Smilegiving

One for Everyone

I wrote the book that I wanted to read,
then found, on the first page, that I was the seed —
that the reader and the writer and the read are one,
and the book is the giving, and the giving’s begun.

So open it anywhere. Begin.
It all happens at once. It happens within. 
Minds change. Right now. 
Not someday, not somehow — 
now.

For this is the law, plain as bread on a plate: 
what you hold in the mind is the life you create, 
and the thought most on mind, and the one underneath, 
is the seed and the soil and the flower and wreath. 
When everybody gives, everybody receives. 
When everybody tells the truth, the whole air believes, 
and we lift up our faces, and everywhere, there — 
we all of us see God, see God everywhere.

But you know how it goes. You have stood in the dark. 
The sky fell. It fell. And it left its cold mark, 
and the center, they swore, would no longer hold, 
and the falcon flew off, and the story got told —

 so here is the turn, friend. Here is the spell: 
the sky fell, and we lived. We have lived to tell. 
And the center held — 
not by gripping, not by force, 
not by bolting the doors against the divorce 
of the world from its hinge — no, the center held 
by allowing the off-center to be held.

By the wide arms. By the welcoming in. 
By the yes under everything. Let it begin.

And feel, now, what fills you. Stand still and be filled: 
I AM — balanced — to weightlessness, stilled; 
I AM — and the trembling lets go of the bone; 
I AM — and you know you were never alone. 
Right now, in this moment, I’ll say what is true: 
you are blessed by, beloved of, indivisible — you 
are protected, are granted, are given the whole, 
held in God like a note is held inside soul. 
The Verb To Be. The great I Am. 
The God Is humming through the long diagram 
of your veins and your breathing, your doubt and your art — 
no grey area, friend. Just the light in the heart.

Is there a better way to see it and say it? 
Is there a sweeter chord, once you hear it, to play it? 
Is there a more delicious dessert to be served 
than equanimity — calm, and deserved — 
the eternal now that the mystics avow, 
the eternow, the holy hum of how?

Here is the how. It is almost too small. 
It is hardly a doctrine. It’s no wall at all. 
You take what you’re given — this love without seam — 
and you hand it straight on. That’s the whole of the scheme. 
What’s in me, I offer; I offer to you 
the unconditional, given, and given on through. 
Be good to yourself, and then — this is the art — 
be that same good outward. Give it heart after heart.

So turn to the next face. Whoever. Whatever. 
The clerk, the stranger, the one at the end of their tether. 
Smile first. Say yes. Let them feel, in your eyes, 
that they’re wholly, completely, no-fine-print-required-ly 
loved — and then watch how it moves, how it goes:

they will turn, and they’ll give it. And so it flows 
to the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, 
no footnote, no fee, no asterisk, no text 
but the one we were handed before we were born: 
you are loved, you are loved, you are loved — every morning, 
and the proof is the passing, the only way through: 
give it away, and you’ll know that it’s true.

You are the love. You always were. 
The book was a mirror. The mirror, a door. 
Walk through. The whole world is leaning to hear it. 
Give it away — 
and the giving will near it, 
and the nearing will fill you,
and the filling won’t cease, 
and the flowers are laughing, 
and the name of that laughter is peace.


Rob Chavez  June 11, 2026
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

a tuning of “Light the Way,” 1991

There is a sound the silent night keeps,
low under the hush, where the deep listening sleeps.
Even the deaf can hear it.
Even the lost draw near it.

It is the sound of gladness the carols are after,
which is only the sound of God’s own heart,
beating its one long syllable of Love
through every vein, through laughter,
through the dark and the dawn 
and the space in between,
through the seen, and the felt, and the not-yet-seen.

It feeds us, quiet as daily bread.
We barely notice we are being led
to warm, to wake, to rise and shine,
each of us a small lit window
in one enormous house of light.

So who is this child, born and laid so low,
that the carols and the candles know?

No stranger. No distant king.
The Light already within us,
the near and forgiving thing,
the spark that says, gently, begin —

born again in everyone
who chooses, today, to let it in.


Rob Chavez June 9 2026
© Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

It is all happening now, in the space of one chime —
the slow bell, the sudden bird, the reason wed to rhyme,
and you, right now, are meant to find this line.
Not a coincidence. A homecoming. A sign.

