As We Fall Away

clouds

Time is a thirst that drinks itself. We are the ringing and the bell as we fall away as we fall away like water.

That was the sky yesterday, and I didn't know it when I took that picture as we drove home from Los Angeles, but it was the day Barry Spacks died. He was a wonderful poet, writer, artist, and teacher, beloved by many, and especially dear to Santa Barbara, where he was the city's first poet laureate, a role he fulfilled with enthusiasm and love.

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I met Barry a few times at workshops and readings, and he was gracious, kind, and wise. He was a Renaissance man, a practicing Buddhist, and a lover of words since childhood.  He knew that poetry mattered: We are the choosers reporting this realm, he said of poets.

Here is one of his beautiful poems, called Within Another Life:

Those whose days were grudging or confused may come back trapped within another life

as a boulder, or a pane of glass, or a door that suffers every time it's slammed.

If I return a boulder, love, some summer day come sit by me and contemplate these horses and these hills.

And if a windowpane, gaze through to see the meadow on our walks where the brown geese strut.

And if I am a door, come home through me, be sure I'll keep you safe.

And if a knotted, twisted rope, from long self-clenching and complexity,

oh love, unbind, unbraid me then until I flow again like windswept hair.