Down from Arizona desert cold and this absence of ice and snow
three white painted terracotta pots
by the Villa apartment on the tabled walkway—
Christina’s place.

Stacked, each alternately inverted one to the next
stabilize a snowperson body. Can you picture it?

Black painted buttons all the way up?
Lips of dots, an orange twist of nose,
deep eyes void black. Burgundy scarf tied around the neck,
positioned just so, it could be fit to a Christmas Chihuahua.

By its playful form and surprising attitude, may it well succeed
at pleasing every passerby and draw on each scroogy face a smile.
It’s been doing that for me, as I park opposite each night,
my headlights there shining.

Still, I have not and shall not peak inside the alluring, open terracotta skull
since I have imagined not wishes, nor disappointment, nor elves and cookies,
but practical ash, randomly spiked with spent cigarettes.

And last night, as I walked out, with my night’s anticipations,
my grab-bag of happy tangles, Christina’s hanging silver chimes
issued their soft whispering over terracotta, and I caught
a snippet of Amazing Grace how sweet the sound.

Mojo my psychic dog turned me sharp just then,
and took me away–we two, sniffing into the starry desert.

On the low-flung periphery of the salt marsh bay,
near the twisted beach, an eddy–

Sun low with the tide going up
where softly and under I lay.

For a pillow I was given
a yellow shell.

My ears were listening.

In its restlessness and reaching,
my tongue and its languages
felt lashed and closed.

I shall not leave
my waterworld.

But I must go,
ashore.

Hermit crab
raised itself up.

One silvery minnow played
across my open eyes.

Then, a cloud-blue sky
answered me
with a white seabird,
overhead circling.

So strange and beautiful,
this land of my dream I see–
in my amphibian way.

This hand which moves and rides some voice is not mine.
I give it over to you, young boy. This is what makes it fly so,
traveling out, tripping along in dance of shape and sound.

I acknowledge your presence in this fashion.
You tell me by the messages beaming out the back of your head,
you are the very boy who has waited an eternity
at some upper railing. You sit and peer through the spaces,
down the twisted stair. Your hands, they grip the vertical rail.
Silent. Silent. Waiting you.

Let this right hand of mine be your secret voice.
Let this scrawl and scratch be your gravelly tongue—
Ick-nicking, ga-chooing, click stutter.

What languages may I shape for our own sake?
With you, may I follow, setting trail markers just so.
Will others come mistaking their ways for yours?

My hand is opening and opens wide.
I remember you. I am returning.
Let it be.

I have been aware these days how the language I speak inside my head can make for a defeating prison. Imprisoning words, born of limitation, cloth and color my thoughts, at last shape my out-loud speaking.

My self-talk — the voice of a critical, judging self — controls me, reflecting back who I think I am. Lord knows what sort of “me” people on the outside see?

For as long as I can remember I’ve been looking for ways out, for relief; I believe I’ve found a sure-fire way.

I’m learning how to relax into verbal surrender. I break my prison-house chains of language by making up my own languages.  It’s any sort of gibberish non-sense, and it feels natural to me.

It’s a verbal, eruption break-out, driven by my exhaled breath–with utterances happening just as spontaneously as that.  At the instant it happens I am aware of it; I am physically conscious of it, of how it feels in my mouth and throat, on my tongue. I enjoy its rhythms and stops. Its spaces for listening. By this talk, I express my sheer, natural happiness. Speaking this way feels like full communication.

I believe my dog understands me most, when I speak this way to him. I don’t count him a regular listener, since he listens more profoundly than any human I know. I’m convinced by how we connect, he knows the very me of me.

My cat understands me at my very simplest. With my tongue I make a rising and falling pitched clicking sound, repeated, like he does, when excitedly he sees a bird close to the window, where he is sitting. His name I call is this clicking. He comes, sometimes.

Mostly, I address my “broken” non-sense speech into thin air, while in the middle of any activity, where no other humans are around. It appears when I need it most. Just before, I feel the situation is desperate.

When speaking happens, I sense that something of the invisible world has come closer and is more alive to me. Strangely, sometimes it can feel as if I am eavesdropping on an exchange which is not of myself at all; rather the “words” seem to issue from (and then return to) a host of invisible “others”, who are there and engaged happily (I should trust).

I guess I will be judged by others, by telling all of this in print. Sure thing, so I’m “off my nut”. It’s a wonderful madness. I feel blessed and powerful; humbled.

I’m committed to practicing this new liberation, letting it grow deeper roots. Come what highwater may.

Subtle worlds have opened to me, which I have never known. The invisible world seems more important than the visible. Life feels richer with my company of new companions in both worlds. I am happy, meeting myself for the first time. There’s no turning back.

For audio of text, read by author:

Who would think it ever wise to take a break from breathing? Not I.
Still, simply put, breathing not at all, if only for an instant, is a powerful
way to feel Life and wake up to it.

To live more in the awareness of NOW.

There is a sweet spot in the rhythm of breathing, in the pause right between the exhale and the inhale. I found it one day without being aware how sweet it was. Then, sweetness came to me, when without breath I was aware I was there.

Peacefulness in the “no-hale”. Contentment. Feeling my heart beat its near silent song in my throat.

There may be a fancy Yogic or other name for this practice. I’ve yet to find it and be satisfied that it is named finally, for me.

When I am bamboozled by impossible, quintessential questions, put off and bothered with worry or over-thinking, I know I can choose to invigorate myself by going voluntarily to an experience of “no breath” ~ letting my breath go out and out and out to the very bottom–to that place of quiet stillness….savoring the peace.

As if I’m newborn, the air does at last come rushing in.

Here and there, anywhere in my day, I can choose to make such a soul-invigorating, delectable moment.