It is here, and we call it The Great Compassion:
not a someday-heaven doled in coins we count and ration,
but a near thing, a now thing, a warm unguarded passion
breaking open like the dawn in every heart, every nation.

It is happening now in every body, every mind —
the unwinding of the lonely, the un-blinding of the blind,
the quiet knowing kindled, the kindred we'd resigned
ourselves to never meeting. Look. They're here. They're kind.

For this is the conviction we arrive at, plain and true:
the love we give each other is the love we're given, too;
there is no other, no them set against you —
only one wide we, one breath the whole world draws us new.

So turn to your neighbor, the stranger, the friend,
meet their eyes, take their hand where the long roads bend,
and give a small piece of this gladness you tend —
for the gift, when you give it, is the gift without end.

We are all of us beginning. We have always, always
been the place where Love begins again.


Rob Chavez  June 9, 2026
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

It happens quite quickly — no thunder, no fight:
a stranger looks up, and their eyes catch the light,
and something long-guarded unclenches, comes warm —
one yes in the air, and the whole world's reborn.

Yesmile. Say it slow. Let it sit on the tongue.
It starts in the eyes, then it warms to the lung;
not a mask you put on, not a lie that you wear,
but the truth of your face when you know someone's there.

A yes to the stranger, a yes to the friend,
a yes that says start where the last one would end.
For the neighbor's a mirror, the mirror's a door,
and the door swings to gardens you'd not seen before.

See it pass on a corner: one smile, then a second,
and the second smiles back, and a third one is beckoned,
for it doubles when shared, it's the strangest of math:
the warmth that you give lights the rest of your path.

It moves like a kindness from corner to coast,
through the ones we ignore, through the least and the most.
The clerk and the king and the child in the rain
all feel the same warmth lift the weight of their pain.

As you think, so it is — that's the oldest of keys.
What you hold in the mind, you will plant in the breeze.
So hold one another. Hold gently. Hold whole.
For the thought is a seed and the seed is a soul.

You were meant to be here. Yes, here. Yes, right now.
Not by luck, not by chance — call it grace, call it how
the whole reaching universe wanted your eyes
on this line, in this moment, beneath these wide skies.

There's no test you must pass, no far summit to climb,
no fee at the gate, no exclusion by time.
It's as near as your breath, it's as free as the sun,
and it grows in the giving — more love, never none.

So take this and give it. Don't keep it, don't hoard.
Love isn't a treasure — it's never restored
by the holding, but only by handing along,
till a hush in one heart is a chorus, a song.

Smile first. Smile freely. Smile knowing it's true:
that the love that made me is the love that made you,
and we're best, every one of us, beggar or bard,
when we hand it right back, when we lower the guard.

Without even knowing, the whole world is smiling.
It starts here, with us, in this moment beguiling —
one choice: to look up, to say yes, and to bless
the next face we meet. So begin, neighbor: smile and say yes.

Say yes.

Rob Chavez  June 9, 2026

© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

a reply to Yeats

Turning and turning, the widening spiral winds home;
the falcon hears the falconer after all.
Things lean together; the center always held:
it was never out on the rim where the fearful look.
The blood-dimmed tide goes out, and everywhere
the ceremony of the ordinary is blessed:
the worst grow tired of their passionate noise,
and the best, who only doubted, lift their heads.

Surely a kindness is already here;
surely the second He comes is already at hand.
The second He comes, and soft are those words out,
for no beast slouches up from the desert sand.
A shape with a child’s body and the face of everyone
turns a gaze as warm and patient as the dawn,
and moves its slow glad hands, while all about it
the indignant birds come down and learn to sing.
The darkness lifts again; and now we know
that twenty stubborn centuries of sleep
were only waiting on a rocking cradle,
and what bright Love, its hour come round at last,
is born again in all who let it in.

Rob Chavez   June 6, 2026
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

Come on people now, smile on each other — Love is but a song we sing so keep on singing

I.

Two hundred and fifty years,
and the morning still comes up over this land
the way it came before there was a flag to salute it,
red over the Atlantic shoals,
gold across the wheat,
the long light walking west on its own schedule,
asking no one’s party, checking no one’s papers.

Say the number slowly. It has weight.
A quarter of a thousand years
of an argument we are still, thank God, having —
not a settled thing, not a finished thing,
a thing we wake each morning and choose again.

