silver mysteries

sometimes the moon
runs its silver fingers through my hair
as i sleep

bathed
in its light

unknowing….

and sometimes i wake up
and catch her
or him

and feel unreasonably loved

because here i’ve been
lying face up,
arms thrown wherever….
head turned towards the window….

and somehow the moon
found its way in
through curtains
mostly closed….

but not enough….

and so i wake up
gently surprised
with silver in my eyes
and on my face

and i look down at my body
my sheets
my arms
all showered in silver
as though
moon-bathing….

and i feel touched
by the soul of the world

here in my secret sleep –

loved –

burrowed down in
a nest
so comfortable i can’t/won’t move….

during these quiet times
i wonder --
what dream did i wake out of
or into –

i wonder –

if i hold very very still
silvered in this magic light

will i find the answer
to that which mystifies me….

if i try not to change a thing,
not my breathing
or my posture
if i try not to even think….

can i keep this silence within me
forever?
this peace, this connection?

so i lay
in between the worlds….

in between breaths
and thoughts….

quietly soaking in
whatever the
silvery filaments
release
around and through me….

love

mystery

magic

sweetness

peace

loneliness

grief

silence

god

or sometimes—

sometimes when i’m awakened
by those silver fingers
in my hair

moving softly over my face

i wake up,
hold still,
and know myself

as part of the great net of
miracles
that encircles this earth –

fed by love
and gratitude
and secret joys

celebrated
in silent silver moments

alone
with all that is…..


____________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

the tightrope

we skip along a tightrope
stretched between love and fear….

looking down on one side,
we see a vision of ourselves --
alone and struggling up a huge hillside
pushing boulders, like sisyphus….

or paddling, paddling upstream
against the rapids,
like yosemite sam chasing
that ever elusive rabbit in the mist….

we imagine ourselves caught in a sticky web,
choiceless, driven, yearning,
crying out, raw, in our self-imposed
isolation….

while on the other side of this tightrope,
we see another vision….
a great connection linking the living….

we see our molecules smack and bash against
the atoms of the stones we push,
exchanging electron-sized bursts of energy….

we see that our skin sucks in the hydrogen
and oxygen that
the water generously ladles over us
in great gallumphing splashes….

our cells drink what is offered with
automatic joy….

we see a web connecting diamonds….

•••

i once heard a hopi woman laugh when
she told me the story of a ‘belicana’
who came to visit the mesas,
and was moved to tears by the
sight of children’s feet
smudged with the dirt
of the pueblo floors….

my heart, she said to me….
as we sat in the inbetween times,
between dances of kachinas
between meals of hominy
and big white beans
and fry bread and honey…..
between dawn and dusk,
between her world and mine….

i let her cry her sweet sacred tears….
her water was a precious gift to this land,
to us….

but i told her,
what makes you think that this dirt
is our enemy?

what makes you think
that this is not a
priviledge….

this dirt --
she is our mother.
we sweep her,
we live on her,
we love her….

this dirt is where everything that feeds us
springs from….

we care for her and feed her and water her and
plant her….

with our hopes, our dreams, our seed, our blood….

it’s all in where we look from our
tightrope….

•••

my poverty keeps me close to
the edges of living….
if i see it that way….

close, like my hands making bread,
kneading soil….
cradling my bloody newborn….

or it banishes me to a wasteland
of despair and un-nameable suffering….

my wealth
ripens me with gratitude,
if i see it this way….

causes me to swell like a bud –
bursts me with the awareness of
usable blessings….

or it isolates me in frigid, air-conditioned,
perfectly-appointed splendour….

i can, if i want to, see the magic
of living and dying every day….

i can see hot blood run from a chicken’s neck,
and value the gift of it’s life to me….

or i can purchase a bloodless, boneless
piece of cold white meat from the market….
and still feel the grace it gives my cells….

no path is better….

how are we to say which side of the tightrope is better?

life is the tightrope….

•••

when we wobble on the side of
connection…..
of awareness that we are surrounded by
the love of the world….
nothing seems undesirable, not even death….

tipping into fear, though,
life exerts its tragedy,
and a lost limb is
a broken heart…..

and both are true….
and how annoying is that truth
when we bob around
trying to find our balance every day….

