Song of the Wood Thrush, Call of the Raven

Which music sits better with me today? 

Which surrender is safer,

one that pulls my heart to the treetops

or one that sinks me down and rolls me? 

Which part of me needs to be moved today?

What's still and waits to be shaken?

Which pain am I denying

if grittiness rubs me only raw,

or softness numbs me or stings like a lie?

Which magic serves me fairly now: the golden touch? The golem's Shem?

Red fairy shoes to dance me blind, red poppies to send me dreaming? 

Music holds the alchemy and the hoodoo,

and I whirl between them, feeding 

on sounds as on honey and locusts. 

Being the smooth fluid river.

Being the flood, risen and raging. 

Being the gravelly riverbed, grinding myself back to earth. 

All this to balance tame and wild. 

All this to find my body again.

All this to remember to lose my mind. 

© Laura Seale, 2014

Folk dancers in Budapest
Photo by Wilfredor, from Wikimedia Commons

The Balance Is a Mystery

The moment exists, and slips my grasp

today as it does on many------

as present bliss is lost in time 

that will not be detained, even if I resist the flow

some unseen force is moving through me

and I question if the current knows the stream------- 

or if consciousness can recognize living as it seems

is simple awareness reality and living just a dream?

or is the truth of being alive somewhere in between?

human born, we're born to see ----------

the balance is a mystery, 

a cosmic dance-----

Siva gettin' down, gettin' up, gettin' on, gettin' free!

destined for more than a meal and a mate

we must daily choose our fate and feel the power of the stream------

for we are carried, after all.

yet, its up to us to paddle and not to drift

for ultimate enlightenment

     © Gerry Sackett, 2013

Moormans River, Sugar Hollow
Photo by Tony Russell