II.

Let me sing it the way Walt taught us to sing,
not the generals on their horses,
not the names carved into the marble downtown,
but the wide and ordinary us,
the body of the country, breathing.

I sing the woman closing the diner at midnight in Toledo,
wiping the counter one last time,
her feet a quiet sermon on endurance.
I sing the kid in McAllen translating the lease for his mother,
holding two languages in his mouth like water.
I sing the lineman in the ice storm,
climbing toward the dark houses to give them back their light.
I sing the nurse on the third night shift,
the farmer reading the sky like scripture,
the welder, the teacher, the trucker
threading the mountain pass at 4 a.m.
so the shelves will be full when your children wake.

I sing the hands. All of the hands.
Brown and pale and freckled and scarred,
the manicured and the cracked,
the hands that lay brick and the hands that lay babies down,
the hands that have never once been thanked
and lifted the whole country anyway.

III.

This is the land they move across,
and it is a stunner, neighbor, it always was.

The Smokies in their blue exhaling fog.
The Mississippi taking its slow brown time.
The red rock holding the print of an older ocean.
The corn going on past where the eye gives up.
The neon and the cathedral hush of the cities,
the porch light in the holler,
the surf and the saguaro and the prairie
that has its own opinion about the wind.

We did not make this. It was handed to us,
the way a lamp is handed, still warm,
and the only rent it asks
is that we keep it lit and pass it on unbroken.

IV.

And here is where love tells the truth,
because the song would be a lie if it only flattered.

The table was set long ago
with a promise large enough for everyone:
that we arrive equal as we arrive crying,
the grain of sand and the wheat alike,
and we have spent two hundred and fifty years
dragging up chairs for the ones left standing.

It came late for the woman who wanted her vote.
It came late, and at a terrible cost,
for the ones who built the wealth and were owned by it.
It is still arriving. The table is still getting longer.
And that is not the country’s shame.
That is the country’s actual work,
the slow and stubborn widening of the word us
until it finally means what it always said it meant.

We are not a finished people.
Thank God. The finished are only the dead.
We are the ones still pulling up chairs.

V.

So do not let them sell you the small story:
that it is us against the others at the door,
that the country is a fortress, or a brand,
or one man’s name across a wall that belongs to all of us.

The truth is older and far more generous.
The boatman and the president,
the immigrant and the great-great-grandson of immigrants
(which is to say, the immigrant),
the one who prays five times and the one who prays to nothing,
the bride and the bride, the groom and the groom,
the one still quietly becoming their own name,
the one who votes the way you do
and the one who never will,
the same sun, as the poem keeps saying,
wearing a billion different faces,
and not one of those faces less American
than the loud ones on the screen.

VI.

Here is what I want for the next stretch of years,
and I will not dress it up in policy.

I want the table longer.
I want the rules to fit the grandmother
exactly as they fit the man with the tower,
no more, no less, the way one set of weights
makes the whole market honest.

I want the kid translating the lease
to grow old in a country
that learned, at last, to read him back.

I want us to disagree the way a family disagrees
at a table it refuses to leave,
loud and wounded and still passing the bread.

I want the porch light and the city light
to recognize each other as the same fire.

VII.

This is not the work of presidents.
It never was. It is the jury chair,
the off-year ballot no one’s watching,
the phone call to the office that wasn’t listening,
the hard conversation held in love
instead of let go in anger.
It is the neighbor’s driveway shoveled.
It is the harder, realer kindness
that costs you something and gives you more.

It is, in the end, just this:
to look at the whole impossible crowd of us
and decide, again, today,
that the stranger is just as good as you.
I was taught that young. I have found it to be true.

VIII.

So happy birthday to the experiment,
to the beautiful unfinished thing,
to the long table under the walking light.

Pull up a chair. There is room.
There was always meant to be room.
That was the whole idea.

And when you pass the bread to the next hand —
the hand that does not look like yours,
the hand that did not vote like yours,
the hand that is, beneath everything, your own,
you will feel it,
the fine thread, the current, the thing the old songs knew:

that there is no them.
There is only the table,
and the light,
and the two hundred and fifty years of us
still, somehow, against all odds,
getting up to make more room.

Come on, people.
Let’s get together.
We have a country to keep.

