Love has no words to hold it

it seems there is a lostness as seamless beauty... lost as love falling in love with love....

looking at the birds feeding and flying and resting in the rose bushes... or the tennis ball ...furry ...resting on the table... 

and the light soft and rich...

and the tenderness of my husbands hands as he picks up tiny nails with his fingers

and the beauty of the wood as he nails it together...

the lushness and richness of all and everything...

and then I find myself watching my hands type... or cook... or crochet... or studying nutrition and cancer... ...and emerging as the longing to say I love you to everyone 

...to sing of this unbound love that seems to propel an unowned life... 

and there is nothing moving my feet or hands... or wings...

unfathomably unbearably beautiful.... 

and tears and tears and tears... 

stunned at this amazement ... of amazement... 

at this love that has no hands or heart or words to hold it...





I was the longing to find the map to long forgotten worlds
a feeling of something lost pulled my heart
into a world of drifting shadows
where light lay
dreaming of light

mountains fell into rivers
rushing through deep deep canyons
pouring into forgotten lands 
suspended in diaphanous clouds

ever elusive
wind cannot catch itself
or hold its breath
yet it called my name
I could hear it rolling through the tree tops
and down the yellow mountain
pooling in the low places
hidden to daylight
and caressing me at night

dreams of tomorrow
danced on my fingertips
I folded and unfolded a thousand love letters
filled with words and empty pauses
they ripped apart at the creases where
touch met itself
and my fingers dissolved in a love that could not be grasped

origami sun melted into a thousand feathers
slowly descending to kiss their shimmering reflections
wetness sang in a silvering sea
leaping again into a thousand kisses
we are rainbows falling through oceans of color
dream birds soaring over the dreaming moon




I am a kaleidoscope of memories
a swirling thought dream of all the tales
I have ever heard
were they mine
or yours
or books I read long long ago...

stories that no one wrote
and no one is reading
waterfalls of words
cascades of light and shadow
watercolor images flowing through rainbows
exploding
drifting dreamscapes on a sea of wind
tales of love and heart wrenching tears
time forgotten and remembered
there is no center of the rainbow
no place in the fairytale of time
to pinpoint and say
I was here
I am here
I will be
where

I am a dream of broken hearted beauty
remembering itself
through these very words
that slide across the page
dissolving even as they appear

I am forgotten love songs
wind that has left no wake
scattered words like fallen leaves on the road
where no one wanders
in the dark
I see colors
blooming
love
singing
and I am her song
your song
all the songs that have passed through these lips
these ears
these eyes
that no one wears
that hide nothing
and reveal
everything

there is nothing under this tale of wonder
falling
softly
through
love
as love
in
love
with
love





in the garden
between the stars
morning sleeps

in the hush
bird song blooms 
first light reveals
tree tops dancing

wind is its own song
there is no need to search for a translation
when you drink water
you know it is wet
effortlessly
all of life does itself

attention flows and rests
flowing thought stream of memory paints all and everything
wind
and tree tops dancing
sunlight streaming through the window
and shadows flowing on the golden carpet
young pink petunias glowing in the garden
and my husband's face

we are this flowing thought dream
there is no one underneath it
thinking
looking for ourselves we find not even nothing
we do not exist at all without each other
I can find myself only in your eyes

we exist only in this imaginary separation
many are trying to see through
how can a mirror see through itself?
there is no one looking
...no one on the other side
no sides
...no middle






purpose and non purpose.... 
meaning and non meaning...
collide and fade into seamless beauty... 
yet belief in neither or both is neither meaningful nor meaningless... 
all and everything may appear to dance seamlessly or joined or separate or not at all... 

love sings its multicolored rainbows painting color with color and there is no beginning nor middle nor end to the dream of I am or I am not...

heaven and hell fall through each other's infinite kiss and feeling one or the other or both or neither is neither better nor worse nor in between... 

as life sings itself there is no before or after, yet memories bloom and fade like colored shadows painting themselves on a wall of no tomorrow...

