He(art)

Art is vital to uplift, move, inspire the human spirit.
As it reminds us of the beauty of life, art heals.

Move Me!

Deep

Unity

Tenderness

Pure Joy

Poignant

Ephemeral

Sweetness

Sexy

Buoyant

Longing

Prayer

Unabashed

Joie de Vivre

POEMS

Anne Kerry Ford's Poems

Song of The Elementals

I hold you to the heavens with my wild expanse.
My ever-present majesty is your place
   to dance, to rest, to be.
I allow you to remember and release.
I sing my Song of Love to you,
   so you remember your power.
I am Earth.

I blow through you with my challenging caress,
   shaking fear out of you.
As I surround you, I inhabit you,
I allow you to breathe me in and out.
I sing my Song of Impermanence to you
   so you remember your wonder.
I am Air.

I cleanse you as I move through you,
I wake you up, raining my sweetness on you.
I allow you to drown in my depths,
   reflect yourself in my mirage.
I sing my Song of Mystery to you
   so you remember your balance.
I am Water.

I alchemize your resistance with my true power,
    matching your passion with my willing heat,
   whispering my secrets to you with my lapping tongue.
I allow you to burn your memory as we dance together.
I sing my Song of Transformation to you,
   so you remember your joy.
I am Fire.

I surround you with the essence of yourself,
   all that ever was and ever will be.
I am the eternity that bore you,
   alive, awake,
   nothing and everything.
I allow you to be embraced forever.
I sing my Song of Inseparability to you,
   so you remember who you really are.
I am Space.

I Am

And what kind of me does
Time allow some kind of
Difference to make?
I feel so different from
One day to the next.
One day soft, receiving,
One day jubilant and dancing,
Then quiet again
And listening,
Connecting with the love
That’s spilling out
Of other’s houses
To
From
Everyone
Everywhere.
Then some other me
Replaces me
In the middle of the night.
As if all the possible me’s
I am
Were taking turns
To try my body on for size.
There are so many,
They stretch for miles in all directions
Coming up with all sorts of
Wonderful ideas.
They all carry secrets
Of what to do
And who to be.
Dancing through The Shift,
The challenge.
I feel my heart open wider.
They open it in a unified
Song that connects
Gratitude,
Nature,
Stillness,
Service,
Vision,
Love.

Words are Not Enough

I was drunk and full and swollen from the elixir
Love had slipped me.
I spilled out in all directions and Love kidnapped me,
Took me away forever.

In this unfamiliar home, there is a vast dark pool,
And I dive in, deeper and deeper,
Swimming with no breath at all,
Just an electric heart.
Then I relax on the soft and tender
Vulnerability of Love’s bank.

Love exploded me.

I leave behind the things I thought I knew
But never needed,
Nor did they need me.

Love won’t leave me alone.
Love tickles me awake.

Caring so much that I don’t care.
My hot tears have emptied my heart of itself.

I release my own name.

If I am still existing, I can release that too.
I can forget or have forgotten what I knew,
Or didn’t know, or never knew.
Now I forget to remember.

Every hokey love song I ever judged
Turns out to be a clue
Left by Love, out in the open,
Hiding in plain sight.

I was told this would happen,
But I didn’t believe it.
Now I do.

Almost Independence Day

"Oh brave new world, that has such people in it"
Are words I said when acting in a play
When I was young and filled these words
With the air of my youthful heart,
And released them like balloons
Because they had to be true.
Possibilities of brave new worlds
Walked down New York sidewalks with me.
But that was back when I thought
People might be learning something
From their history books.
(Hitler? Come on! How'd that happen?)
And I knew
The great eastern sun was rising
Because I had seen it myself.
So ready for the revolution
Of goodness was I.

Now the ocean fills with blackest sludge,
Bringing down the world a little darker.
Greed and cowardice go hand and hand together,
(Ultimate weapons of mass destruction),
And blame hovers like flies going in circles.
Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.

I know we shouldn't give up on each other,
But it looks so serious, so sad from where I sit.
The heroes are silent and the masses are too busy
Just getting by.
Schedules must be written and kept.
Meals eaten, dishes washed.
There is no time for revolutions of goodness.
There is no time. No time. No time.
Any sense is drowned in the drone of Muzac
Everywhere you go
So no one can think clearly.
Clearly, no one's thinking clearly.

Usually, when there is an accident,
Someone comes along to clean it up.
Aren't we going to be rescued by aliens from space?
I guess that's what everyone is hoping.
Either that, or it's not that bad.
How could it be so bad that we can't put it back
The way it used to be?
Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

Shopping mall sales.
Marketing ploys.
Television truths.
Lie detectors.
Leaders lecturing.
Average Joes carrying on.
Panel discussions.
Troops doing the war thing.
That's old news.
News and more news.
Slanted news.
No news is good news.

Maybe there are angels doing silent dances
In secret valleys where flowers grow.
Maybe the homeless guy is Jesus in disguise.
Bodhisattvas, filled with prayers
For all beings to be at their ease,
Gather in underground meetings
Planning revolutions of goodness.
Maybe dolphins have a plan,
Or snails, or whales, or robins.
Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

- AKF, July, 2010

Night Poem

Because I told you I’d write a poem,
The Muse knocks down the door of my conceptual mind
And enters my heart,
Selecting words like cherries offered on a plate,
Chewing on them carefully,
Savoring their sweetness and their sour potential.

