Poems for Eden

So I sat all day
in a wishing grove
watching beauty in her many
forms…

Wonder upon wonder
feeding time into time
Every flavor of life
seems to be here in this One Bright
spot.

I came here also on the day when I
met Padmasambhava
in something like a dream

Sitting here in the shadows
Now is akin to
music.

...

Into the earth, up to the sky
A place of no more dreaming

Opens to a wishing grove
We’ve been here all the time

Shedding tears, for you
Avalokitesvara

Could never have imagined
what really *feels like* a tree of souls

I hung a tag
In view of a golden Apple.

...

4-10-2011

I am sitting on a bench in the Wishing Grove. It is embarrassing to have my attention on a page, but I do it anyway. I am in no hurry at all, have arrived here, before the crowds and the heat of the day. Wishes blow lightly all around and sometimes I begin crying for no reason. There have been a few groups by already, but they are quiet, even the children’s bubbling laughter, and the one yelling “I have a grasshopper” doesn’t intrude. So far, four languages… one man telling his loved one “these are buddhist prayers to heaven.”

I think the wish box is empty. What shall I write? Prayers for Japan, prayers for Friend, for this spot, this sacred space that drew me... Next time I will wish for myself. A young women is reading the wishes aloud to her boyfriend “for a bunny”, “for  a better soccer moment”, ”for Japan”, “I love this tree. I love my family so much.”

The leaves are making my favorite sound, playing with the winds. I understand why wish in this way, open to the ground and to the sky. My grandfather loves trees too, and the ocean which I can smell from here. 

So this is enactment… appreciation.
Coral gardens and bright spring blooms all around. Lush deep greens
and crawling vines like one’s very skin.

Orchids. A Jade vine is bluish with bright green flowers!

Wilhemina believed in ghosts I think, and I think that I can
hear her here. Now I understand why the hours and hours
in the gardens… why, the beauty mattered

...

2-12-2012 Valentines for PaB

Such as it is...
Happy accident
or funny valentine,
Take your pick.

A heart-shaped invitation,
Unfolded the space
Between your screens
and mine,

And we all fell,
All in --
Though not an in, 
one climbs out of.

Someone is laughing,
Someone is singing,

Songs of Enoughness
from ten directions
travel the angles of time.

...

When I was a child
Gazing through the slivered
Window at the Moon which often
fawned over the gardenias…

I asked for a friend.
I’d been told that one or two
Was plenty, not to press
my luck …

But perhaps that is a myth,
Even when Meme tells it.

For each of you is
Fully my friend,
In ways I never asked for,
and couldn’t have foreseen.

More than some portion
of Enough and,
Surely Beyond Ideas
of fair share.