the light may feel blocked or it may feel like life and light and love streaming through you as you and no one is choosing the dream in which she dances as no one is doing this dancing this loving this life that does itself, looking and feeling like anything at all






words utter themselves 
this song sings itself
the dream paints itself
water colors on a river of color
there is no canvass
no colors
no river

music consists of intervals
love requires two
it is in this imaginary canyon of echos
of echos
of echos
that we hear the songs
that have no words
yet are all words
signifying nothing 
painting all and everything
into this very kiss

there is not even nothing under these words
no singer of this song
no maker of this wondrous world
this unfathomable aliveness
this feeling that I call love
but is not like any ideas of love
wind sings its name with wind
ocean sings its watery dream with water
all and everything erase themselves
as they never were
nor will ever be

in this great imaginary divide
that separates you from me
our bodies can touch
but we cannot

wind sings in the tall tall pines
shimmering sunlight falls through the trees
dances on the forest floor
and you were sifting through fallen leaves for moon beams
to erase your shadow
missing the wind and sun
streaming through you





galaxies within galaxies
space within space
light within light
where is the magic you seek
if not in the very seeking
that defines the sparkling jewel that you are?

where are the lines that define you
but in every line you have ever read or heard...
this thought stream made of learned shared words
sings you dances you as you fall into it and through it...
on the other side of thought
there are no sides
nor you

and what is a what that cannot be known
or unknown?
words cast no shadows...
shadow is a word
there is no backdrop
no canvass stretched between never and forever
upon which the story of you is painted
as soon as the deep moon rises
it falls into its own shadow
there is no light
nor dark
nor lover's dancing by the sea
yet I can see you waltzing
slowly 
...sunset in your eyes
your hand stretching out...

it is this tear stained wonderland
a fairy tale of love
these very words 
singing us
imaginary lines delicately paint us
softly
weeping
laughing
loving
falling
into each other's embrace





and she drank all the moonlight from the silvery sea
...basked in pools of lost horizons, 
danced with the echoes that painted beauty in her eyes 
and wept at this enormous love that had destroyed all hope and fear and plummeted her heart to the bottomless depths where love could not breathe...
nor sorrow live
not even joy dances with out a self
or others 

we live and love only in the shimmering iridescence between imaginary sides... 
we are transparent reflections
of not even nothing
living and loving within a heartbeat of time
that never lost or found itself
we are a love song of this and that
emerging as the thought stream
you are trying to change
or erase
and I weep
and I weep
that you are trying to eradicate your obvious beauty




where is the door to love
where is the door to forever
where is the castle of never?
are they not merely ideas
learned
and longed for or feared?

the doors to infinity open
and close
numberless moments slide into the magic
of no moments
and all moments
where never and forever kiss

there is no door to tomorrow
and no one to walk through
no place where anything can be found
or lost
and no one to go there

where is the magic you feel you have lost?
the secret deep in your heart
love sequestered
...feared
and longed for
everyone knows this secret shadow
it stalks them
as they run through it
puddles of emptiness
pools of abject despair
that no one will ever unlock the mystery
of love

magic of moon
magic of starlight
fades and blooms in your eyes
full of magic
full of light
full of beauty
full of love

softness of moon
softness of starlight
softness of love
fades and blooms
into a searing brilliance
that cannot be forged with the winds of magic

love need not be and cannot be touched
or known
for there is no one to know it
or speak of it
it can only be known
without knowing it





How lovely to sing of what cannot be sung
Yet sings itself with every word 
Every smile 
Every tear
Every touch 
Every heartache 

Unknown, but felt deeply,
Fear and longing were tightly folded into an origami bird and burned to escape the confines of a heart I jealously guarded... 
Lighting the known world into a pyre of love that consumed the edges and center of love itself...
Unfolding it’s glorious wings it fell into infinite feathered kisses.... gathering all and everything into this very embrace of utter intimacy
Like this 
Like this 
Like this...

