Ripples
Murder is not always a homicide.
The plastic on the hiking trail
kills the moment.
An unspoken love
stabs souls.
Nor is every birth a child.
At the smile of acceptance,
hope is born.
In silent courage integrity's fetus
grows to maturity.
We destroy and give birth each day
in a myriad of thoughts, words, and actions,
the ripples of which may never end.
- Brenneman T. November 4, 2002
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Without Drowning
Rain is pouring,
watering a slowing,
permeable fluidity
all over our dusty peace.
- Brenneman T. November 5, 2002
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She-breath
Riches found
in nothingness
are nonetheless.
Silence loves my dawn.
The kisses
of a lash caress
'midst the she-breath
of her yawn.
- Brenneman T. November 5, 2002
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Last Fruits
Here, a lake bed drys scorched and arid,
while there, pouring rain leaves a desert moist.
We are rare, the last fruits of a dying garden,
growing beyond all plan, name, or choice.
- Brenneman T. November 16, 2002
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Day is Night
If darkness weren't above the dawn,
soft light would melt in brightness.
Shadow hides both owl and newborn fawn.
Day is night to the silent and sightless.
- Brenneman T. November 17, 2002
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Lessons
With a bad habit lost,
anxiety rises.
What laxity cost,
experience surmises.
- Brenneman T. November 24, 2002
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Winter Wood
A crooked tree
in harmony,
the feather falls
in silence.
I find among
the sleeping free,
a raw, but perfect
evidence.
- Brenneman T. November 25, 2002
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The Good Dog
A home,
a family,
a friend,
a dog,
art,
the music of life
played classically,
allowing reflection.
I am sometimes grateful
for all that has been given me,
but a well-worn step
descends along expectation to disappointment.
Ripened to be thankful,
yet humble,
the best wine
is no better than it's grape.
Thirst, like doubt,
is a delicate teacher,
leading me along discomfort
to refreshing drink and spirit.
Should I never suffer
or never know lack,
gratitude would altogether
escape me.
I have gathered well,
and all I've accumulated is,
in the end,
less than the smallest gift I've given.
The leaf will fall
and all that is of a moment,
is in a moment gone.
The good branch remains.
My freedom is not to be found
in the absence of struggle.
Experience is life's meat,
and joy and pain it's seasoning.
I sit today secure,
healthy, and at peace.
I thank all history,
and bless all future.
But gratitude may elude me
unless discipline overcomes desire.
Today is the leaf,
and I it's branch.
Let the open door swing wide
and fall off it's hinge.
Let the cold wind slap me
coloring my foliage as a flower,
Awakening me to a home
in greater understanding.
All the world is family and friend
to the good dog that knows of truth.
- Brenneman T. November 28, 2002
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Unwritten
One phrase resonates with meaning,
another bleeds upon the page.
Passion thrives beyond a reading.
A wild guerilla shakes his cage.
- Brenneman T. November 29, 2002
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Worlds Are One
What got me out of bed this morning?
The budding germ of my soul's salvation
inkling to express its passing in words.
For me, writing is part of a spiritual practice.
What is prayer, but a soul listening, reflecting,
beyond the noise of it's petty wants and hungers?
Poetry is my way to organize the deep and disconnected.
It's where distress is transformed to hope,
confusion to order, and ignorance to understanding.
Sometimes my dreams seem so real.
The detail amazes me!
How did I organize all that into a story,
tell it to myself as it was happening,
and use material I didn't even realize I knew?
I sense a- soul's living water is always running.
My conscious is only an exercise of crude surface fishing.
I catch a trout and am amazed,
but were I to see the multitude of spirits within and outside me,
I would simply be overwhelmed.
Catching individual thoughts and dreams.
As fish, I pull them out of water and their world.
Still, most get away.
Whether they escape, I release them, eat them, or keep them as pets,
I encounter the taste of their essence in their flesh,
and awe at the subtly colored textures and rainbow hews
in their armor of moving scales.
Worlds are one, and worlds are many.
Although I've discovered evolution's lovely ways,
I, one being, cannot fully recognize the cosmos
of the inner and outer lives of souls
infinitely mirrored in each other's image.
To understand the fish,
I study it's life, watch it's cycles.
I find it is both a whole galaxy of cells, complete,
yet also only one small, anonymous part of a vast river of life.
Death is then best understood
as the passing of life between forms.
When a world is destroyed
in the substance of my meal,
I eat in grateful, humble wonder.
Human's are uniquely aware of infinity,
and therefore uniquely responsible.
- Brenneman T. November 30, 2002
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