Not From, But To & Through

Monday morning

T’ai Chi Chih

In the park.

Rocking Motion movement

starts the energy flow in

our dedicated circle of

teacher and students

in the shadow of great trees

in a small public grove.

We in silence Around the Platter

move as toddlers and preschoolers

in the playground nearby

chatter and laugh and cry

joining in with

the raucous

Bass Drum

caws of crows

in the wind

on the limbs

above our heads

Passing Clouds

float by.

I hold middle distance

gaze and move to

Daughter in the Valley

as a young girl comes

close to chase the

geese feeding on the grass

and cries with Daughter on the Mountain Top delight

when she gets close enough

to force, one by one, each

goose to jump-fly just the

distance to escape her

spirited grasp.

I Push Pull the Chi

and contemplate the

words of the founder

of this T’ai Chi form

in humbly asserting,

“I am not the creator,

rather the originator,

for it came not from

but through me.”

And so it is for me

in offerings of the

poetry I practice

as I gradually grasp

Pulling in the Energy

aware and grateful

in this grove that I’m

no longer doing

T’ai Chi Chih,

rather it

is doing me.

So, too, in like

moments, pen to

paper, heart full

in Perpetual Motion

I’m gratefully aware,

surprising words

pour forth, tumbling

full formed onto the

page of my poem

in Bird Flaps Its

Wings symmetry

and boldness.

And I am as I am

in this grove as the

I Am That I Am

(in the words of

ancient Hebrew)

flows unfettered and

free in downward

doggerel rhyme

for all

to see

this verse

that comes

not from

but

merely

to and

through

me.