Stillness

Stillness

I need days like today

Quiet

Dark

Raining

Cool

Pain surging through my lower back

With every little move

So stillness is the order of the day

No frenetic activity

No urgent motion

Just quiet sitting listening to the waters flow

Just listening to the heartbeat grow

Toward a restful anticipation of good

I sense these things amongst the woods

The forests of soul and spirit 

I hear the beckons, I might be near it

I might be far away

Yet I would know nothing of anything this rainy day

Without the colors of the quiet

Autumn leaves outside my window

Bright reminders of brighter days

Shorter, still

I gaze out from the windowsill

There is always a spring after the winter

My soul for so long broken, splintered

Now the humus is ready for growth

Up into that never seen, never known

Up into all that has been known by the ancients

Up into all that is made to be me

I see the stately redwood trees

Are still with steadfast smiles

They’ve never moved an inch, a mile

Yet they know the vastness of the oceans

Because they understand the life of stillness

Quiet

Dark

Raining 

Cool

I have a day in wisdom’s school 

I have a day in the stillness

And I am so grateful for it

11/27/18

Meander

Meander

Don’t assume that everyone is as unfulfilled as you are

Don’t think that normal is your own

Don’t believe that every wish upon a star

Or every seed that’s sown

Becomes the thing you saw it to be

Sometimes it’s more

Sometimes it’s naught

Sometimes a drought

Sometimes a draught 

However things turn out to be

It matters how much it’s watered

It matters how much there’s light

It matters when it doesn’t make a difference

It matters when it’s day or when it’s night

Through all the patterns of the daylight

There is always a weaving and a rhythm

That is well beyond what we see, what we know

There is always a vapor in the starlight

There is always a purity to the snow

We often have to rest to feel it

We often have to still ourselves to perceive

We often have to keep climbing up the mountains

Deeply inhaling the air we receive

Either as if it is not quite enough

Or as if we must keep gasping for more

There’s a subtlety in the difference

I don’t quite know exactly what it means

I simply know in the act of the motion

I begin to see the mysteries of the unseen

In the stillness, in the motion

In the rivers, in the oceans

There are so many questions in life

Yet in them all there lies the signs to the Answer

When we choose to join stillness, not strife

So let’s meander

Monolith

Monolith

Running laps around the carousel 

Blitzing at American Dream speed

No time to think of why

Just churn out numbers until I die

I run straight smack into a monolith

It suddenly appeared right in my way

So massive, so resolute 

So beautiful 

I hit so hard my mind just stopped cold

I feared for my sanity 

I lost all semblance of bold

All thoughts stopped 

The words would not come

Silence allowed me to hear

The rhythms of the entire universe 

The ringing in my ears

Still screeches from the impact 

I hear the slumber of others

Their soft snores ebbing as the oceans 

I hear the cries of witches, warlocks

Selling their impotent potions

To the most delusional highest bidder 

But most of all I realize I have never been still before

I’ve never paused to realize the meaning of the floor

I’ve never seen such clear blue sky

I’ve never sensed the rain

I think the most disconcerting thing

Is I never felt my pain

This is why I’ve been so alone

I toss aside my humming phone

Looking up to the folds of granite 

I pause, I linger, I fold, I panic

At the thought I have to scale this

Yet even though I consistently fail this

I put all I have into the ascent

Which all I have is me

The fireflies begin to flicker, burn 

They begin to light a pathway

So though there fades the light of day

I still climb, I still ascend 

Especially when I am still 

Choices

Choices

Too many choices now

I could spend the rest of my days

Searching for everything that is nothing

Toys, games, vacations, wares

Clothes, phones, mutual fund shares

I don’t even have to get up from the couch

I can sit here like a leather slouch

Consuming all that comes into my orbits

Yet there is always this stirring

There is always this stirring deep within

No rhyme, no reason, no cry, no whim

Seems to meet it or explain it

I think we all are made for something more

I think we all go beyond the meandering bore

Of the retail mall circuit

Not that any of the things we need are bad

Not that any of the things we want are ugly

But they do not define the who we are

They do not fulfill the rising star

That is continuously rising within our chests

I look for answers, I look for rest

It seems like it is only where the stillness resides

It seems it is where the mystery hides

It seems to go beyond all the reason

No shape, no circle, no time, no season

Seems to contain it at all

I look forward to the cool of fall

As I choose to go walk up the mountain

8/9/17

Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero

Motion, motion

Constant motion

Like waves of water always yearning for the shore

Quiet, stillness

Is what I long for

Is this a moment for a both? For an and?