Shimmering Liquid Sky

Deep rain
Deep earth
Deep night

Anointed with sparrow song
Sky grows
Pushes itself from earth
But never leaves the horizon’s kiss

In the year before the shift
Deep deep sorrow fell into
Overarching joy
And joy fell into sorrow

All merged into this seamless ache of beauty
That seems to sing me

Hell fell into heaven
Heaven into hell

Sea into sky
Sky into sea

Me into you
You into me

We are imaginary membranes
Separating light from light
Space from space
Love from
love




last filagree of cloud
dissolves in moonlight's gaze
looking out
looking in
where is the sunshine in last night's dream?

budding rosebush heavy with rain
slowly dripping
reds
into the greening
she holds a chorus of moonbeams in her shadow
as night drowns in the thinnest of dawns

in this window of reflections
I soar
suspended between inside and outside
a dream of drifting colors
sliding through rainbows
this vibrant bursting aliveness
has no source
other than itself




vault of stars
buried in clouds
time lost her empty hands
finding nothing to measure them

without sound
or silence
light sleeps
under the bones of night

first robin paints the morning dreamscape
bleeds into a darkness without edges
or lines

echoes fill the vastness of unknowing
spilling memory into her costume
the day begins


loving indifference....
there is caring yet no weight on an outcome... for example, I care about my dad, but there is no worry... no feeling that he should be healthy.... or live a long life.... or should be happy... but there is caring....
loving indifference ....




I am a fluid portrait
a gallery of all I have met on this lonely road
stories unique and familiar
petals on a river
glow in shimmering sunset
tales of sorrow
and joy
swirling galaxies echoing
in the chambers of my heart

a slipstream of ancient tides
pour tales of love
and love lost
into a flowing tapestry of song

precious threads of memory
sing a travelers tale
her feet are the feet of all who ever wandered the desert dream
looking for love...
or what they knew not
....something to glue life together
a key to unlock the door
crumble the wall
they feel separates them from life
trying to tear down the barrier of fear
and longing

and I sing
and I sing
and I sing
and weep

you are the imaginary membrane
a delicate shimmering transparency
between love
and nothing at all
iridescent
rainbows
falling

life tastes itself through your sensitive lips
sees itself through the wetness of your eyes
your tears
are love's signature
as life
falls through life
leaving no trail to follow
the ground has already collapsed
memory paints the dance floor
and the dancers

there is no way out of this delicious
broken hearted beauty
that we are
no way to know this love
as we are it




in the echo of winter moon
cherry blossoms falling

chorus of finch song pierces the darkness
chorus of memory paints the morning
the garden is adorned in shimmering gossamer
we are endlessly faceted center-less jewels
a flowing web of shimmering reflections

tides of summers
past
and future
tug your heart strings
open the floodgates of unknowing
pour you into a tsunami of ocean song

you are a scintillating voice
unique and beautiful
our stories twist and twine and carpet the day dream
spiraling galaxies explode and implode
and fall into each other
in this love song that sings itself
there are no others
yet here we are
falling in love



wisteria flood my garden wall
love pours through this edgeless heart
the treasure of moonlight is never lost
nor found

memory's kiss paints this unspeakable love
not lost
nor found

in the garden of dreams
we sleep
and awaken
the scent of starlight
in our eyes



bones of night
break the earth
into a bower
of
sky

song of endless sea
sinks your edgeless heart
sails dissolve
into wind
into wind
into
wind

we are poems written with sky
in
sky
songs have no weight
nor substance

love is not a sailing ship
soaring from me to you
we are a ship of dreams
on an endless ocean
we are love
soaring
in an edgeless sea of love

last cherry blossoms

adorn the wind

I am an empty river

pouring through you

sunset fades on the mountain

under the darkening

a neighbor's cat

gently

gently

dawn sighs

kisses the echo of moon

softly

softly

wind sings

leaf tips begin to quiver

necklace of light

pours through the canopy

memory paints the dreaming

of a young girl

twirling under the willow tree

laughing at the utter

softness

of light

adrift in gleaming shadows

lost in the shimmering beauty

of unknowing

she left and became an empty dress

silently mouthing the words

years and years and

years

of empty sun showers

waited for her return

she was swallowed by her longing

to return to the dance

she had never left

her fairy tale of wandering

circled around

and

around

the spinning seemed to hold a center

that suddenly exploded

and

imploded

into galaxies of wonder

the girl that fell from earth

fell through heaven

and hell

and arrived

nowhere

and everywhere

you can hear her emerge in the singing

of nothing

of everything

light

fell

into light

tears

into tears

love

into

love

It is the belief in separation which you don't have, but which seems to create a you separate from what ever seems to appear, including thought and feeling and a never arising next. As you are this belief you cannot change it or get rid of it.... you are an imaginary character in a worded world composed of separate things and events... 

