less and less

I think of you
less and less
as the days go by.

I never thought
I could
or would

let go.

But then you do.

The energy recirculates;
it's still there
a rich dollop of 100 % whipping cream
on top of my heart
melting in
fully absorbed
then given right out to the world
once again.

Love and love and love
give the light
let it radiate
dissipate
hate.

Recharge
as the world spins
round and round
with a thought,
a name
feeling it all again and again.

Love is there
Love is everywhere

I miss you
kiss you
dismiss you

miss you

Working on Christmas

At the ticket window
on our Christmas "family ski vacations"
dad would ask,
"Now, how many pizzas is that?"
as he shelled out several hundred dollar bills from his worn leather wallet.

We were perplexed,
$500 for a day of skiing,
not to mention all the gear,
the accommodations,
the meals

and then presents
from Santa
all around the tree.

How many pizzas is that, I would wonder.
Never too good at math, I tried to count
how many pizzas my dad had to sell
at his shop
to let me ride that lift way up in the sky,
to taste snowflakes on my lips
to marvel at all the different shapes fallling on my gloves?

"No two snowflakes are the same," my mom would tell me.
"Wow," I thought telling her I felt like I was flying through the sky
on a cloud.
The chair lift,
when you're eight, from Southern California
on a "family ski vacation",
is the shit.

Still is.

Now, I live in the snow,
in one of those fancy, fun ski resorts
filled with beautiful people
and so many cute lift operators from all over the world.
There are dozens of chairlifts outside my door
and I still enjoy the ride,
but not at Christmas.
The tables have turned these days;
I toil
during the holidays
earning my rations while the "other half" enjoys their
picture perfect "family ski vacation".

How many pizzas does it take nowadays,
twenty years later,
to ski at Christmas?

They could cover the mountain,
pepperoni and cheese.

It would take a million pizzas to ski Aspen at Christmas!

It's a complete ripoff,
I think.

But then this lady smiles,
as she pays me $150 for her apres ski massage,
and tells me
she has never has so much fun
spending time with her kids
and they don't fight
because they are so
enamoured with the scene,

the snowflakes.

No two are the same.

Somebody's got to work on Christmas,
or who would run the lifts
so all the kids from the lowlands
could feel like they're floating through the sky

on a cloud.

Here you are

Reaching out is a sickness,
a plea
when all you really need

mostly

is
to sit

and listen.

Feelings

Don't let them settle
into all those piles
of stuff
lying around.

Instead
let them live
in your heart,

always.

Solstice

The shortest day of the year
made her mark tonight,
proving she is strong.

Although she is starting to relinquish control,
turning dark to light as winter softens
it’s ice cold grip.

But not tonight.
Not yet.

Tonight the full moon is turning the sky pink and blue.
The sun has just set.

Spinning like a frozen top.

The sky is H U G E .

Every distant peak is glowing
as bright as the blue moon.

Alpinglow all around.

Well below sanity
to be outside
walking with dogs
across Castle Creek Bridge
hearing the water trickle a hundred feet below
remembering the raging spring
when you rode that water
in days that lasted well into night,
paddling til eight.

Today is the shortest day.

It’s getting dark
at five o’clock.
But she’s letting go.

Letting go,

but still freezing to the bone.

She won’t let it go that easy.
It’s still a long time til spring.
And a lot of skiing to be done,
before you ride the raging water again.

Patience
Scarfs
Boots
Mittens
Totties

Alpinglow


The shortest day sinks in as the the light fades.



It is night.

Thursday

It was a Thursday when we decided we wanted to go deeper.

It's been seven years since we met
less time since we had sex
less time since we fell
completely
in love,
made love,
even less time since we got married
and
plunged deep into the sea,
we thought.
But we started floating up pretty quick,
it's hard to hold a body down
in the depths
when forces keep tugging you
apart.
We thought about it,
and talked about it,
looking into each other’s eyes
hardly even knowing each other,
really,

after seven years.

After we decided we should:

grow up
get real
get out
of a storage unit
of a camper van
of the living on the road, my friend...
And get into
a town
a community
paying taxes
dues
speaking out
taking out the trash
and
talking to the neighbors
even when you don’t want to,
when you want to be
completely alone.

It’s been seven years since we met.
In seven years every cell in the human body is replaced,
science tells us,
changing your mind,
your body,
your soul,
maybe.

So, tonight,
we are two different people here.

Completely.

We can feel it.