Is every moment an existence in tension?

Or does my heart simply long for a stability

Right in the midst of all this chaos?

In chaos the worlds began

The mesons still are quaking to this very day

From the sounds of His voice.

So why does my soul long for the stillness?

Why do I know you in the silence

In the places where no one else resides?

Has my heart chilled to absolute zero

The place where no one and nothing move?

Yet there is no place such as that for You

Maybe that is all that really matters

I draw as close as I can to You

Then all the frozen simply falls away

Nothing left but stillness

The stillness of a love that can not be overcome

The stillness of a love in all of its fury

Love in the Stillness

Love in the Stillness

I am longing for the stillness

Stillness,

Like the darkened sky against a September moon

Yet here I am at the tides of noon

With all of hell and water beating down my door

This heart within me does so long for more

yet my head is banging against the bricks

Raised up long ago with clubs and sticks

and a thousand useless apparitions

and thousands more useless superstitions

Have overtaken my nights

So now it seems my only plight

Is how many videos it takes to entertain

How many cells can I kill before my entire brain

Finally comes to the point where I can actually be human again

Finally comes to the place where my heart can pulse

Not to mention where there my soul, repulsed,

comes into the pleasures of the meeting

Time is continual, time is fleeting

But to the birds I make my motions

Greetings high with mixed emotions

I stand on a rusting moonshine still

I hear the sound of a whippoorwill

Yet in the midst I know no distinctions

The old, the ladies, the dark, the tinctures

Have all faded into dust

I must, I say, I must, I must

Travel into the realms of timelessness

To hear my heartbeat revel in the winds

“Dear God, would you please stop this meandering.”

I hear the raucous noises daily, the philandering

It is the only music the dirt can hear

Yet I dance to sounds in the atmosphere

Which is why my soul is in stillness

In places dark and unseen

No shiny, metallic, shimmering sheen

But just an overwhelming magnanimity 

Sewn with deliberate humanity

Brings on a dance that shakes the universe

This I will never, ever reverse

Forever forward will I go

Will your heart and soul and being know

Me in this land of fierce contention?

I believe that I must have forgotten to mention

You were with me all of this time

You were the cadence, the voice, the rhyme

That slathered all of my being

In dusts and dances and darknesses bleeding

yet healing all the same

Was found in one vastly simplistic name

Called love

I have found the stillness

I so long for it....

K, Duane Carter 10/30/13

Birth

Birth

The droplets are forming

Condensation from the heavens

Right at the point of final release

That finally brings on the beginning

All things new

Many things few

Until they are one

Just like the molecules

Forming the droplets

There is power in the union

There is momentum in the making

There is movement in the stillness

There is moisture in the dry

There is an answer in the why

There is formation in the sky

I feel it beneath my feet

It’s about to consume the street

Of every tongue and every nation

Of every curve and fenestration

There is a condensation forming

Where no one will be afraid

We will all be covered in love

Look, it’s forming clouds above

No death, no darkness, no childish fray

Will stop, delay, or mar this day

For nothing stops the gravity

Nothing stops the majesty

When the sound, the roar falls to the earth

The drops are forming, a windswept birth

I saw a droplet on the sidewalk…

Now I feel one on my face…

Feels like grace…

K, Duane Carter 8-24-11 

Quiet

Quiet

The wind blows through the sea oats

Flavors and aromas of salt

Water and air

Stirring the feathers, moving the hair

Like a thousand spirits dancing

To the music of the sunlight

All the colors of the rainbow

Exist in the yellows, reds, and blues

But none of the blues exist in me

For within the light, within the wind

I am free

Free to fly when I wish

Or free to stand on the shore and feel water between my toes

Within the grasps and throes

Of movements far beyond my grasping

They are there for just the simple asking

I relish these moment of quiet

And the Quiet relishes me

K, Duane Carter 5-21-11

The Ocean Often Speaks

The ocean often speaks

But are we still enough to listen?

So also speak the moon and stars

And the morning dew that glistens

Deep within God speaks His sound

In mystery not contained in books or shelves

And what determines if we hear or not

Is our focus on our selves

A mind that dwells on self alone

Will not see Light nor hear it speak

A life that dwells on God and love

Will rise up to the highest peak

The ocean often speaks…

Are we still enough to listen

And allow God’s tender early morning dew

On our hearts to gently glisten?

K, Duane Carter 5-2-10