Things As It Is Moon

New Moon  October 25, 2022

We ask the ocean to be full again, as ocean

To the mourning zebra doves, please keep purifying the dawn

For northsides of mountains, we offer deep robes of moss

Let the sun burn & transmute morning dew

Please allow mystery to be despite its omnipresence

Let vast distance appear possible to those on pilgrimage

May the old be allowed their esoteric dooryard blooms

And if the young wish, may they identify as orchids, bees or wind

either pollinators, beauty longing to be dispersed, neither or both

Should those in middle age grow depressed

at the roundness of the shrinking earth

may they sit still for a few moments listening

Whatever sounds manifest in awareness is awareness

Awareness of awareness is all, the daily mirage

the goal of everything, the erupting horizon

the background & the multivalent individuated display

May each new moon darkness be a compassionate watery sphere

on which awareness appears without separation from anything

Flowers illuminate this valley stream, climbing outward in space.

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Painting by Suiko McCall. Reality is Everything and Dreaming is the Same, 2022. Ink on Yupo, 10×10″.