Tiny Miracles Series
~ Poems from the Dark ~
After many years considering doing a Dark Retreat, at the first viable opportunity I decisively stepped into the solitude of darkness for ten uninterrupted days. I journeyed into a small pitch-black room with a tiny bed, two wooden chairs, some clothes and my journal. I wasn’t sure if bringing a journal was a good idea, or if writing in the dark would even be legible. I tried it anyway… what was there to lose?
On the 8th day, in the depths of that retreat with a pencil in my right hand, feeling the pages of the journal with my left and staring open-eyed into the darkness of the room the Tiny Miracles Series was born. Poem after poem arose out of that brilliant quiet darkness in the very order you will find them in now.
Since their inception in the dark womb of those days, I’ve edited them for several reasons. Some of the more obvious reasons are to flesh them out, to make them more clear and to allow them to ripen and grow. The other reason I chose to edit them was because of an insight that came to me in the dark: that bringing these poems into the light may diminish their potency. Due to the fact that these poems were born in the hushed and still perspective of the dark, simply viewing them in the light could transform them beyond recognition.
Our world looks and feels so very different in the light. The LED lights of how our minds perceive and analyze our experience can come to us with such certainty and rigidity that anything mysterious is devalued in the process. The dark, on the other hand, has such an honoring presence to it. It mirrors the mystery and magic of every single thing by enveloping it into itself.
With all of this in mind and heart, as I considered sharing these poems, I knew some things may be lost in translation. So in editing these Tiny Miracles I did my best to maintain their essence, while giving them the appropriate structural and artistic forms with which they might walk out into the brightness of the lit world.
Every photo and art piece you see here is my own and serves to compliment each poem with its own contemplative power. Even though these poems could be read in less than 10min they are meant to be enjoyed like a cup of tea on a spacious morning. May these poems, even if in the tiniest way, serve to open us to the dark mystery of our origin.
Tiny Miracles
How close,
How intimate
You become with
Every tiny thing,
When all is taken away.
You finally stop
Looking into distances
To find yourself.
This rock will do,
This stump,
This, grain of dirt.
Any place,
Where people
Walk over & around
In search of something
They’ve forgotten
How to see.
I love these hidden places,
I like to see what they see.
They,
Although small to us
See a picture of the world,
Larger, more vast,
And true.
The Life of a Corner
Tiny things impress me,
For just how well
They’ve learned to live
Despite what we
Would call a limitation.
I’m not speaking only
Of what we would consider living.
I’m speaking of the life of that corner,
Sitting behind the dresser,
Unpretentious in a room.
So dutifully serving
Out it’s purpose.
So unconditional,
In how it gives what it can.
Objects are more than objects.
They have eyes
And lips and tongue.
In their patient resolve
To be what they are
They delight and are fed by
Every precious moment
That is given them to live.
Awkward Shapes
I love awkward
Shapes and spaces.
Especially, when my body
Doesn’t sit in this chair
Quite right.
I love how it helps me
Stop and think
In a way
Entirely new to me.
What will I find
In the next pretzel shape
Life puts me through?
Those awkward
Shapes and spaces
Sift out the comfortable ways
We think we know ourselves.
This very moment
They’re inviting us to see
Our skewed
Perception
Of the world…
Unhinged,
Undone
And plain.
Value
Maybe,
If we valued tiny things
A bit more
Than all the big,
Lofty things,
We wouldn’t
Be so small minded
And content
In what we know.
A Drop of Inspiration Pt1
Some people like large,
Raging rivers of inspiration.
I, on the other hand
Like me a tiny,
Little stream,
So I can savor every drop.
See this one right here
Was once an ocean,
On a moon many
Distances away.
And this one
Was once a dew drop
On the morning
You were conceived.
This one here
Was the blood of a
Well known dancer,
From old Iran.
This one,
Right here,
The tear
Of a mother,
That no one knew,
Not even her son.
I tell you,
It’s not
In the quantity,
These miracles.
It’s in every
Tiny fraction of a moment
That makes up the entirety
Of a single, heart’s
Beating pulse.
A Drop of Inspiration Pt2
What the heck
Open up the flood gates.
All this cherishing
Is just a show;
The odd conception
That I could
Hold onto myself
And still be
Swallowed into God.
Dust
Everyone,
In their past
Must have been a king or queen.
Surely someone fashionable
And of great importance.
I, on the other hand
Lived as a mouse.
An ant.
Most critters
That need no
Special esteem.
Making
Our offering to life
By being unnoticed.