The tear of no reason
Lazily meanders down the cheek.
Will it make it to the chin?
Or linger there
To proclaim its full wetness?
Who knows?

A poem written in the night
Already has darkness in it,
As a song of nobody, nowhere, sung to no one,
Everyone.

The Muse gets supplicated with incense.

Writing poems is easy.
It’s just a letting go, I bet.

Listen.
The song of evening wants to be written,
But it won’t be captured fully.
It’s more like an elusive fox than not.
It darts around the dark room
Suggesting possibilities.

Here’s one of them.

When I was very young, I could fly.
And even though I really could fly,
When I told my parents and my grandparents,
They told the story (for years!)
Of me flying around the back yard,
Getting quite a kick out of it each time.

I could tell they wondered about it though,
And I knew the truth and I stuck to it.

Just now, I heard them before I saw them:
Four ladybugs gather on the ceiling
In a small army of delight.

The things that I own, they are not mine.
I live in my own borrowed time.
I touch the graces of my own life
   as ephemeral mirrors of my own mind.
I wake to the music of my own heart.
I love the not-knowing of the moment's ripeness,
   the music and irony of right now.
This poem spills out of my question,
   wondering who is writing this, why speak at all?

The Shift

Because we are not separate,
Never were separate and never will be separate,
There is perfect unity at all times.

My tolerance and acceptance,
My unconditional love for myself
Is unconditional love
For the mirror,
From the mirror.

The mirror is Other.

All that is there is there.
All that shows up is perfectly acceptable.
Perfection of the reflection never ceases.

I see myself in Other as the now I am being,
The mirror (Other) shows me that which
I am now.

I relax completely knowing I am complete..
Nothing to bring in or release,
As long as I remember unity never ceases, is always perfect.

As I dance, it dances.
As I play, it plays.
As I love, it loves.
As I release it, it releases me.
If I fully accept the mirror, it fully accepts me.

I am dreaming Other as Other dreams me.
Loving to be loved,
Releasing to be released,
Trusting to be trusted,
Knowing to be known,
I accept completely to be completely accepted.

Oh! La, La, Hoh!

Oh, my full heart!

I offer this poem of love

To the stars,

To the heart of life,

To this parade of experience,
To pain and pleasure, as they merge.
I dance the dance of gratitude,
Offering thanks to everyone, everywhere, everything.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I remember you.
I bow to you.
I love you.

I am a simple student.

My intention is the only real thing.

I have no credentials.

Praying to open further to the blessings of the elements,

Offering body, speech, and mind continually

For the benefit of others, for the benefit of all.

I dance in the kitchen.

I dance in the dark hallway.

I dance in the shadow.

I dance in the light.

I dance for the sorrow.

I dance for the pain.

I dance for the loss.

I dance forever.

Humbled & empowered,

I forget reason.

Mad with joy, I release concepts.

Nonsense makes more sense to me now.

Thank you.

I remember it all.

I bow to it all.

Thank you.

Heart opens, mind calms.

Mind opens, heart calms.

I tremble with uncertainty, my new friend,

I dance with you.

Thank you.

We don’t leave home

Unless prodded with the power-poker of pain.

Revulsion is the foot of meditation.

Thank you.

We fall in love with the one who reaches back for us.

Devotion is the head of meditation.

Thank you.

We rest in the seat of simplicity, here and now.

Awareness is the body of meditation.

Thank you.

Thought directs our experience and creates our life.

May all realize the inseparability of samsara and nirvana.

This is the feast offering of continual awareness.

Thank you.

Unconditional love knows no bargain.

“I’ll love you if you love me.”

It loves loving

And surrenders to the unknown,

Completely free of causes and conditions,

Loving the here and now.

Unconditional love loves it’s own challenge,

Loves the loss and the letting go,

Surrendering to it’s own tenderness for it’s own sake,

Abiding nowhere, in nothing,

Everywhere in everything,

Singing, “I love loving!”

Unconditional love opens wide

To the unknown,

Resting there, playing there,

As it’s own relentless presence of

“I AM love!”,

Proving it’s own power over fear

Again and again,

Bowing to what is, again and again,

Loving it’s royal and humble self,

Again and again,

Caressing what is, again and again,

Loving it’s shadow and doubt

Again and again,

Loving it’s own mystery

Again and again

In the eternal present moment.

Unconditional love penetrates the play of phenomena,

Loving the dance of itself,

The song of itself,

Again and again,

In a morass of light.

Latest Poem

"Art is a mystery. A mystery is something immeasurable. In so far as  every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery  of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an  artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies  are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature. Nothing  measurable can be alive; nothing which is not alive can be art; nothing  which cannot be art is true: and everything untrue doesn’t matter a very  good God damn... It is Art because it is alive. It proves that, if you  and I are to create at all, we must create with today and let all the  Art schools and Medicis in the universe go hang themselves with  yesterdays rope. It teaches us that we have made a profound error in  trying to learn Art, since whatever Art stands for is whatever cannot  be learned. Indeed, the Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he  has learned, in order to know himself; and the agony of the Artist, far  from being the result of the worlds failure to discover and appreciate  him, arises from his own personal struggle to discover, to appreciate  and finally to express himself. Look into yourself, reader; for you  must find Art there... "
- e.e.cummings