come on up

our phone message
says,
via my voice
and some radio shack machine:

"Messages for Marlie Wesner
and Chris Elms
....
Come on up
if you'd like to work the soil
or
wake up to now."

since people are
often afraid to work
and even more reluctant to work
in someone else's garden

few come up

and waking up?
is that a big draw?

not really

waking up
to now
is
hey,
something
to do later,
maybe on vacation in Mexico,
or this weekend
or
yeah, yeah, this is cool:
at the next Thing
at Spirit Rock,

and so the message's
tail
progaganda/
invitation/
weeding out
device

isn't listened to

it's just
whizzed by

and some message
is left
or
not

so be it

and
and
and...

and waking up
to now
and the soil

are always
here

always
waiting

in no hurry

(and
sometimes
i am
in a hurry
about this
for me
and
worst of all
for others)

oh, well
i'm a fool
sometimes

la
la

what else
is
new???

Too much force

this idea,
the idea that more
can get done
with less force
and more discrimination

is coming along at the training
i'm going to with my son,
brendan

i'll give the website
tomorrow
or the next
because it's supposed to be a new
zippy version

anyway
some example where given:
in skiing,
when you get good, the
less force you can use,
the better
your skiing will get

in flying a plane,
either you react slow
and light
or thngs get very troubled

and then in parenting:
if you are in a rush,
you "show the kid how,"
which means,
make the child do it
as you do it,
and don't give time
to go slowly,
and gently
and so no
discovery takes place

so,
what is it about force
and the world of today?

well,
look around,
listen:
cars and roads are the dominant force
in our "civilization"

what powers a car:
thousands of explosions a minute

what makes the place
the car can drive,

big machines, tearing up nature
to pave out those roads

we explode the gas,
we pave the world

and we forget
sometimes
the simple
power
of the blade of grass,
pushing itself up
through a crack
in the asphalt

what is the crack in our asphalt
where and
what
is our blade
of grass

maybe
that's what some of these poem
thoughts
are about

hope
so

ciao
chris