The World Is a Milkweed Pod
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:25 AM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2021THIS THIRST
There is an aching deep within my heart
that cannot be explained.
It wakes me in the middle of the night
and write these lines --
a kind of fishing in a great sea I cannot find by day.
This escapade is not the search for something new,
it is not the need to find --
more it is the being moved,
my being pulled by an unseen moon,
how small birds, when days get cold,
make their way across dark skies
to the place where they were born,
how a feather falls to earth
and a child, finding it, looks up,
why dogs pace back and forth before a door
as their master turns for home.
Ah, this restlessness, this thirst, this ache,
this silent undertow inside
that takes me back to the hidden spring
where lions come to drink,
and snakes,
why birds sing when they are all alone
and the long ride home on an empty train
often feels like an arrival.
Painting: Evelyne Pouget
Excerpted from Full Moon at Sunrise
Oil pastel: Evelyne Pouget
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2021SLIDE SHOW: Poetry of the Heart
Greetings! Here are some excerpts from my 2012 book of poetry, Full Moon at Sunrise. Enjoy!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2021Poker
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, HERE IS A METAPHOR for how I am experiencing life these days:
I'm sitting at a poker table with some high rollers. They are all very skillful players and have a lot of chips. I bet. They raise me. I bet again, wondering if my hand is good enough or if it's time to bluff or drop out. I am watching their eyes, looking for "tells". They are watching my eyes looking for tells.
One of the players at the table is MASTERFUL at the game. His demeanor never changes whether he wins or loses, though he always seems to have the biggest stack of chips. I can't tell if I am "over my head" or not. Nor can I tell if it matters whether or not I win or lose.
Somehow, I keep getting the feeling that it's all about how I play the game and if I'm enjoying the experience.
And no matter how much I bet, I've got to be "all in" all the time.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:09 AM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2021TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN... THE ONE TO WHOM ALL PEOPLE PRAY.. the nameless one... the unspoken one... the source... the silence between breaths, the hub of the wheel... and every single spoke.. and eventually what some people refer to as death...
I give thanks. I take shelter in you whose center is everywhere, circumference nowhere. I bow in the wind of your passing, sing from the center of your song, find my way back to your heart which is no different than mine, we being one and the same, made of the same stuff. We are starlight. We are golden. I sing your praises every time I breathe and even when I don't, stunned by the beauty of it all, great tears and laughter welling up from within, my home, my manger, the pearl inside the oyster of this world. Here for such a short time, wandering in a field of wildflowers and delight, I am humbled once again by yet another chance to dance footless and free beyond the trance I lovingly call my life. Soul mate to myself, bum in a roadside temple, vagrant, fool, stunned by the kind words of strangers, I return to the moment -- THIS ONE -- in full glory.
Such a gift this life is. Such a grace. And all we have to do is receive it, heart open, arms outstretched, the bow of this moment only needing to be be tugged a little bit until the whole thing opens up. All of it, every moment Christmas morning, every day our birth. Call it whatever you want or never speak again -- it really doesn't matter. In the end (or is it the beginning?) there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to get, nothing to lose. Such is the great game of life. We seek and we search, but there is really no need. All of this coming and going, all of this hunting and pecking, all this drama of becoming enlightened or clear or high or better than we already are is really just the fun house mirror of our lives.
Everything we search for, we already have. Everything we think we need was already given to us a long, long time ago. All of the pilgrimages we think we need to take are just the journey from head to heart, not around the world, not to a cave, mountain, or esoteric realm. Dudes and dudinas. This. Is. It. Right here. Right now. The pilgrimage is much shorter than we think, the path only the one from head to heart, where we are touched, clutching nothing, when blood becomes ink and we discover there is nothing left to say, but say it anyway. Why not? Why not make a joyful noise? Why not sing... praise... dance... write... serve... heal... pause... move... give someone your coat or your hand... laugh... cry... praise... fly. We are here for such a short while. Let's do it with love.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