 

Rob Chavez  June 4, 2026

© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

We arrive along the way,
as different as we are the same,
empty-handed, wide-eyed,
spilled from the one bright source
that spirals the sand and the sky.

No one comes late.
No one is turned away.
The door was never a door.
It only looked that way.

So set the worry down.
You were never asked to carry the whole round world,
only the warm grain in your palm,
only the next kind word.

For love is the strange coin
that grows by being spent.
Hand it all away
and wake up richer than you went.

Open the fist. That’s the whole secret.
A closed hand can hold,
but it cannot be filled,
and it cannot wave hello.

So smile at the stranger.
Grin at your own reflection too.
What you keep, you lose.
What you give walks on ahead of you.

Howl if you have to.
Dance if your feet agree.
Heaven isn’t elsewhere, friend.
It’s here. It’s now. It’s we.

And when some face floats up
warm in you as you read,
that’s no accident.
That’s the point. That’s the seed.

So pass it on, open-handed,
the way it came to you,
already moving, already yours,
and somehow truer the more it’s given through.

Rob Chavez  June 3, 2026

© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

When we bow our hearts
to our brothers and sisters,

God’s light shines in them
the same way it shines in you,

not brighter,
not dimmer,

the very same sun
wearing a billion different faces.

Forget the campaign rhetoric,
the champagne rhetoric,
the look-at-me,
remember-my-name rhetoric.

Bring common sense.

Bring your everyman,
everywoman,
everychild heart.

Bring open hands,
open doors,
open arms—

not velvet ropes,
not limited access.

For none of us is truly free
until all of us are free.

There is work to be done.

Locks to loosen.
Walls to soften.
Veils to lift.
Traps to untangle,

many built by fear,
many built by pride,
many built by me
and by you.

We are given the gift
and the responsibility
of choice.

So listen.

Tune your ears
to the still small music within—

the OM,
the hum,
the whisper of God’s voice

moving through your breath,
guiding your feet,
glorious.

“But when will we know?”
we ask.

“When will the peace arrive?
When will the healing begin?”

Friend, it began
the moment you stopped to ask.

The stars did not wait.
The earth did not wait.
The dance was already turning,
and it left a place open—

the exact shape of you.

So step in.
Take the hand beside you.
Forgive the one that trembles.

Deep down,
we have always known what is good.

We were only waiting
for someone to begin.

Let it be you.
Smile first.

And watch how the whole world
smiles back, remembering
it was never alone,
and neither,
my friend,
were you.

 

Rob Chavez  1995

© 1995 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

1991 • tuned June 2026



Hungering for ecstasy?
Still got that urge
to merge
with the infinite sea?
Good. Stay hungry.
That hunger is holy:
it is the table being set in you,
slowly.

Ask the first person smiling.
Wisdom rests on a contented face.
Listen, and let it take its time.
Truth has no need to race.

Ask the girl twirling through the air,
in love with the wind in her hair.
She laughs at lies, she’s unafraid of crying,
too free to judge, too light to care.

Ask the boy dancing free,
spinning in space, relatively.
Time never touches his soul.
He knows sight is just one sense to see.

Ask the old woman.
She might know.
She has lived her life whole
and is still willing to grow.
How to feel good? she says.
I’ll tell you how:
Live this fine fine moment
right here in the now.

And me? I have known the other hunger,
the nights the table sat bare,
when love looked thin as water
and the cupboard held only air.
But when I am caught by doubt,
I do what the hungry do:
I ask. I knock. I hold my plate out.
And the asking sees me through.

What I find works
is loving my neighbor
any way I can,
be it woman, be it man.
Being loving is being human.

I ask for forgiveness.
I look for connection.
I dance to the rock
of ecstatic perfection.
I read the Good Book,
I keep my eyes peeled
for that internal devil:
prejudiced scales
are never on the level.

And here is the secret,
plain as the bread:
Think of Love
as God’s favorite food.

We deserve
to serve it,
to give it away
warm from the oven,
day by day.

And the strangest thing about this bread:
the more of it you give,
the fuller you find your basket.
That is how the hungry live.

So come sit down. You’re expected.
There was always a chair for you.
The feast was never further
than the next kind thing you do.
Our love for one another
is God’s favorite meal.
Eat your fill, then feed somebody.
Taste it. It’s real.


