poem: a lament for when loss and chaos overwhelm us

poem: a lament for when loss
and chaos overwhelm us

at times we find ourselves
struggling to follow that string
which runs in and through
the losses of old age, illness,
loneliness, and change, and
the worldly chaos of power,
control, violence, war, greed,
injustice, pandemics, and
calamitous uncertainty

trying to maintain hope
over the fear and anxiety
of personal and collective angst
rendering the mind
like runaway horses pulling
a chariot, the body like a
bag of bones, and the spirit
like a ghost, we are reduced
to a frazzled remnant of wholeness

until that time we turn around,
softly and gently opening our soul,
heart, and hands, carefully looping
that string which runs freely through
the loss and chaos of our lives
leading us to return to that place
which is our unchanging connection
to eternal Truth, Wholeness, and
Belonging

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 14, 2022

image: block print, ‘Mary, the Untier
of Knots,’ by Kreg Yingst

haiku: late snow

haiku: late snow

the late winter snow
covering the Lenten Rose
Easter’s lily comes

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 13, 2022

images unattributed

Author’s note: We had a big,
cold winter snow in Nashville
yesterday. About six inches
deep, and I thought of the
Lenten Rose I had seen
blooming a few day before
on a much warmer day.

poem: a Lenten blessing for personal and relational transformation for all

poem: a Lenten blessing for personal
and relational transformation for all

in some shadowy Lenten corner of our
desert hearts, may we face all of our
small self-serving definitions of Creator God,
and the idols we erect and worship
of our hubris, conceit, and sentimentality

liberating our self from this wilderness,
following the Way of the Cross, as did Jesus,
the Universal Cosmic Christ, and resurrecting
into a more authentic becoming
with the Spirit

Creator God’s grace and love universally and
unconditionally given cannot sustain New Life
in an arid heart and wilderness mind,
the vine dies and fails to produce the
communal Fruit of Life

may the Divine Creator be the lotus flower
upon the throne of our heart chakra,
om manni padme hum, manifesting love,
grace, kindness, and compassion
to every corner of the Cosmos

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 9, 2022

images
Lotus heart chakra – unattributed
Open your heart, Paschima Namaskarasana,
Reverse Prayer Hands – unattributed

quote: strings of life must be gently followed rather than pulled

poem: the Zen-like simplicity of spiritual practice

poem: the Zen-like simplicity
of spiritual practice

prepare
practice
participate

washing laundry
chopping wood
carrying water

imminent and transcendent
feet on earth, head in heaven
as above so below

within the mundane busyness
facing the forge of transformation
from emptiness to eternal presence

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 24, 2022

photos by author:
‘my laundry runneth over’

haiku: old man dreams

haiku: old man dreams

old man dozing off
sun beams in his smiling face
balancing his chi

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 19, 2022

photo by author
‘a place in the sun’

poem: remembering why I write (when words are slow to come)

poem: remembering why I write
(when words are slow to come)

on this journey
through the Cosmos
and beyond into
the Great Mystery

Life is beautiful
and holy whole
filled with stories
worthy of remembering

making sense
knowing meaning
finding purpose
fitting it all together

yes, writing down the bones
of this world, Self,
relationships, and community;
of our one wild and precious life

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 14, 2022

art: uncredited cover art to the book
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg by
Joseph Chilton Pearce

Author’s note: Quotes in my poem:
‘Writing Down the Bones’ is a book
by Natalie Goldberg, and ‘one wild and
precious life’ is from Mary Oliver’s
iconic poem ‘The Summer Day.’

Finding myself at an interstice in the
journey, words slow to come,
remembering why I write, and what
Annie Dillard wrote about “The gaps
are the spirit’s one home….Go up into
the gaps.” And so I go, writing it down.

poem: soliloquy on aging

poem: soliloquy on aging

lately finding myself
taking some time off, slowing down,
being quieter, more still,
disengaging from daily routines,
in need of a hae’lan

it has been a long, harsh winter,
worldly challenges of apocalyptic malaise,
the ever present change of
aging, illness, loss, relationships,
community, belonging

not a single thing but a whole thing
needing time to face, and including
my shadow, imperfections, dis-ease,
slowing it down, fitting it all together
forming a new gestalt of Life (and death)

beloveds, yearning for restoration and
re-engagement, from this exilic journey,
to a new complementary perfection,
of authentic wholeness and holiness,
belonging together in radical grace and love

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 10, 2022

photo: writing at my desk

tanka: glory of heavenly and earthly bodies

tanka: glory of heavenly
and earthly bodiesheavenly bodies
and earthly bodies in glory
glory of the sun
and another of the moon
and each star their own glory

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 2, 2022

Author’s note: The photo is
my own and was taken as the
sun was rising on the eastern
horizon at 6:09 AM on Sunday,
January 30, 2022 at Nashville,
Tennessee. Also visible is
the planet Venus and the waning
crescent moon. My tanka poem
is inspired by 1 Corinthians 15
in which Paul the apostle explains
to the early church in Corinthia the
resurrection of the body of Christ
from the dead. He speaks of the
different types of bodies, each in
their own glory, including earthly
and heavenly bodies and physical
and spiritual bodies.