Sliding through
The universal cracks,
From lifetime to lifetime,
Moving amazed,
How we’re always fed
By all the unknown, dark spaces
We can’t quite comprehend.
Our nourishment comes from
Blending in & sinking quietly,
Merging with every
Dust particle
That gives us life.
Absence
The dark
Has a lot to
Teach us folks…
Too much.
To begin with…
Being unnoticed
Does not mean
We don’t exist.
Existing,
Also doesn’t
Mean that
We exist…
Or at least,
We don’t exist
In the way we
Perceive we do.
Mainly,
It’s untrue
That validation
Is a prerequisite
For our existence.
There is glory,
More than,
Apart from,
Beyond,
The fact that we exist.
Our ephemeral nature,
Is also worthy of praise.
Our non-existence,
This great Absence
Is also the Presence of God.
Every Step
I, respectfully & humbly declare that I am to be a servant of all the tiny worlds which in their totality make up the sun & earth, the space surrounding them, and every step between stars.
I also and more importantly declare that all of what I’ve mentioned is Holy Land.
Wisdom of Silence
What’s unseen,
What’s most unseen
Has the greatest wisdom.
Because it doesn’t act,
Or have the need
For putting on a face.
Rather it waits there patiently,
For all things to have their life,
Their say.
And when their time is up,
Everything that once grew wings
To have their chance in
The attempt to attain the sun,
Release their final gasp in reaching
And return back down to join
The inevitable silence of existence.
A Single Thought
If ten-thousand
Condensed thoughts
Make a single booger,
How come we get lost
In one.
The Wrong Direction
It’s probably
Not good for me
To sit here awkwardly,
Hunched on this wooden chair.
I guess I never dropped the habit
Of adjusting those antennas
They had on old radios and TVs.
They always worked best
Slanted toward the wall.
What to most would seem
Like the wrong direction.
Prayer & Praise
“Most everything
Goes unnoticed,
Actually, in the end
Even noticing does.”
There’s something
Much more relaxed
And free.
A way of being
That is knowing.
A way of knowing
That is being.
What’s there
To notice
When your
In ceaseless praise…
This is the way
God prays.
Receiving Poetry
I call it the practice
Of receiving poetry.
Who knows
What’s to come
Or by whom.
Right now
I’m seeing
Nikola Tesla
In my mind.
But wait,
He’s not a poet.
O, I got it.
It’s everything
I don’t know
About the man
Writing poetry.
Known
There’s so much more
To know inside not knowing.
Then in that single
Fell swoop of certain
Insecure arrogance
That says “I know”.
Better yet to know
The contents
Of the package –
“I know”
Uttered in your mind.
Little Ones Pt1
Poetry is a trance.
It’s the wisp of the wind outside
Making a flute out of you.
It’s the dark room,
Expressionless,
Finding every reason
To express in you.
It’s how
The sky laughs
When in rains
It’s how
Beauty is born
Out of nothing.
It’s how
Beauty is born
Out of everything,
That wants to be
Reminded that
It has forgotten.
Come,
You vast array
Of tiny mouths
And speak yours, on,
Thorough poetry.
Come be seen
And share your voice -
“Our world is standing
For something true”.
Little Ones Pt2
Your lips are here
More than
Just to entertain.
The little ones
Speak to us
Of our relationship
To all things.
What I haven’t said
And have been
Meaning to say…
We’re all tiny.
And I’m trying
To make the case for:
Being tiny is
In no way a diminishment
Of the largeness of this love
That gives each
And every one of us
Our Life.
Nowhere
I’m in no way
Tired of sitting
In this lonely chair.
I reckon
It’s not tired
Of me either.
All the coming and going,
Seemed to get us nowhere.
Now we’re here.
Finally…
Nowhere.
The English Language
Let me say
Something about
The English language:
“Though I know a little,
I know enough to know
That a lot can be done
With a little.”
Resting in Nothingness Pt1
See when
We’re connected to source
Poetry comes by itself.
That is to say,
When our mind rests
In its nothingness,
Shapes come on
Their own accord.
Somehow you
Can feel it too,
As if the words
Are each honest in
Their own right.
Resting in Nothingness Pt2
God does
Something to our mind
That’s quite incredible.
He makes them
Truly useful…
He makes use of them.
It’s amazing to be
Witness to what that
Really takes,
And that there are
No limits to the
Depth & degree,
Of how useful
We become.
I guess
It’s also true
That nothing
Goes to waste
In God.
We’re used &
Made useful
Even in our
Uselessness.