•••

every day is different for me….

so often i am stuck by the pins of my humanity,
and i suffer inside the separation of my own thoughts….

but in those delicate times when i
stand poised on my tightrope,
balanced between gravity and the wind,
a light in my eyes, and a laugh in my throat,

arms outstretched, one leg hovering midair,

i smile into the vision of who i really am…..
which is ageless and everything….

all things that crawl,
that fly and swim,
that shout and clatter,
that sing and cry,
that love and fear….

and i hear the old ones say to me….
go cry your tears, little one,

and then…
go plant corn…..

•••

my teachers smile at me with buddha smiles….

i am glad
that my crazy tightrope dance
makes them laugh…..

___________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman



(photo courtesy kyle harrington)

between endings and beginnings (i am wondering....)

i am wondering, i must say, where laughter went
and will it come again…..

because some things strike so deeply into the heart,
into the spirit,
that one is changed forever….
forever….

maybe it’s just time that is needed….

but i feel right now that my life,
along with yours….
is over….

i am on my last chapter….
and i will write it with poetry
and longing
and love

and yes, i will dance

and try to stay lively
until the laughter comes back again….

but for now life is teaching me its dark ways again,
and i sit in the grayness and listen….
schooled in humanity
supported by grace
accompanied by spirits who love me
and sit by me without judgment…..

this is a time of hanging….

between endings
and beginnings….

a time to perfect the art of not knowing,
of listening…..
of being….
of throwing my imagination around
in a whole new, completely
unfamiliar, absolutely undreamed of way….

of becoming comfortable in this chrysalis again…..

but golden light lurks
around the corner, i know….
if i can just wait

just wait....



_______
© 2010
beth anne boardman

a gathering

a wondrous grace
envelopes
the dying --

seeps into the room
in a slow flow --

floods
in
during the
silent moments….

it doesn’t stop….

like a rising tide
it touches
all those
present….

it’s as though notices go out through
the ethers….

just like
at a birth….

a new soul is arriving….

gather….

and if you’re very very quiet
in your mind….

if you slow down
the metronome
of your heart

to a gentle meter of love….

you can sense them
coming in….

angels gathering:

the 'dark ones,'
called

by the tremendous labor
undertaken
before you…..

dying:
birthing….

the shutting down of
systems…

the transfer of spirit
from one form, one world,
into
completely
another….

there is huge movement afoot here….

•••

beneath the chaos
of bodies and functions and emotions
and people and family and procedures
and attendants and shock
and disbelief
and awe….

beneath all of this flows
a stillness
that remains always
in control….

contacting this stillness,
you draw inward,

just like the dying/birthing one…

you listen deeply
to the slow churning
underground river…

that flows
central to one’s being

and at the very core of
the world….

•••

this dying one
stands at the threshold
between the worlds,

and we who bear witness

get to peek through the door --
if we are paying attention….

get to glimpse,
sense
an unfurling….

otherwise, we are just lumbering fools,
fighting a battle we don’t understand….

•••

the angels watch us,
standing at our backs
powerless to direct our attention
if we’re distraught
or fraught
or swallowed
by self-pity
or drama
or desire….

but breathing slowly

in the silence,
amidst chaos and noise

watching
a loved one’s body
glide

from labor
into soft, silent stillness….

watching the delicate
flutters of the
throat

as silently and gently
nerves stop firing

and peace alights
with a sigh --

we have the chance to see

a golden moment
appear
and
disappear

curling and drifting upwards
like a ribbon of smoke
from a candle wick….

like a gossamer thread….

twisting and glimmering,

trembling with tiny
dewy
diamonds….

and we stand tingling
and alone

on the edge
of
the web

balanced
between time and eternity….

but with angels

always angels

at our backs…..

________________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

a walk with my father

my soul called me to the hills today,
and there i met my father,
walking among the pines....

together we turned and watched
the river tumble, almost flinging itself
down its path
in the gorge below,

past piles of white tree bones
tossed carelessly to one side,
over boulders standing pointlessly smack
in the middle of the oncoming rush...
impeding nothing....

but causing a song of reckless wonder to ring up
over the hills....

we stood this way for a long while:
his arm circled around my waist,
my head sometimes resting on his shoulder....

and he whispered words of comfort into my ears....

told me to remember the river-song inside of me;
reminded me i was raised on the scent of pines,
and the solid bones of mountain stone....

and that freedom, laughter, and love make up the
chemistry of my blood....

'my daughter,' he said, 'you are equal...'

'you are deserving...'

'you don't need to plan...'

'you don't need to be ashamed....'

and with his breath in my ear,
and the memory of his touch on my hair,
i turned my face up to the softly burning sky
and knew that

now
he could finally give me everything
my heart
has ever desired....

which, father,
has only
and always

ever been

your love....

