I’m Thankful For the Voice of …

Writing is a process of mining layers of dreaming and intuition, and then offering it to the world’s voice in thrusts of courage.

I hear voice in all things. When I intuit sentience in animals I hear the animal’s voice, its connection to others of its species, its family unit, and its interdependence with its environment. I feel the complex interactions, the richness, of the animal’s life.

So on the Thanksgiving weekend, the voices of taste, writing, family, service, freedom, history, Earth and Spirit self-excavated. Simple bits of gratitude for some of life’s voices.

Still life harvest decoration for Thanksgiving

VOICE 

Taste

Herbaceous hand of moss and peat in French press,

a sweet column of Sumatran steam infiltrates senses

40 parallels away

Writing

Long enough listened, fear, shame, grief, remorse, repentance, re-commitment

no longer the sharp elbow to whispers of silence, reflection, empathy, comfort, truth, divinity, awe,

the voice of vertical self-purification, empowerment

Family

8 mm low-octave joy

manning the blinding light bar on a 1957 Christmas morning,

impervious to sleepy eyes

Service

Breath of Presidio officers past,

steeled in Golden Gate,

incarnate in eucalyptus

Freedom

The tenderest spot of sacrifice,

historical, contemporary service emancipates our chained hands, hearts

restlessly underlies colorless purpose 

History

Argued self-governance in perpetuity

Families of variety, integrity, diversity, equality

“With malice toward none, with charity for all”

Earth

Filtered sunlight politely suspended

over an archical band of redwood salal,

a massive red and yellow slug an emblem of scale of its environment

Spirit

In Light,

in my presence,

as my father transitioned

 

Use your voice.