As soon as one word, or concept is learned there is a feeling of a thing called 'tree' and all that is not tree, including a you.... and so on with all learned shared words which paint the shared dream of separation. Thought, composed of these words tells the story of a you and thought, of a you and feeling, ...memory is thought flowing painting a dream of a past, and a you somewhere in a non existent future... constant thought is required to create and maintain the self... when thought disappears all things, including a thinker, disappear.

Thought is like a net of razors seemingly separating the perceptual symphony and its inseparable recognition into separate things and events... and this description tells the story, first ....of perception and awareness of it... every word seemingly splitting up what has no actual division and what is not a thing, or a non thing.

softly

softly

sun showers

weeping

I am the loss of a night

no one had

and a dawn

that was never seen

...a love that was never told

or heard

across the great divide

between you

and me

I am this great ache to touch you

knowing we can never touch

this longing to sing

...sings me

yesterday's sun

cannot warm you

memory of light

illuminates today

where is tomorrow but in yesterday's sun showers

raining in the pale moon rising

falling into the sea of unknowing

we are the shimmering of boundless oceans

pouring through infinite iterations 

of this thought dream

that sings us

dances us...

falling through each others footsteps

sharing the stories

that we are

shallow wind skirts the spring grasses

pouring yellows and greens and

cascades of sunlight through my eyes

wild eyed moon waits

on the other side of dawn

mournful songs of winters past

and winters to come

fill my eyes with tears

and wonder

that love can flood the desert

with sudden blooms of summer

ahhhhhhhhh....

this tender heart

no longer mine

is no longer buried in dreams of forever

sunset

paints our tears

with unbound beauty

I am this flowing love song

letters written and cast aside

...found again...

tattered and

ripped

into bits of sound

and silence

and crumpled moonlight

scattered into stars

lost again in the vault of sky

I begin and end with every word

that no one speaks

or hears

it was the searching for my name

in every bouquet of this sumptuous love song

that hid the light and

left only shadows

to bloom

first light

no finches at the feeder

I can hear their whistling calls

tangled in the roses

one morning dove

atop the telephone pole by my window

sings the song of my childhood

morning arises as easily as this thought stream

that paints it

what flows through these words

without sound

without silence?

what flows through this dreamscape

without light

without dark?

what is the essence of this primordial song

is there a backbeat

or notes unheard?

is there a teller of the tale of midnight

falling into dawn?

is there a seeker of this unfathomable thing called truth

or god

or love?

what is heard

what is listening?

what is seen

what is seeing?

where are the sides to this mirror

endlessly reflecting the echoes that have no source...

moonlight

shimmering

sings a song of unknowing

you are the looking for a looker

tattered prayer flags bleached by the searing sun

wind songs

sing and unravel the rich tapestry of uncountable threads spinning 

spinning

spinning

tales of heartbreak and wonder

there is no one at the center

looking out

looking in

stories write themselves

and we appear to sing them

but we are them

wind soaring through wind

featherless

wingless

skinless...

I am this nakedness that no one wears

this broken hearted beauty

the longing to sing of what has no words

nor music

but is all words

all music

...no love

and all love

singing itself

just like this

wind swept shadows fly across the carpet

woven leaves do not tremble

tapestry of roses has no scent...

ocean of love has no words

no song can kiss it

it has no time or direction

nor space nor emptiness

it cannot be measured

or caught

or known

there is nothing separate from it

it is not a thing or an it

as it has no edges nor middle

in this flowing thought dream

there appears to be a lover and a beloved

but there is no love at all

nor is there not love...

shallow moon skims the garden

illuminates a forgotten path

disappearing in the tangled roses

fully leaved and beginning to bloom

pale tender light

shimmering liquid sky

slow wind

gentle on your face

clouds

drifting

sailing river of memory

informs and out forms every leaf

and shadow

you are the song unsung

yet heard in every song

you have no voice

but are all voices

your fingers gently skim across the page

mouthing the words of every song

words fall through words

and the blanket of reflections dissolves

you are a seamless ricochet of love

last years falling blossoms

weave tonight's carpet of moon

— Nancy Neithercut