was who I was.

Angels were everywhere once again.

I saw the moon and heaven that night.

The moon and heaven knew about me.

--me strauss Letting me be