And we get excited by each other
once again,
looking in those familiar eyes
deciding tonight
it’s time to go deeper.

It is thrilling to discover something so close
so tangible
so "in your face"
that you’ve been searching for all over the world
in other people’s eyes
in your work
friends
dreams
fantasies.

It's surprising.
Shocking.

Smiling now.
Thinking,
"Wow, I feel like I haven’t seen you for years."

Saddened then,

realizing we’ve been living in a shallow wet land of love and life
when there is a great blue ocean
to explore
together.

Dive deep.

"I see you now," he says.

And everything changes, again.

Ask me why?

You’ve got to believe in it
find passion in it
love it.

This is your life,
your work.

You’ve got to believe
in what you do.

Because one life is not enough;

one thousand lifetimes is not enough

if you love what you do.

Ask me why?

Awkward Pose, a.k.a. First Snow

It was nine whole weeks
of the Awkward Pose
twice a day
without much relief.
Sometimes we would hold it
so long
our legs quivered
like the sewing machine needle

up
and
down
up
and
down
up
and
down

Sweetjesus

When will it end?

Day after day:

The Awkward Pose,
until my legs grew
and pushed at the seems of my pants
and looked kinda large -
manly.

Not the yoga chick body I was hoping for
after nine weeks at Bikram's Torture Chamber...

BUT,

coming back from Hawaii,
back to the snow,
to Colorado,
where it snowed four feet
in four days
by some blessing of the saints of sanity
and we all skied
and skied
and skied.

I almost cried;
I was so happy
inside
to find the joy once again
in water.
Frozen this time,
but fluid just the same
like those waves in Waikiki
we rode
with smiles tacked on,

full on.

First Snow
Awkward Pose

Never have I felt so strong.

"I love my thighs!" she cries
screaming down the slopes
licking powdercold love from her lips

sending this one out with a kiss

to the Awkward Pose
and the First (four feet!) Snow.
(and to that muscle bound Craig "Vicious" Villani)

Inhale

Saying you didn’t love her,
is like Bill Clinton
saying
he smoked,
but didn’t
inhale.

What kind of IDIOT
would put something

so sweet
so pure

up to his lips,
and not breathe it in?

Not close his eyes
and
savor
every bit of it?

Get lost within the
scent of it,

the euphoric
feeling of it?

She is like the fresh, bouncy bud of spring
crystalline,
sparkling,

a glimmer

with magic inside.

You could see it.

And she was so close to you
offering herself to you
like a knights bountiful banquet -
with a perfect-tooth
gleaming white grin
and eyes so wide
and searching.

She lifted you up with that;
elevated your soul, even.

Don’t tell me you looked away?

And then thought of her later,
over and over again
smelling her scent,
like smoke lingering in the backseat
or in the bedroom -
stuck in your clothes,
your hair.

Don’t say you didn’t love her,

that you didn’t take her all in
until your lungs burned
and you got dizzy,

seeing stars glittering
all around you...

totally
completely
overwhelmingly

HIGH

Drifting. And then...

Going away from:

a man
and two dogs,
a home
bills, bikes, skates, cars, boats
a community
friends
a job,
commitments
clarity, some
and a somewhat stagnant feeling

to

a bold new endeavor
far away
fresh
faces
feelings
every single day,
no job, no bills, no clarity, no confusion

just the task at hand.

Listen, absorb, learn
do yoga twice a day
speak from your heart
connect with all of you
live together
find tears
and laughter
exuberance
melancholy
blue, green, yellow, purple,
perrywinkle
all of it,
a spectrum
the rainbow of you
a bright shining light
or even
the worst.

You can let go.

It flies away,
like that dress that was hanging on the balcony
to dry
and blew away

you won’t find it
you know
it's in a different state by now
being worn by someone else
until they decide to lose it
and go naked -
like you did.

Be free.
Drift,
but come back to me

the man
the dogs
the house
the friends
the cold
the community
the bills and daily drills

that make you wild and open and free
when you go away
so you can come back again.

Grounded

More or
less.

A symphony

Teaching yoga
is like conducting an orchestra,
of bodies
of minds
of fascia stuck together and screaming out
of calcium deposits busting and breaking
of blood bursting
through rusted out joints
of nerves firing
the fingers and toes
the tingling
mingling
with just a slight
pain
sensation.
The intensity of each and every
member
of the orchestra
for 90 minutes

more or less

until you blow it all out at the end

a crescendo
of breath
of life,
of harmony
together
hearts beating
breathing.