Rob Chavez
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

Peace lives
ever where
our heart rests.

Hell exists
in conflicts of interest,
behind the confines
of self-imprisoned minds,
in those moments
we fail
to find
in others
that which is easy
and kind.

Our tongue,
by old habit, an easy bribe,
carves words that both
denounce and ascribe
a life at once
ignorant and sublime,
obsessed with staying
inside space and time.

When our eyes fix
on cruelty alone,
we have cut the world in half
and called the half the whole.

To mend it,
we lean in close and breathe the same air,
turning toward one another
the slow way
a flower turns to face the sun,
righting the balance,
revealing the quiet power
that was ours all along.

Let the peace in
through one peaceful thought.
Build with a wider eye.
Lay a plank across the gap
and walk it to each other.

We are,
each and every one of us,
both the dreamer and the dream,
the hand on the clay
and the clay.

This is the work,
and the work is ours.

Love is the main course.
Desire, a sweet dessert.
Ecstasy, the food of prayer,
that fills us and heals the hurt.

And our smiles turn sweet,
our eyes go bright,
the way a window catches
the late gold light,
no doubt left in us,
only the knowing
that this, right here, is right.

You will never taste hell
by wishing your neighbor well,
by lifting them along the way.
Together, by choice,
we make
a lighter day.

In the palm of one hand
are counted
each and every grain of sand.

We each choose
our own voice:
to judge one another,
or to rejoice.

So, my friend,
let the shoulders drop.
Let the jaw unclench.
The prayer was heard
before the asking,
the way a room hears
the first note
before the song.

Let’s use interchangeable pronouns.
It doesn’t matter
how the One is pronounced.
Me, or Him, or You, or We—
any One of us
sets any other One free.

Rob Chavez 1991

© 1991 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

There is a sound the silent night keeps,
low under the hush, where the deep listening sleeps.
Even the deaf can hear it.
Even the lost draw near it.

It is the glad noise of angels above,
which is only the sound of God’s own heart,
beating its one long syllable of Love
through every vein, through every art,
through the dark and the dawn and the space in between,
through the seen, and the felt, and the not-yet-seen.

It feeds us, quiet as daily bread.
We barely notice we are being led
to warm, to wake, to rise and shine,
each of us a small lit window
in one enormous house of light.

So who is this child, born and laid so low,
this Jesus the carols and candles know?

No stranger. No distant king.
The Light already within us,
the near and forgiving thing,
the spark that says, gently, begin —

born again in everyone
who chooses, today, to let it in.

 

 

 

 

 

A welcoming home wide open,
soothed by breezes breathing free.
Shaded with trees
grown wise through the ages.
Illumined with love learned and taught.
Founded on solid rock,
grounded by thought.

All paths lead to this peaceful place,
a destination of refuge, salvation, and grace.
Warmed by the hearth, abundant bread.
No one denied entry, no one arrives late.
Gently we are guided
through the garden gate.

Here the truths we held so tightly
loosen in the hand like bread gone warm.
No need to act. No need to answer.
The eyes go quiet. They see the room as it is.
Each heartbeat sets another fear down
the way you’d set down something heavy at the door.

From God’s essence we emerge
and in that essence we remain,
the breath going deep,
the old hungers cooling to embers,
and a kiss that asks for nothing seals the trust.

The floor beneath us drops.
Our feet they hang.
We look up —
the roof is gone.

The roof is gone.
We are directly connected
to the Divine.

And the Holy Sound comes in through the opening,
the way rain finds the field.
Each time we still ourselves and listen,
some weight we carried lifts and goes,
and we carve for ourselves a finer fate.

The earth turns on forgiveness.
Axis secure.

In this one moment, paradise flares,
brief and complete as a struck match,
and everything we ask is already in our hands.

There is no only-me.
There is no other.
What flows through one of us
flows home through another,
and the same source runs in all of us
the way one river wears a hundred names.

We receive all that we give.
We taste exactly what our love allows.
And the mind, when it is quiet, makes its quiet magic:
the grudge dissolved, the old ache eased,
the tears that blurred the morning wiped to clear.

Whatever we turn toward grows toward us,
the love we make, the regret we water.
That is the whole of it. No secret. No lock.

