Poetry by Aaron Joseph Silverberg ©2005
What if
you would take the gun from your head gently uncock the trigger and set it down What if you were to let the job go by and spend your days in a small holy place remembering you are a piece of perfection a cherished handiwork of the Beloved what if you dwelled with God while your heart was still beating unafraid to love your life completely like the newborn you are every day every precious page of suffering a delight for the swollen lover behind those eyes what if this never-ending tenderness, your only inheritance was all you passed onEtched
Central Indiana nighttime driving the interstate northbound muscles sore from climbing hills in Brown County. October full moon fat and flush in the sky suddenly we pass an open field and there it is Oak tree perfection! silhouetted in silver light every gnarly gilded intricate aspect of its bearing cast out. I dragged that oak by its humongous roots in my fist-sized heart for twenty years and slowly over time it etched each nobly curved branch inside mine.Where the Ant Goes
Do you remember how hard it was to crush an ant? You would press your finger with all your might and backing off slowly discover a miracle of movement. Your heart would do a backflip and bending down, unsure how to kiss the microscopic steel-clamped jaws, you would press onward your force of death undoing the miracle. But when the ant was vanquished for good, you wanted to follow its tiny soul backward/forward/sideways however it made its way to the place you cannot press cannot touch cannot hold tenderly in your troubled hand.Inland Sea
With your permission I will make love to you and we will cry an inland sea. Lovely creatures will flock there, float their troubles away. On its dazzling surface dancing with abandon diamonds only water can wear.Luneria
there is an unusual weed growing in my garden paper coins on a miniature tree. taken inside carefully unwrapped each "coin" yields a silken treasure. street people and strangers have this rough layer too. they must be taken in and gently peeled. everyone, everything treated with such kindness reveals a similar sheen.Smoky Sunrise over Summit Lake
sheet of goose/duck/insect flecks sliding cross still water upside down tree-line jiggling like new-born jello ghost mountains curving up out of horizon like a lover slowly rising lone canoe kisses water hush it is hereDharma Inquiry
if you found a wish-fulfilling jewel would you use it? sell it? give it away? or destroy it?Becoming
the rain falls such sweet smells such delicate sounds it begs to be drunk a drop percolates through quiet soil falls upon fragile root hair you drink me through your breath your skin your sex we rise and fall with the tides becoming to friends sky leaping dolphins leaping! again and again the spray dancing off with the wind.Under this Skin
Under these clothes yearns a tender offering, a soft skin that breathes spasmodically thru hands and face, hair and ears. Under these clothes dances a longing caressed by the dimensions of bare madrona. Under these clothes drifts a meandering kiss, tongue-fulls of devotion dribbling down emancipated roots. Under this skin is another, uncontainable, iridescent splendor.If Today
if today I fell, like a ripe pear bruised and sweet and begged earth open. if today my prayer flag ripped and tattered scattered across the Tibetan plain. if today my eyes stayed inward bathed in brilliant light. if today I stepped off cliffs slid deep into lagoons frothed upward through raging rivers. if today I crumbled in microscopic bits cascading down desert dunes. if today I migrated across crystal blue fields with ruby wings. if today I quelled my quivering under the sure-footed succulent red-clover. if today I ambled westward past sunset with tireless white egrets. if today I wept freely over Kauai, Tahiti, Pele. if today I danced deep in Gaia's faults. if today I disappointed everyone except the lapis dusk. if today I nestled in the shade beneath the shade. if today I prayed over Everest and under Marino. if today I wandered through the lungs of my enemies and kissed them from the inside. if today I conceded victory to the sweet tyranny of blackberry. if today I was all that I loved.Well Spent
There's a wild touch in your eyes I keep reaching for, a wild river coursing through my heart. I can't stop looking at you looking for you looking inside out Emptying myself to make more room for you. Unmake the bed I've kept too neatly! Wreck this life of bankrolled breath! Leave me like the ebbed beachside strewn with passion well spent.Old Man Cedar
Patient in the forest and forgiving. His red-purple skin full of passion. His gray-green dusting of wisdom waiting, waiting for the two-legged to ask for more skin. And though he loves the sky and the wind, he lies down, makes a canoe and clothes for his shivering brother. Old Man Cedar is noble and red through and through. When the two-legged is done running and singing in the sweet forest, Old Man Cedar will take back his blood and stand tall again.Never Gone
Take refuge in infinite being, Peace in the ever-changing sanctuary. Release the cloud clutched so hard by every fist. Give away your loneliness. Empty your bank accounts Run naked under the euphoric Sun. Watch your blood dance to the ocean. Nothing remains but the Beloveds' desire and even that crushes beautiful planets to interstellar dust. Today, hold nothing back.Finishing
don't rush the dishes, the grocery shopping or preparing income taxes. it is your attending that enlightens, world blessing itself. when you are through with sex, filling the retirement account, basking in the honeymoon, what then? what good is finishing? start something you don't want to finish rip the roof off your temple lay under the ever-changing sky.Middle Eastern Peace Plan
Arab and Jew wash each others feet marry each others sons and daughters share each others profits and losses. Each day sitting with each others terror and shame. No one knows what music plays on the other side of the doorway. Why fight over tickets that may not be honored? Together greeting our naked maker, huddling in the muddy banks of the Jordan river, waiting for the stones, the bullets the bulldozers to stop pretending there are enemies in the Holy Land.Sunflowers
Reaching high for ennobling sun they stand out ambitious, awkward clumsily demanding ordination big heads on spindly legs all too human in their proportions. Just when they shed their green robes for the yellow plumage of triumph, they bow. we know it is physics, the burden of seed drawing them over. but it is something else, a deep humility, as if they've been touched by grace. Bent inward like devout monks, heavy with praise, they turn their loveliness downward to the cracked and parched mother who bore them who barrened herself for their eminence.No Words
We lay across from each other legs entwined faces lit with holy magic. in the middle of the quiet night the candlelit bed gazing gently into each other no words.
Wind-tossed fog
rolling and tumbling
over scattered boulders.
Mountain hemlock disappears
and reappears.
I sit in the center of a circle
painted over and over
by an ancient hand.
Your face won't stop
spilling
even after I've drunken
from all your cups
Tahoma, you shining lover!,
pock-marked and happy.
Shoddy-town it was.
A post-amble to mud and
foolhardy greed.
Sin and salvation lived
across the street.
Under the steel makeup
a cedar bride waits
for the long wake to settle.
Under a willow tree
bobbing white hyacinth
dragonfly hovers and jives
tiny circles on the black pond
tears from a distant lover
reunited.