FOR VICTOR
The only trick an old dog can learn
is how to be an old dog
The minimum of turns one has to take
before lying down for that nap
That a bark is as good as a chase
for keeping squirrels off the deck
And that after all these years
of standing up for your standing friends
you’ve likely earned their kneeling by you now
VALENTINE 09
Every Saint Valentine’s day
one should write a poem
to their beloved
Not just to remind them
how lovely they are
and your bursting desire
to show it
But also how lucky you are
to know that you know it
FORGIVENESS 2
The bitten hand heals
The dog eats now from a tin bowl
in the corner of the room
The one you saved unthanked
from going down the third time
is knocking at your door
He insists on coming to the table
and drinking from your glass
What alchemy can change the taste
PROLOGUE
November 22, 2001
U.S. Thanksgiving – Houston, Texas
Having decided to fast instead of gorge, and looking back in gratitude and awe at the last year, I have decided to prepare for you a small meal of impressions
Dorsey, ever a source of inspiration and joy, is tapping out changes to a new manual in the next room. Feel good to know that her gifts are for others as well as myself.
Probably go to Galveston Beach tomorrow, where she walked on September tenth.
Profoundly, and as it turns out, prophetically touched by a feeling of the end of summer and an end of innocence
I was in Canada at the time and remained T.V. free; A week helping my brother re-floor his cabin at Candle Lake in Saskatchewan, and then joining some wonderful old friends and new for Canadian Thanksgiving at an Alberta Rocky Mountain retreat.
Can’t help but think that we are indeed in ‘speed up’ and on the teetering edge of something profound here. I still remember a Tibetan, Rimpoche, at Esalen teaching us about having compassion for all beings in the universe. The problem, he said, was that we had no idea how to do that, or where to start. He suggested that we should sit in silence and think of one person whose pain would be as our own. A child, parent, lover, or whoever. To really feel that pain, and to then add people one at a time as long as we could maintain that feeling. When we were unable to do this we should stop, and try again later. We have up to now been unable to get our heads and hearts around the thousands of deaths from war and natural disasters around the world. September the 11th cracked that open to a point where 6,000 people got into our hearts at one time. There is evidence that this is spreading to our concern for the citizens of Afghanistan and other parts of the world. I pray that it is true.
Part of the ‘speed up’ is in the learning curve. In the last year we have been in five Canadian Provinces, and sixteen U.S. States (seven of them new to me), as well as Holland, Greece and France. Learning lots, and passing some of it along at workshops and readings.
Want to express deep gratitude to two of our principal teachers, Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, originators of the Psychology of the Selves , or Voice Dialogue work. The timeliness of their vision of how each of us as persons, as well as all nations contain a multitude of selves, covering the whole spectrum from saint to terrorist; some owned, and some disowned, and how different our choices and actions can be when we embrace all of them, hold the tension of the opposites and act from a place of awareness.
On the following page is a story off of the internet that I would like to share
Would also like to say that I remain excited and hopeful that maybe the world is indeed unfolding as it should, and that in any case I do not really have enough information to be a pessimist.
Love and happy thanksgiving to all,
Neil
TURTLE BOOTS
I bought a pair of boots one time
made from an old sea turtle’s hide
The prettiest boots you ever saw
but a little bit tight along the side
I figured it would only take a while
to break these babies in just right
and in the meantime at least I’d have
the pleasure of taking them off at night
Now a hundred years don’t seem long
to an old sea turtle, or his next of kin
but it appeared it was gonna take that long
to break those miserable damn boots in
I tried everything to ease that constant pain
I soaked ‘em, I oiled ‘em, I bent ‘em, I boiled ‘em
If anyone had suggestions, no matter how wild
I got out those boots and sure enough tried ‘em
But those son of a guns just continued to pinch
I couldn’t get them to move 1/16th of an inch
wild thoughts of destruction started filling my day
but the boots were too pretty I’d just give them away
I gave them to my younger brother first
by logic his feet should be smaller you see
but after a month or so he gave them back and said
he just couldn’t accept all that charity
So I gave them away to friend after friend
but I guess gratitude ain’t what it used to be
and the results were always the same in the end
I got those turtle boots back, but I mostly lost
the friend
and every time I got them back
I’d put them on and wear them a while
and never could figure how one pair of boots
could cause so much pain and still have so much
style
But I gave them at last to a chiropractor down in
Texas
and I didn’t get ‘em back, so I expect he’s got ‘em
beat
because if he can’t adjust those boots
he can always adjust his feet
HEADWIND
Heading west for stampede city
doing two miles a minute through air
with a Chinook pouring over the mountains
and a rising feeling that you’ll never get there
You’re going slower and slower
over the rough wind swept ground
and you don’t want to land in that field
and of course, you don’t dare turn around
The needle and your knees
are all three on empty, knocking
and if you had a car, you’d pull over
get out the old can, and start walking
But you’ve made it, you land, and you park
and you know there’s someone you’ve got to thank
when the boys put thirty two gallons
in your thirty two gallon tank
DEER GONE
A tough shot, 600 yards at least, running left to right
in the open sights of the 303. Aim to the top of the
third jump ahead, move the gun in a smooth arc
and squeeze slow
It was a kill
I saw it as great skill
a source of blood fed pride
and the deer… well it just died
The Indians used to see it as a kind of revolving door
the spirit of the animal would come back soon
enough in another body if you used the one
he had given up to you with gratitude
There are not many deer in these parts anymore
I wonder if they are trapped
waiting for the gratitude
Indians lost in whiskey
and we never knew