Like the breath, it returns. Like the tide, it returns.
The chime struck once and ringing,
ringing on past where the ear can follow,
and this is how we keep our time:
by the warm recurrence, the coming-round-again.

So we arrive, at last, where we started.
All things possible. The golden grain
greening up again through the turned dark earth.

We come to find
our family home was resting inside us
all along,
and we love now the way the home stands open,
never lost, and forever free.

Rob Chavez
2015

 

 

 

Let go of guilt.
It’s by Love’s hand we’re built,
born with grace and given surety,
formed in a thoughtful image,
finished to the hilt.
Asked of us is only the willingness to see
that God loves us,
and that one Truth sets us free.

So wake up and smile.
Get up off your knees.
You’ll find, in the end,
the sin was the illusion,
the lock was never locked,
and every moment holds
a fresh door in,
the way out and the way back
the very same swinging hinge.

Saying what we mean
and meaning what we say,
giving all we have
and watching it come rounding back our way,
handed on to whomever we please.

We can have it all
and carry no fear.
The walls we called our limits
were only fog. Watch them clear.

And the voice that says you are not enough,
the one that wakes before you do
and starts its quiet subtraction,
the one that learned its lines so long ago
you mistook them for your own,
that voice is not God,
and it is not you.
It is the old bruise speaking.
Thank it for trying to keep you small and safe.
Then set it down,
the way you’d set down a stone
you forgot you’d been carrying,
and feel how far you rise without it.

Our pleasure grows as we forgive,
from within as from above,
so let’s not war, one with another.
There is no living in that.
Remember, friend, you were made from love,
and made from love, you cannot owe your way back in.

You were never on trial.
The verdict came in before you were born,
and the verdict was yes.
You don’t earn the morning.
You wake, and it is already given.
So wake. It is already yours.
It always, only, was.

Rob Chavez  1998

© 1998 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

1999 • tuned June 2026

Faster than the speed of Life
is God’s forgiveness of our misgivings.
Nothing outruns the light, the books all say.
One thing does. It arrives
before the asking,
the way the dawn forgives the night.

The Speed of Light still carries its message.
Look up: the sky is a letter
ten thousand years in the mail,
and every line of it reads the same:
you are born star bright, void of lies,
the Tao of Peace shines in your eyes.

And here is the strange, lab-tested news:
two things once joined are joined for good.
Stir one, and its partner answers,
across any distance, across any dark.
That is you and me. That is everyone
who ever shared a song, a meal, a street.
We are tangled up in one another.

Nature has nothing to hide.
You have a lifetime to seek,
finding the Truth and letting it go.
The game is the same for the strong and the meek.

Some nights I stand out under all of it,
missing somebody. You know the kind of night.
The star I love best, the books say,
may have burned out long ago,
and still its light keeps coming,
still it crosses the long dark to find me,
faithful as an old song on the radio.
Gone is not the same as over.
The light is still arriving.
So is the love.

So be not afraid of pleasure.
Allow yourself to love at your leisure.
The Love you came from is beyond measure:
no instrument can take its reading,
no spending ever runs it down.
All in all there is nothing left to do
’cept smile smile smile.
Light up, toss a bum a dime,
bum a song and bum a line,
play “He’s Gone” one more time
and sing along with the arriving light.
Travel freely all the while.


Rob Chavez
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

1993 • tuned June 2026

Hey Everybody!
Those of every age
How about some free poetry
A few lines of generic rhyme
Written down
So all can see

Right now is the perfect time
To be a poem
or a tree
Both are sown and grown
on God’s Good Earth
Blooming honestly

St. Stephen Dedalus
Alive as an Irish rose
Stoned by mother’s dominoes
Humming a tune heard deep inside
A tune only his heart
and Heaven knows

So put down the measuring stick
Set the pedestal out with the trash
Nudge your neighbor
compassionately now
We all have loads of love to spare
And nothing to hide, nowhere to climb
When the hat of humility
fits us just fine

A couple of couplets
and some clever preaching
May change the world,
Or may be just vain reaching
And looking to the past
for Truth
Tricks us
Into missing today’s teaching

Peace is in the balance
of thought, word, and deed
Forgiveness diminishes
hatred and greed
The black of night
opens its hand
to the sundawn day

Life is a vibration
Back and forth, a reliable relay
Yin and yang, the silent bang
At once both inspired
and utterly tired
We are all One poem anyway

Rob Chavez
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

I have little to say
but
here I am for you
today
my lips soften a
smile
for you
and see no use for
words
I’d like to lie a
while
with you
seduced by the
singing
birds
and then silently slip
away with you
to another day.

