At two months, she does her own
form of tai chi, arms and legs
slowly smoothing the air, so that I
am re-minded that practices at any age
need openness, eagerness, a lack of preconceptions.
Transcendental
In the soft arms of the atmosphere,
our common heart’s sincere conversation is worship.
The right action is submission.
Within, the silent soul of the whole.
Beatitude innate, accessible to all. Peace. Wisdom.
In his book Nature (1836), Ralph Waldo Emerson introduced the concept of Transcendentalism — the idea that spiritual truth could be gained by intuition rather than by established doctrine or text. Excerpts from his essay “The Over-Soul” are used in this poem.
Flesh and Stone
This stone is like flesh, but cold.
She needs to warm to the idea.
He grips her thigh and pulls her.
Her flesh is like warm stone, but
she is cold to all his ideas.
Whitman
Walt, born 1819. He moved around frequently
but at the end of his life
he settled where I started – New Jersey –
which has more poetry than most imagine,
and ghosts reciting from Camden to Newark.
Walt Whitman’s home on Mickle St. in Camden, New Jersey
Junelight
Northern Hemisphere June’s early-morning light accompanies me.
Perhaps it’s the same as September sunlight
but the earliest sunrises of the year
happen now with the northern summer solstice
and year’s longest day a week away.
