Let me find rest with you all of my days...

See I am near says the Lord, See, I make all things New.

To him or Him.

I spoke to you.

in the dead of night.

when things were so silent

I heard only my own honest breath.

"Where are you?" I asked
so deeply into darkness

the others grew faint, and I saw you

for the first time in many years

as one completely other, new and unknown

but so known, as we go

do know, wherever you are,

 I lie here waiting.

and in the waiting, He sees me known.

...how silly I've been living in my little shell of Joni Mithcel and Niel Young, when there are millions of voices just as golden, just as sweet, that will haunt you and irk you to want to join hands with all your past loves, and climb a mountain together, towards the warmest setting sun, overlooking the shadowiest coldest valley, and tell one another and the whole world behind you, 'we'll never have to go there, again'.

"...and she let's the River answer, you have always been her lover..."

Darlin

You're still a light in my eyes...
...I'm takin you with me.

I love you still.
Just stronger.
...and just more.

My favorite letter is O, by the way.

What happens after sunset.

Called out was I by the huey whispy rays and warmest autumn wind. Maybe there's a feeling of walking barefoot on my very close-to-home blacktop that will always make me feel ageless, and most hopeful. The dry wind hugged my hot wet cheeks, and I looked up and trusted, because God is the only thing inside my life that is outside of time, and how comforting it was to be mindful of Him in a moment like this.

I don't always go searching for the moments and days and anniversaries, but often they come to me, reminding me by feelings and signs that they are at my doorstep. Last year I wanted just to slow dance with you under the sky and moon... and I must say, I have learned a certain way to live with the pain and the longing, but it feels like my heart beat once from last year to today, and my desires rest just as heavy and strong, and hoping. I wondered how I'd ever look up and see the moon, and not think of my love for you. Well, I have discovered I don't have to stop thinking of it, because it was good and real, and you are good and real, and that's no reason to be sad.

I hope and believed so hard that you were somewhere enjoying the sky and warmest beautiful breeze, someplace happy, even if I have long left your mind. How glad it makes me trusting you are still touched by beauty; that's what I wish for you with all my whole heart. A moment untouched by time, where you feel love and rest and can think of everything beautiful.

But I also know that love is the whole sky, and not just the sunsets. But once they sky turned grey tonight and dark started to fall, I still longed for you. You are the one I want to hold through the nights and foggy times, and wait to watch the magic sunrises and sunsets. But holding doesn't always mean in one's arms, and watching can happen not always side by one's side...

normal

I took in a a breath and for a second my brain smelled diner-coffee and beach B.o. and old cars in the city... and it made me think of you... but probably just because most things make me think of you.

Missing home...

It hurts.
It still hurts just the same.
I must remember about love, that it gives, and that it hopes and that it preservers. Teach me these things, Father. You are them all. You long for the peace and happiness of all mankind. Let me be like you in this. Let me be happy if he is happy. Help me, though. Help me remember all the things all the time, all throughout the day, when all the feelings feel so strong. And when my heart feels the most weakest and wistful, with all the remembering.

I trust the story, and the storyteller.

How will it be when I am there?
Will I feel closer to you, or farther away?
Will the world seem smaller of bigger?
These are questions that can only be answered in the doing, though I feel I can already see them etched against the mountainsides and dirty cities, and in the air blowing by all around us, taking us all this way, to and fro, together and apart. Won't my heart just become more sure of all it's ever known, and all it was meant to know? Yes, this is why I am going.
And it is for this I will return.

How strange this is how me make our way in the world. But not so strange, really.

My religion is one of thankfulness.

And I will stand by this unto my dying day.
It took a hecka long time to figure out. But it's where it's at.

Also, Norman and his wife Nancy Blake are kinda where it's at too.

Death Up Close

The heavy-born heart-attack left him in a heap, on stony floor.
Strangers strung round lifting lifeless limbs, prying for a pulse.
In static silence stragglers stayed, and shared their very lungs,
while lunging fists in fits of futile strains upon his chest.
For 30 minutes, he lay still, piss upon his pants,
quite likened to the helpless babe I'd held that morning light.
Helplessly we enter, and helplessly we part,
It is the blinking middle, that sets our lives apart.
The paramedics came and shook his body with a jolt
and twice times ten they did again, and filled his corpse with volts.
Medicine streamed through him by straws stuck in his skin
All stood waiting watching, with the outlook growing dim.
A shiver filled me when at last, the dying man did sigh,
He breathed alone, his stomach rose, life not been denied.