We are still.

Completly different everything

It’s like flying,
waking up in one place
warm and green
waking up again,
on the same day, even
cold and gray
and so very alone.

Everything changes

onemomenttothenext

we must stay fluid to it
no sense putting one foot here
and one foot there,
half a heart left hundreds of miles away.
At five hundred miles per hour
it will never catch up
and you will be left
sort of empty.

No sense in that.

Just flow,
like
w
a
t
e
r.

Drop,
like
r
a
i
n.

Let gravity take over,
perpetual motion.

Nothing ever stays the same,
and you can’t leave half a heart
in the lobby of the hotel.

In a moment,
everyone cares.
In a moment,
nobody cares.

No one even knows you anymore.

In one moment

completely different
everything.

In love with words

Could it be?
That I didn’t care as much
about your body and mine,
passing heat
like copper conductors
so finely tuned,
as I did about your
"this"
"and"
"that"?
The words you strung together,
like a delicate, durable
fishing line
luring me in
to your web
once again and again.

When your body failed me, and
even your obtuse mind confused me
when we spoke,
out loud.
And when your judgement calls
disappointed me,
like I was suddenly your mother (tisk, tisk).
Then only do I go back
and read what you wrote
and realize
I’m in love
with your words,
again.

You are not even there,
but what your mind decided to decipher
this way or that
at that time in space one week ago,
or two,
now
spoke to me
in a way
I might not forget,
in one week
or two...

The words are out there,
un claimed
un chained
no judgement
no explanations
no reason.

Out there
in the air.

I feel them when I breathe,
pressing against my chest;

my heart aches.

And now it’s been years,
lifetimes, even
since I’ve been in love
with your words
again and again and again.

THE water THE water

A slow melody plays
one note at a time

children are running
looking,
smiling
laughing.

They are you and me,
we them.

Remember?

Have you ever looked in the mirror and one of you,
from before,
was looking back?
Frozen in time,
wondering
what happened to you?

A look.
It shakes you.

Never have you been so serious,
to study that face
to remember that you,
from so long before.
The one that laughed and played
and dreamt

as big as the ocean.

She wanted to ride dolphins,
when she grew up,
thought it would be a cool job
to feed them fish and wave to the crowd.

Remember?

Why not?
A dolphin-feeding job?
What happened to make you think you knew better than that,
than her?
She is wiser than you
now
and you never knew it.
So quick to dismiss that kid
to grow up
to fall apart
all on your own.
And to forget about everything,
and everyone
you ever loved.
Only to look in the mirror
today
and see that they never left you
anyway.

The blender

Mind mixed with exhaust,
honking,
impatience.
Memories
falling apart;
the sidewalk ends.
Across the Main Boulevard,
walking swift,
avoiding the downtown buses impatient turn.
A meditation among
the noise,
the congestion,
the smog.

Did I love her?
Was it real?

Congestion in the mind.
Clouds passing slowly, sickly
overhead,
A bird on a wire
watches for a bit of bread.

Pollution spreads out
like a spill on the counter
dripping over
onto the floor.
Thick particulate hovers in the air,
beyond recommended levels.

Beyond tolerance.

But,
what?

It’s too much,
but where can you go?
What can you do?

Take it in,
over and over again
filter the ugly brown.
The heaviness,
the cloudy layer that investigates your lungs,
for inspiration
searches your brain, for signs of life,
a fight.

Look, there is a bird on a wire
a ray of sunlight penetrating the smog,
the noise.
There is the vibration, of the 10 million lives
all together
breathing in
breathing out.

Inspiration.

A meditation of the mind
while
the body walks on
in the NYC blender
on "pulverize".

You are sleeping anyway

I pour out my heart
thinking of you
of how we fit together
so nice...
So nice.

But you are sleeping, anyway.
I write to you
just thinking of you
asleep
dreaming

of moonlit skies
of sunlight dancing

of secret daytimes
walking the streets of an unknown city
learning ourselves
together...

of being cold, chilled to the bone
when it was dark
and we were caught
without a sweater between us.

But we never left for the folly of shelter,
of percieved comfort.

Because you were there,
the moon was on
and the waves spoke patiently.

It was not just pleasant (so full of her),
not just peaceful (so rich was she),

but perfect (the way she felt).

Just then,

out of doors,
(out of the artificial light),
at night,
(when I only saw the shadow of you),

was the only place we could fit together
so nice...
(So nice.)