I sat in the hot spring
With monkeys in Japan.
Reduced by their wisdom,
I sank down in the water
and thought about Mankind.

The order of the jungle
Holds like gravity.
For the monkeys there
Have no confusion,
No delusions of grandeur
Or inferiority complexes.

They are perfect without trying
Or training,
And at peace,
Unless they are caught
And put in a cage
Or a circus.

-jenn

As I go through life
Wondering what I should be
When I grow up,
I realize,
I'm being it--
Loving you,
Loving those given to
Me to love,
And leaving my little handkerchiefs,
My poems etched in stone
And sand and napkins on the nightstand,
And waiting for you
To come and pick them up
And hand them
Back to me.

-jenn

Why do I feel I keep a secret from myself,
As if some part of me hides my greater good!
Is there a lock folded in my true essence
For which I may, or may not, hold a key?

But if I could but eat the proper food?
Maybe some apple forbidden me to know?
Would my whole self open to myself?
And would my heart and consciousness grow
Into the thing that I am destined for ?

The giant could arise within the dwarf,
And I could suddenly see the hidden things,
And even watch to see the scales fall off
My blurry eyes. Is there a magic prayer?
Or maybe just a pill that I could take?
How can I deceive myself with
A surprise ending to my own dream,
And then awake?

-jenn

I followed a light through
A dark, night forest
To a fire where an eerie blaze
Burned with intriguing colors,
First one, and then another,
As if a page had turned.

And as I gazed
Deeply into the flame
And meditated on it,
I began to see
The ancient libraries burning there--
Alexandria, Sarajevo,
And even scrolls from Tibetan caves.

And so I stood and cried beside the fire,
Until its song called to me,
The way a child leans A, B, C's,
And it moved me to walk into
The gnostic bonfire,
To feel the forgotten knowledge
Burn inside of me.

"Is this how Giordano Bruni felt?"
I ask myself as I wonder
Why we burn our books
And our geniuses?

-jenn

Rainbows are proof
That our world has turned
And now spins upside down
On its axis.
For why would a rainbow frown?

But we know the rainbow is a smile,
And instinctively, we gaze
A while at it, and feel within
The wonders of
Contagious grins worldwide.

And so we must conclude,
In truth, that it is we, who've convoluted
To this point, and yet we recognize
Deep inside, the feelings that rainbows cannot hide
The whole world round.

For why would a rainbow frown?

-jenn

When I do complex computations in my head,
And try to reverse engineer my way
Through obstacles that others said
Exist between the problem and its solution,
I arrive at a singular peace,
And rest in the diffuse sea  of possibility---
Having come through the beautiful place,
Where One plus One Equals One,
In theory and indeed.

-jenn

Then would I vanish as a star
In morning's light,
And still be there but turned away
So you could have your privacy
To dress and think and have your way
In everything, everything your day requires?

And would you think that I was gone,
When secretly I turned again,
And hidden in the light,
I watched you,
And shined my light upon you, too?

-jenn