The Maker of all things was present causing me to see
That the Supernatural was most clearly seen in the Natural around me.
The most miraculous thing I'd seen ever in my life, was how God breathed into a lifeless man, with twenty men beside.

In this I saw Him save the world,
using the world...
For God so loved the World.
This is my Father's world.

I still want it to be you.
Everyday.

Your little things...

...touch me big.
It's always been this way.

Out on the Weekend.

Scammed out of 2,300$ made me feel like the biggest National dingus, ever. But I went to a wedding the day after, and it was so beautiful, and lovely, and I was totally loosing it even though I didn't know the couple, but you could see the love, and I was overwhelmed by how stinkin' GREAT love, and marriage, and sex and monogamy, and food and music are... And I realized these are the things that matter - being happy in a moment, with those you love... That's what these jobs have brought me, and I thought they were a gift from God to help me earn money to finance my trip, but they were actually a gift from God, so that I'd have true souls to pour all my love into again, & have it returned, and in that, nothing has been lost. I even met a hairy hippie wholesome vegan boy handyman, and as much as I sorta like him, when Niel Young came on, I had instant tears and a flood of emotions reminding me: that there's a boy that's touched me deeper than all the other boys, and I do feel a bit bad, because no one is really able to compete with that.

As hard as I try...

It's always you I want in the direst hour, and truest noonday light.
Life is good, lovely. Full and filled with blessings, and I am happy every day to be alive. My life today is more blessed than I could have imagined. Really, and it is all because of the life in it, traced of Love from a merciful God. There is much joy, and purpose, and distraction, of the pleasant sort. There is richness and beauty, and I am content. But every so often it strikes me bitter hard that you're the only one that really has my heart. I miss you. And I'll carry on, and it'll be alright - because it has been, and He is Good. But I love you, in ways that surprise me all the more each day. Just like broken castle walls, in sunlit storm, a rose standing.

Hello my old heart, my new heart, my heart right now.
I found you once again, or did you find me this time?

A Tree named Guscoutaway.

In the earliest of mornings, well before the sun would pierce the fog, a man bent to gather the harvest, and my heart began to fall in love. Growth occurred, and roots formed - in the gardens, as well as our spirits. The acres of wooded foothills, the barn, creek, and valley full of crops weaved their place into us. A love-story was birthed, as many seeds of hope sprouted in the sun.

As dreamers, we knelt upon the softest soil, and asked God to use the land for His best good. Secretly, we had visions and wishes for it to someday become a place of refuge for all people, the homeless, fatherless and seekers of the world. 

It's been years now, but it's really something to see where the rivers of life take us. When it was least expected, I've been suddenly brought back to this exact patch of earth, with the opportunity to do what I'd always dreamed of: work the land & take in children, while leading a simple, quiet life. Only now, it is bittersweet, for the man I love is no longer beside me.

Perhaps I imagined, all-too vividly the things that we'd see nourished and cultivated over the passing years. I'd dreamed of waking up early and making morning pancakes, and watching all the fruit trees we'd plant flower in springtime, and bear late summer fruit. I'd looked forward to a life alongside the one I loved, embracing whatever the seasons and sky would bring us.

It's hard now, to think about waking everymorning to look out at the patch of land where our peach tree never grew to see the autumn sun. Or the empty spot under the branches by the wheatfield where the swing does not hang. I'll surely hear the echos of his songs, when the wind sweeps the canyon, and remember the poems we wrote of the trees. If I ever loved a landscape, I love it a thousand times more because the gold of him that resides in the dusty ground.

Things are still pending, but I'm finding myself in a place I never expected to be - with a heart simultaneously so happy and so sad.

The other day, I drove absently to the Farm, and parked my car at the top of the hill. Immediately, tears began forming, as I ran towards the pathway, to find MUSTARD growing taller than my head. I waded deeper into it, as I told myself, when we are faithless, He remains Faithful. I must remind myself, that the best thing about the Farm, has always been God's Spirit, silently speaking by way of a million miracles in each blade of grass, and the love He has for every wistful soul walking through the reeds. Even in sorrow, He is worth trusting...

No matter what has happened or will happen, He continues to have a Good plan; for through every season it is Him that enables us to see the deepest beauty in things, and for that I will always be thankful, and seek to open my eyes.

I miss you a thousand night skies...