Rob Chavez
1991

 

 

 

No time to wait
Though the heart tick-tocks

unblocks

releases the fear
tears open all locks

reflect

reconnect

articulate

recollect

sensurelate

drum beat open ear

heart tickle

ya late!

Rob Chavez 1996

© 1996 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Miracles are
like the respiration of life
poetry verse and universe true
symmetry and equality
inequality too
 
Tears of rage, tears of grief
are miracles of human relief
Laughter and ecstasy, 
miracles felt
with divine belief
 
Chaos and order, the twin brothers
of that miracle we call immaculate creation
Back and forth, 
dominate then subjugate
Defined by interdependent relation
 
Your fingerprint is a miracle
Unique and formed by God's touch
Holding the mysteries of fate and fortune
Belly full and beautiful
or singing the blues out of tune
 
Catch 22, a miraculous catch
Male and female, a miraculous match
Miracles are never locked
Like Love, there is no latch

There are any number of ways
the Truth can show
There is only one way
We go
That way has no direction
There is nothing there to know
 
Howl at the moon
Howl as you sway
lay down a rhythm, ride a wave
If there were rules against it
It would not be
the way
 
Oh, no.
Let us not start that game
where
everything is ambivalent
There is only one
way

 

Rob Chavez 1996

© 1996 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Like a puzzle
Pieced together by feeling
Falling into place
Peacefully unfolding
Freeing and redeeming
But most of all, fun

Down the rabbit hole
and over the rainbow
Clouds float gently
upon thoughts sky high
No reason to lie, cheat, or steal
Only time to realize

it’s all within you to reveal

 

Rob Chavez 1996

© 1996 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Blowing in the mind going home
Sunshine Starshine Om
I sing the body of Walt Whitman
I breathe the mind of Allen Ginsberg
I revel in Joycian language landscapes
I take a trip on Cowboy Neal’s bus
I kiss Jimi Hendrix’s sky
I dance to the beat of Jack Kerouac
I space my time gratefully dying
I chase white rabbits
I read the news today, oh boy
I feel the poetry of Bob Dylan
I take a load off with the Band
I sympathize with the Devil
I roll with the Stones
I feel free with Cream
I turn turn turn with the Byrds
I let it be with the Beatles
I moondance with Van the mystical man
I talk with my head same as it ever was
I pearl jam my daily bread
I R.E.M. in my sleep
I politicize compassion
I am revealed in rhyme
I follow the Way and stay out of the way
I have everything and own nothing
I respect the musical wind
I eat the food of the gods
I am One with my brothers and sisters
I float on the pillow surreal
I dream the love that seems so real

Rob Chavez

 

 

Fly in sleep
Bell the gong
Reverse the age
Silent song

My eyelids lie lidded with dust
The faucet drips
The razor’s edge rusts
Dreams of youth have fled
with dreams of lust

Waking where the willows weep
Then rolling over
and sinking back into sleep
Down in the ravines
where kudzu
and Virginia creepers creep
haunted by thoughts
I should better not keep
and revealing myself
to the tealeaves that steep
Wandering through waters
my knees measure deep

I slip myself through
as posey children sing
round rosey ring
All things are possible
God bless the good king

Liberty loves company
dancing free, destined to see
often lit, catcher mitt
couplet split, creation fit
lighthouse hat, happy and fat

Weep if you will
Tears of appreciation

Tears of acceptance
and resolve

Tears of sweetness
and healing

Tears of lightness
and revealing

Tears that defy fear
and reflect the Truth

You are essential
This has always been true

It is your desire
with which everything connects

Everything connects
God’s Love to you.

 

 

 

On the road, paved with schemes

Thumbed out, back cracked,

Fixin’ to fix the broken jack.

Abundance in trust

with relations to last.

Not knowing who or when to stop

Pretending my past.

Beat as heck,

I am bumming

these dharma blues.

 

Rob Chavez

 

 

 

2022 • tuned June 2026

For ever beginning.
Born again without end.
Creation in every way
decayed and renewed

always.