________________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman

ripped open

there is nothing to do
with that place that life
has ripped open in you….

a place so raw and open and gaping
that you feel a little naked,
walking down the street….

even though it’s day, and you’re fully dressed,
and really don’t look any different from other days….

it’s just that now,
there is this hole inside of you….

it might be a broken heart,
it might be a place that used to be occupied by
a loved one who
once walked here and now doesn’t,

it might be that your children left home,
or the job you had for twenty years just evaporated….

whatever it is,
you realize, as you walk along, that really,
any old thing might just fly in there
at any minute,

any one’s bad mood,
or cranky stare,
or that lurking despair that sits on city street-corners….

and you realize you need to remember
that you are ripped open,
and take care of that raw place….

and really, what gets ripped away isn’t
what you think you lost….

what gets ripped away, you find out,
is a husk, a shell….

loss rips away complacency….

it rips away all of those things we assume about ourselves….

it rips away what held you in,
blocked your light,

made you play ‘safe,’
but gave only the illusion of protection to you….

and it’s not really a hole
underneath, although it feels like one,

because it hurts so, and it feels
like such a big,
big part of your life is missing now….
and you may not know who you
are yet, in this newly ripped open state,

but you understand that you can choose
to be a member of the walking wounded,
and recite a litany of the hard things that befell you,

and live feeling diminished, smaller, unfinished, unfinishable,

or you can start noticing things
with this newly uncovered tenderness….

you can notice things like a black night sky
just ridiculously crowded with
impossible numbers of blue-white sparkling diamond stars….

you can notice the tenderness with which
a mother wipes her child’s smudgy cheek,
or ancient lovers whisper into one another’s ears….

you can notice a falcon circling toward its nest
high up above you in the windows of a high-rise
in the busy, bustling city….
perhaps you can even hear its cry,
a faint but haunting call, sailing above the
thrum of motors and horns….

you can notice that green leaves make you relax inside….

that a shared stare between you and a coyote in the silence of the dawn
makes you feel that you have passed between you the secrets of the universe….

ripped open by grief
and life
and love….

you are privy to a whole wider world of
tiny magic acts

like trapdoor spiders
and blossoms that turn into fruit

and maybe those aren’t such tiny acts of magic –

maybe that is the whole of life
you are now looking at….

the ancient secret of happiness
staring you right in the face,

and maybe all that time that you wanted something bigger
it was already there
right in front of your eyes…..

and you find that you can love everything,
if you choose....


______________
©2010
Beth Anne Boardman

day and night/silent wings

day and night,
my house is surrounded
by sacred wings….

two hawks call to each other across my roof
in the still dawn….

their screes grace the silence,
point to the silence….

they dance on newly lifting currents of air
caused by the difference between night and day,
cold and warm
dark and light….

they call then,
and sometimes they come back just before noon,
when drafts of air surge up off the warming hillsides….

their calls ring like temple bells:
reminding me to be still for a moment,
to stop and touch the eternal in the day,
to take a breath and offer myself to the mystery….

and there is one
who calls
as the sun turns orange
and falls slowly down
into the silent swelling cotton layer
that covers the western ocean,
drawn up over the day like a soft blanket….

this one summons the night-shift:
the ones who will soar over me as I
live on in the darkness,
as I sleep,
and dream,
and sometimes dance….

after the night is well-established,
their sounds, too, pierce the trying-to-be-silent night….

the barn owls
and the great horned owls cry
shrill ghostly gliding white cries
as they come hurtling over my roof,
tracking their crawling prey….

and if you’re outside walking in
that rare warm coastal air,
oohing and ahing over the surprising sharp blue glints
of priceless diamond stars making a
one-night-only appearance….

if you’re out there,
you can sometimes catch a glimpse
of white wings glowing high above you in the night,
coming in fast,
and soon gone –
right over your head,
without a sound….

but a sheerly distant whistle drifts somewhere behind
those silent wings,
as if to leave behind the certain trace
of their untouchable presence….

and on the very darkest nights,
there is one
who comes to the roof-corner
right by my bedroom….

and even though the window might be closed
against the damp and chilly night air,
he announces his landing
with an unmistakable, commanding scree….

I am here for the night.

I sleep and wake
under the jurisdiction
of sacred wings….

___________
© 2010
Beth Anne Boardman


(image courtesy
tunisia online news
http://www.tunisiaonlinenews.com/?p=3514)