Finding my Heart, another [true] Short Story

I walked for 5 (maybe 6) hours in circles through downtown Boise (it seems a good place for the easily lost, and rats who like a mazes). When my buns would freeze, I'd go warm them in the same coffeehouse, or the one bookstore with couches in the back. But I'd head out again - in search for my heart - one could poetically say. But this time it wasn't so much poetical as God-dammed practical. There was a moment, when I almost nearly found it: the rain was starting to come down hard, and I just pushed my beanie back a bit, and welcomed the drops on my forehead as I turned up my music, and marched feeling so freezing and yet alive. "Life!" I recall exclaiming in the echo of my mind. But other than that moment, I was mostly alone. And I felt that too. The heart that I desired was so far away, how I'd hope to be reconciled with it in the Northern cold.

But alas, I walked and walked, feeling the hallowed whistling wind reach inside me, until it was almost 8:30pm and I entered the same coffeeshop for the 3rd time. A little girl of 6 ran up to me, and asked earnestly: "Would you like to donate for a heart?" I followed her to a little table haphazardly strewn with tiny cut-out-colored hearts. She told me her name was Josie Wolf, and we became friends. I asked for her help to pick out the best one, and traded her 50 cents for it. It fit in half my palm. It was one of the smaller ones, but I really love it. All the rest of the evening, I sat in a seat by the window, and Josie's family (the owners of the shop) and a few punk-rockers hung out and watched a movie on a projector. For a moment, I went and sat close to the screen, but after a few minutes I was so offended by the images of demon-like dragons and gargoiled villains, I quickly returned to the window perch. Solemnly I rested there, wishing how I could shield my little friend's eyes from such haunting images. "Perhaps there is just one child out there that I can love, and shelter and protect from gruesome things." Hopefulness brewed at this thought, as my wheels spun with purpose. Josie came back to me, and we chatted some more. Such love for her flowed in me. I felt seen by God again, finally, more than in a long while. He was with us, there. It took 5+ hours of directionless walking before I was finally led to fogged up windows and this sweet girl, and - I do believe - the heart I had been searching for. Who knew it'd only cost me 50¢.

Hashtiggy Truth

When you are poor, and have nothing to give, give your smile, and your recipient will be the richest in the land. For wealth is a thing of sunlight. Be happy for love and life, for if you have them, you are quite complete. And money is a very silly thing, if ever a man thought it could come close to bringing him even an ounce of true happiness.

I've been hungry in the sun. And stuffed, but empty in the shadows.
I'd gladly be poor all my days* if it meant we could laugh together cross-legged on cement; if you'd give me your smile so that I could brag to all my friends of owning such a prize. How I'd treasure it, and never cease to see the miracle in this one sort of greatest gift of all.

*also, I've learned the secret of loving refried beans. 

Only yours, is all I can be...

Sometimes the wind

must rustle through your hair

and be carried across the prairies

to drift under my nose

it is such a welcomed gift

and you seem almost as near

as when I could feel the warmth 

of your smile against my cheek

still you paralyze me 

though so many miles away

I'm assured of this love

when the memory of a scent 

brings me to my knees

and makes my heart so wobbly

moved by you 
oh darlin'

I'm waitin for you

When things get really hard...

I will remind myself that I am but a reed.

No Dross

All I want in life is to make love, be in a folk band, eat artichokes and live in a van. Is that really so hard, and out of reach? Seriously though. I could even cut out artichokes, and be happy.

A Short Story

Tom wanted to fly. He had a bit of hippie in him, back in the 70ies even when he was in the Navy. He had a surfboard and played in a band. And then who know's how it happened, if it was a fast or slow process, but his wife started falling down, he had rambunctious boys, and he got caught up in putting food on the table, and the 9-5, and somewhere in all of that, he forgot he actually had wings. They weren't really practical, afterall, he told himself, so he started living with his face down, locked inside the lines of maps and mazes and plans. He worked hard; and soaring, he told himself was a thing for another land, in a coming time. He walked about with the desire in him, but it grew smaller, with the passing days, and after so many flightless years.

There was a deeply guarded part of him that at times became so lost and covered, he'd misplace the key to it for months at a time. But it was always there, whether he knew it or not. He'd cover it or hide it or deny it, or make it out to be something else. But inside that place lived a boy who dreamed, full with a romantic, longing heart that could see, when the clouds were parted just right, that flying was the most glorious thing his soul could do.

Reflecting on the things that Form us.

I remember being eight years old. 

My daddy would come home greasy and tired from working in the mechanics shop all day. My momma would make us a dinner, then, every Thursday night from 8:00 - 10:00 my Poppa would tune the radio dial to "Basically Bluegass", a full two hour show of ballads and reels and the richest old-time folk harmonies and country breakdowns. I'd lay on the couch in the partial dark, and let the music permeate all of my young receptive heart. I think this is when I first really started learning about beauty. The music painted pictures, and told stories, and I'd lay there watching it all, mesmerized, with my eyes closed.

