No, Time. Stay.

Startled by the alarm’s buzzing chime,
I awaken to the racing pace of Time.

Time smiles and says, “You look alarmed,
but you knew this hour would arrive.
It’s right on schedule.”

“The hour doesn’t alarm me,” I say,
“but the speed of these days, weeks, months, years ...”

“Think of all the hours you called me slow,”
laughs Time, with a “chime chime chime.”

(Relativity is an inside joke
Time tells itself.)

Time picks up a clock.
“Tick tock.”

“Oh, relax,” I sigh, with a long yawn.
“Take off your marching boots.”

“Coffee?” I ask.
Time clicks a nervous tock. “Maybe instant.”

“Don’t rush away,” I say. “Stay, Time. Sing to me.”
Time, full of surprises, taps out a rhythm and sings ...

“Inch worm, inch worm, measuring the marigolds—
Seems to me you’d stop and see how beautiful they are ...”

I look at Time, its even lines, steady face, little telling tics,
unyielding, yet equally giving to all—

present as this moment
vast as eternity ...

I wish I could get my arms around Time—
to understand it and to feel its softer side.

Imagine its infinite arms around you,
the most expansive, moving embrace

of all Time
Eternally yours—

Galaxies of forward-moving retrospective,
worlds of cosmic tragicomic perspective

and a spacious, weightless, wait-less,
deep—in-the-moment—breath.

Time Travel and Tangerines

Some of us travel back and forward in our minds so much—we forget where we belong—and the magic of a long, slow touch.

We fidget and dream
of time machines.

While racing nowhere, in a dream, I see Thich Nhat Hanh by a poet tree, its paper leaves dripping ink seeds      that burst into haiku blooms.

He looks up and me as I rush by and says, Slow down ... I say I can’t then he stops me      with his gentle laugh.

Sit with me, he says, handing me a tangerine.

When I tear in, he says   Slow down ...
        Open ...    slowly ...     mindfully ...

I’ve read his Eating a Tangerine (well—skimmed it, saved it for later), but I guess there’s nowhere to be now, really, until morning.

I slow down to taste the timeless tangerine moment—to feel it stretching, taking shape ...

shining    slices

luscious   life    fruitful world

seeds    sun   rain   seasons   trees

cycles      lingering       silence     tingling

swirling   citrus   twist  sun   kissed

delicious  mindful  zest  blessed

juicy    presence

I awaken to a dreamy memory of this sweet, mindful present, seeds of deep awareness, planted in my dreams ...

Sunrise Sound Rounds

soft pause
orchestral sunrise
kitten asleep on my leg
her paws stretch and press
little paws to greet the dawn
ocean waves as wind chimes
ring songs on a teacup’s lip
sound rounds circles slip
whoosh whirl around
washing round
in rounds
tiny dots emerge
as birds sing in rounds
circle round then fade away
birds emerging, disappearing
through tiny sky-blue pinholes
circling of songbird’s rounds
songs begun by early birds
sung in eternal rounds
pause sing pause
soft paws
stretch and pause
paws stretch pause rest
smiling sun-warmed kitten
her rhythmic rumbling purrs
her fur as soft as orange light
as rhymes of a distant chime
time awash in ocean waves
steady cymbal sounds
rounding on
in rounds
silence and sound
waves and tides of time
while symbols rise and fall
timeless sands of a glass hour
swirling senses sensual sounds
rest in quiet centers of rounds
luxurious weaving of silence
with sounds with stillness
wrapped and rapt in
soft rounds