Acceptance 

Mother Earth receives her own,

The rain, the snow, the bitter herbs,

The leaves, the seeds, the trash, the dung,

The dead, the living,

Old and young.

All is one thing to her:

To be received.

Receptive is the way to be,

Accepting of yourself,

And all things and everybody as they are.

Then the beams from starlight gleams upon you,

And in such state of receptivity,

The Creative weaves on a magic loom 

A magic destiny,

Beyond what you would have forged for yourself,

And all that’s really left for us to do now

Is accept it.

-jenn

 The Wandering Caravan of Nothingness 

The glory is: This is the glory!

The time with friends who love and understand us,

(The very few along the way.)

The pets we love and lose,

And sometimes, we find them again.

They were having a good time by the swimming pool all along.

The strangeness and beauty of family,

The ties that bind,

The trophies we come to see as phonies

And try to flush them down totem holes,

The tears, like wine, we drink that flow,

As we discover, 

The glory is: This is the glory!

I wanted to write a poem that would make people cry,

And a voice inside said, “Cry it!”

And I dreamed a dream that night

Of the great wandering caravan of nothingness,

The band of gypsy life I had joined.

And I cried as I wrote this,

Great healing tears of understanding 

And sadness and joy,

But I have tried,

And I have found

That I can’t write that poem quite yet.

-jenn

 I wanted to know how it felt to be a flower,

So I went out naked into my backyard

And let the cold, cold rain fall on me for an hour,

And when the shower stopped,

The sun emerged from behind the clouds

And shined it’s warmth on me.

I grew 24 centimeters,

And my toes took root,

And my feet are now

A beautiful shade of darkest brown,

And I’m shooting out branches and shoots of green leaves,

And I may not know still

What it is to be a flower,

But I’m starting to see

What it is to be a tree these days.

-jenn

 Truth Truth?

Truth is not hard and fast.

Truth takes the path of least resistance.

We call it a white lie,

But it is also black.

Truth is not hard and fast,

But soft and slow.

It fills in the low places first,

With love, like water,

And washes all the hurts away.

All is Truth in Tai Chi,

And everything is a Great Tai Chi.

Truth will meet you where you are,

Flutter beside you.

It takes your heart and flies up,

Which ever way that is.

It gallops and thunders and stamps it’s feet,

But even as it does, it’s grace is sufficient 

And it’s exciting to feel this accepted,

Surrounded by the exquisite everyday existence 

Of essential Truth.

Yin and Yang 

Are not the same,

But neither are they different,

And all is Truth in Tai Chi,

And everything is just a great Tai Chi.

-jenn

 Proof of Income 

He was self-employed,

And it was difficult for him to get a loan.

Most banks required two years of W-2’s

To prove one’s income,

And that, for him, was hard to do.

For his ‘job,’ as he saw it,

Was to drive around the city all day

And spy someone texting while driving,

Or otherwise distracted by their phones,

Or ones who had crying babies on board in their backseats,

And he would swoop into their lanes, 

Just in front of them ahead of a yellow light,

And then come to a sudden, screeching halt,

So they might rear-end him.

It wasn’t technically insurance fraud,

But he had gotten away with this eighteen times 

During the past two years,

And he had made a fortune

Collecting checks for medical bills,

And car repairs and “mental anguish,”

And also selling, on the side, all the pain medicine he was prescribed,

And, not to mention, taking bribes from drivers who begged him

Not to turn them in again.

He had gotten so good at this, 

He had time to sit around

And try to dream up a good way he might now

Cheat the system of the banks,

So he could enjoy the benefits 

Of home ownership,

A first time buyer program,

With maybe even a lavish two-car garage 

So he could have a place to hide both his cars,

One for his brand new red Ferrari,

And the other, to park his trusty, rusty banged up jalopy in.

Well, I’d like to cheat the system, too,

But my version of it only consists 

Of finding a way to eat all the candy I want 

And not get diabetes. 

We all have our own priorities, 

And probably none of them are very good,

But maybe they could be,

If we could somehow forego

Our shallow worldly ambitions for Tomorrow,

And do, or not do, as the case may be,

Something beautiful for the subtle reality

Of the Oneness of the Universe Today.

Ahhhhhhh the Limitless Possibilities ...

-jenn

 Modern Day Asclepius 

A little girl went to a construction site with her dad.

He had gotten her a pink hard-hat,

And she had that on,

And while he got busy supervising, 

She discovered his bullhorn.

She took it out into the yard

And made a big sign:

“Say something through the bullhorn

For only one dollar!”

And soon a big line had formed.

She made quite a lot of money that day,

More than she’d ever made at her lemonade stand.

Everybody had something to say

And one dollar to say it loud.

I guess there’s a never ending supply 

Of us folks who are proud to pay

To have our say

And our five minutes of fame.

-jenn

 I’m so infatuated with the sky.

It’s like I never really saw it before,

And yet it’s the biggest thing in my life,

Maybe even the only thing I own.

This is my little patch of ground,

On 99 year lease from the government,

Unless a case for the domain becomes eminent, that is.

I plant the seeds for beans and mint,

Corn and basil,

And if I manage to live long enough, 

I’ll see the return.

But this is my sky!

Every inch of it!

No one can take it away from me!

My arms and hair fly up into it

When I dance.

I’m claiming it.

I plant the flag of my disposition 

Right in the apogee.

My flag is off-white,

But not quite a surrender, 

Not a desperate measure like abandonment , 

Or capitulation,

Just a retreat up into the blue,

So I can rest

And remember the answer 

To the question: Who am I?

But maybe this is how I can remember my true nature is imbued 

With the essential clarity and the enormous entirety 

Of the sky,

And maybe I can remain at peace with myself and others.

-jenn