Sometimes I'd get to stay up past my bedtime, but even when I couldn't, my Daddy would tuck me in, and keep the hallway door open, with the sound turned up real high, so I could still listen. Those were good memories, the whole house still, with everyone in bed, as Tim O'Brian or Bill Monroe filled up the dark.

Since then, my heart has grown branches, and learned to like a lot of different kinds of music. Songs from lot's of genres reach inside, to have their beauty felt in a strong ways... But it wasn't until recently that I realized my roots are and always shall be in Bluegrass. Bluegrass was the gate to everything else. It feels good to have those roots. I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm thankful to my French-Canadian Father, who, along with many other good things, gave me that. 

Sleep won't come.

The yearning stays.

I lie awake, in weary daze.

At 6:00am a well is breached,

Tears start flowing down my cheeks.

And as the feelings in me well,

The mission starts to ring it's bell.

The perfect time for it to start

Just as sorrow swamps my heart,

Across the town, I hear it sing,

All is silent but it's cling.

Splitting through forsaken night,

I see once more that hope is right.

For in the past the bell has shown

That when we love we're not alone.

The 2015 rambles...

I'd like to disappear. For just a while, or maybe longer.
My face does not want to angle itself towards the sun, for the last time it did, after letting it beat hot upon my skin, I opened my eyes and turned to see laying on the ground, the carcass of a deceased rabbit. I feel ya, buddy, I said. I seemed to have turned a corner where now depression seems even too difficult, so the most dreaded thing encroaches, which is apathy, which has always seemed to me to be the worst of all outcomes.

So I am choosing the harder thing. I'm choosing to walk down this path I've come from, retracing the steps, and finding the story inside them. For certainly there is one. I suppose I'm not ready to look into other souls, until this reservoir has been first metastasized.. Now I only want to write, and read my books, and sleep and hike, and sew a dress. Because I thought of a very good design. So someday, when I'm up to it, I will go buy a nicely printed sheet at the thrift store, and I will cut it up, and maybe fail quite a few times, but I'd like to make something beautiful of it. For that gives me lot's of hope. I think if we stay with something long enough, and don't give up, a thing can become quite beautiful. I want to prove this to myself. I think that's why we've been given minds -  so we can look at a thing, and cast a vision for it, even if it only seems to be a torn up piece of recycled cloth.

I didn't choose this. I didn't choose this particular place or this valley, or to have mucus fill up my chest, and glue it together, or to be so underweight that I couldn't travel to the Caribbean to hold Haitian Babies. I wish I had the power to make everything happen the way I want it to. But I cannot, for I am learning more that I am a vapor, a mere dust in the wind, and quite negligible against the storms of the universe and ways of the One who contrives them.

I was speaking with my friend today up on teetering bluffs, and I told her how I felt you and I had spent such time preparing a cake to be baked. I don't know what happened, maybe the oven broke, or we were missing an ingredient... but for some reason we stopped. But it's still sitting there on the counter, with all the things we put into it, our time, efforts, & investments, so many wonderful and precious spices and heirloom constituents. Why would someone leave the house to go get eggs, but pick them up and bring them to another kitchen to start a whole new recipe from scratch? Why would one make something new when they already had invested in something that was so near to being perfectly complete? The only thing I can fathom is you must think I dumped an entire can of baking soda in the bowl - and spoilt the whole thing forever. I know my own heart, and know that even if I had, my devotion would cause me to spend night and day till I had picked out every grain.

You left me in this kitchen with everything still out and fresh. I believe we have all that we need for this to turn this into something quite gloriously delicious, and long to taste it together with you. I don't believe anything was dumped in to ruin it, but many good ingredients all stood to wait for certain ones that all were set to be added in perfect time. I'm here with this big bowl of batter you left me, beside a warm and working oven believing that all is possible. I will remain here and find a use for these things - because I cannot bring myself to trash that which we held most precious. And I believe that what we had can be used to feed a lot of people.

...It was all too much, for everything to end in silence, and I desire to give honor to the story. I find more beauty in a dress made with hands, from a sheet, than one from a factory. I find more meaning in a story told with truth, though stitched with sadness, than any invented fairytale. I desire to take these ingredients and reclaim them unto a thing of beauty. For I desire to strive for a life marked by salvaging that which was to be lost, and weaving it into purpose.