Bosque Meditation

We are cotton
blowing in the winds of time

atoms with empty centers
spinning through space

lending electrons
to those we touch.

We buzz through energy
throwing sparks.

We think
we think

but only when we feel
the balance of our changeability

can we control
our reach

our clumsy
whirling hands

our scissoring feet
our tensile connection

to all we are not
until we are

edges permeable
energy credited

motivation our imagination
life a light of consciousness

in a flickering world.
System within

a system
we echo an understanding

that only all together
can hear.

All that is
shadows all that is not

matter
dark matter

holding pressure on the wound
pumping existence

to our universal body
blowing air into our collective lungs

so we can sing
so light can dance to our music.

Our frequencies play
so quantum reality

can flash from time to time
space to space

erupting into our moments
as we drift

cottonseeds shipping our futures
dizzy or purposeful

into the next second
we are.

Today we listened.
The sun held us calm.

The river let us be
realizing it is not yet time

to reclaim
what we have taken.

Today we learn
how to live in place

strengthen our culture
to protect our city.

Today our centers
shake our hands still.

We
touch

through focus
on this place

our bodies
the bosque

our home
third planet from the sun

warming
with light of a brightening dawn.

Communing

Voces has started up again, the creative writing class I help teach at the National Hispanic Cultural Center the month of June.

This year, I've scaled back my involvement and turned over my daily mentoring position to a student who started the program six years ago. Now he's the mentor. Pretty great.

On Monday, I led the 25 brand new students in a mental meditation where they were supposed to visit and feel in their bodies a space where they felt totally safe and then one in which they felt the most powerful. Then we wrote about it. Here are my thoughts:

I am safe in the silence of concentration
when even those far away
are here, present, trying.

I am safe in my skin
stretching past thirty
touching and pushing others moving
through teens.

In this courtyard
with water pouring past memories
we belive in our imaginings
and it is alright to write

to be here
to be scared
to be bored
to be.

Tomorrow will come without me
the grass will push past the bottom
less the pit
that falls in the stomach of fear

when voice catches up to faith
and we are all powerful.