Going West

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
― Hunter S. Thompson

Wadsworth Nuptials

“I am your own way of looking at things,” she said. “When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation”
― William Stafford

Sisters

“Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out – no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.”
― William Stafford

Blueberries

“Glances

Two people meet. The sky turns winter,
quells whatever they would say.
Then, a periphery glance into danger –
and an avalanche already on its way.

They have been honest all their lives;
careful, calm, never in haste;
they didn’t know what it is to meet.
Now they have met: the world is waste.

They find they are riding an avalanche
feeling at rest, all danger gone.
The present looks out of their eyes; they stand
calm and still on a speeding stone.”
― William Stafford

Dive In

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul.

Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied.

When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life toward it.”  –Mary Oliver

Tiny Towns

Tickled Pink

At times in our pink innocence we lay fallow, composting, waiting for growth and other times we rushed headlong like so many of our ancestors,

Rush headlong. Or lie fallow it doesn’t matter.

One day your path has shifted. in an eye blink you turn a corner. Something Is missing, was stolen, is misplaced, is gone. Your heart, a memory, a limb, a promise,a person. An innocence is gone. You find yourself returning from a journey. Your path now, as if channeled through a spectrum, is refracted and has left you point in a new direction Some won’t approve. Some will want the other you.. Some will cry wishing you had never left

But what has happened has happened

No way to undo it, we pay for laughter we pay again to weep. Knowledge isn’t cheap To survive we must return to our senses touch taste smell sight sound we must live as verbs not nouns let spirit guide us spirit living in breath with each breath we inhale and exhale we inspire and expire every breath has the possibility to cry or laugh a song or a story every conversation is an exchange of spirit the words ride sweet or bitter over the tongue the path must be forward scars now measurements of time monuments of battles survived

When you’re born into trauma you grow from it. But when you experience a trauma later in life you grow toward it. A slow move to an embrace .An embrace that leaves you holding tight. the beauty wrapped in the grotesque an embrace that becomes a dance

a new dance

a dance of pink

–Kevin Kling

My Happy Place

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
― Mary Oliver

Lunch Date

“…things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.”
― Hanya Yanagihara

Ruby Red

“Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
― Susan Sontag

Bunny Herder Apprentice

“Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit—-to the “conquest” of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature.”
― Alan W. Watts