The Great Unraveling

Clean sheets, espresso and candlelight.
Fingernail clippings lay like pick-up sticks on the bed stand.
Dad used to sit in his easy chair and clip his nails with a silver trimmer. So do I. Since a kid.

Yesterday a cherry-headed western tanager, elegant black-masked waxwing and yellow-bellied sapsucker
flew simultaneously to the yard snag by the river
where the lanky moose recently
ambled as he tested his new-born legs.
I have declared that snag and the stumps that surround her potent, sacred space.


A new kitchen sponge.
A swept floor
Another friend dead
at 61 ... a heart attack.

How do we prevent death by broken heart?

There are moments when I crawl out of my skin
with edginess
could easily think I'm losing my grip
until I re-member Eve's snake
and how crawling out of one's skin is a necessity
for life.

It is 5:09 on the dot. Summer solstice. Sol-stice, when the sun stands still. Ancient cultures believed the sun stood still for 3 days, and we humans should do the same. To move or travel was done with great risk. I would wish the same for the earth ... that the people whom she shelters might stop for three days and give back to her in prayer and meditation. Be silent. Open the senses and receive. What miracles might follow?

A friend's 25-year-old son overdosed last night on drugs.

What posture do we take for the great unraveling? What rituals keep us upright? We can not grab the tattered cloth and scream, "Don't," for the dis-integration is well underway. Old systems held in place, only by old questions.

The season transitions to summer. I leave the computer, grab my drum and head to the river. It is the time of no-words. Of bald eagle's chirpy cry. To take my place by that snag and settle in a spell.