I pray
with God’s hands
gently cradling my head.

I feel
with God’s love
filling my heart.

I see
with God’s eyes
lighting the inside of my mind.

I give
with God’s grace,
open-handed, all my life.

But there are mornings, I won’t pretend,
when the beginning feels like more of the end,
when the sum comes up short, when the figures look wrong,
and I can’t find the thread of the morning’s song.
I have sat with that gray arithmetic,
the ledger that will not come right.

So hear the older arithmetic,
the set of books God keeps,
where every column balances
and nothing true is lost:

God equates
all as one.

God equates
the grain of sand
with the field of wheat.

God equates
each birth
with every birth.

God equates
chaos with opportunity.

God equates
creation with celebration.

God equates
the hush before the song
with the song.

God equates
all who go
with all that remain.

God equates
your one small life
with the whole of Life.

And me? What creates smiles these days?
For me, it’s chiming guitars.
The needle drops. The twelve-string rings
like morning light on water,
some rhythmic complexity underneath,
a neat turn of phrase or two
that turns the tide back toward belief.
The room fills, the doubt walks out
the way it came, quiet, hat in hand,
and the beginning — there it is —
was only ever waiting for the song.

So take it. It was always yours.

Don’t hoard it. Hand it on.
Let it. Don’t leave it.
Give it and believe it.
Laugh it and live it.
And when it comes looping back to you,
and it will, it always does,
begin again. Begin again.
You were made for ever beginning,
born again without end.

Rob Chavez 
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

people sneak into your home
in the middle of the night
to eat Romanian spiced beef
and drink beer
…then tape your mouth shut
as they proceed to tickle you
back to sleep

 

 

 

 

The book begins
with a strange awakening.

Ah, yes,
the subtleties
of a summer breeze.
Memories from the subconscious
rise to the surface.

Sing to me
but please make it silent
the night spies on us
we await the freeze

Tears well deep inside, inductively from
these ripples of experience.

 

 

 

 

You’ve been through this before

Make it different      this time

 

Laugh at your sense

of ordinary Oneness

 

Clear eyed smiling

the flag of freedom

 

Millions of light years

to the nucleus from which we burst

 

Thick or thin

the whim of destiny

Make it different

Make it different

Make it different

this time

 

The flying eyeball sees all

and blesses the courageous with wings

 

Rob Chavez

 

 

 

2022 • tuned June 2026

When we keep
God as our sight
we can see how the darkness
gives way to the light.

We are
here and now
grains of sand and wheat,
allegories and little stories
made up by you and me,
running to and from the same direction,
light on two feet.

We are the saint at the steering wheel
and the seeker thumbing a ride,
the prodigal and the porch light,
the same road, side by side.
Every face in the passing crowd
is an Eve, is an Adam, is a wholly trinity,
each of us carrying, best we can,
a little eternity.

Peace, love, joy in one pocket,
sorrow loose in the other,
we are all saints,
we are all looking to score,
and the score, it turns out, was never
points — it was a song all along.

Some miles in, you stop.
You stand still on the shoulder
while the whole sky goes on ahead of you,
and you notice the way
was under your feet
the entire time,
patient as a path can be.

To borrow a line from brother Bob,
You ain’t goin’ nowhere.
There ain’t no where to go,
only way.


Rob Chavez
© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

as a connoisseur

of the kind

and the pure

please appreciate

these Scarlet Begonias

for their percolating motion

            spinning on the land

            tiptoeing on the ocean

passing from hand to hand

            gifts of mystery and devotion

 

 

 

If my hands held a gift

Like the magi was I

Led by the star

that shines for all

no distance too far

it would be these

simple poems

 

Rob Chavez

© 2026 Rob Chavez. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Jesus wept once, 
at the grave of His friend. 
He stood there and cried, 
the way that you have cried. 
But the story didn't end there: 
the stone was rolled away, 
and His friend walked out 
into the light of day.
So when Jesus came back, 
the way He promised long ago, 
He didn't ride in on the clouds. 
He appeared in every face, 
and smiled.
"Weep no more," His smile said. 
"Dry each other's tears. 
God's Divine Love 
is born in every child."
 
You cannot lose it
and you cannot refuse it.
You are as I AM, 
the light of the world.
This is my final judgement.
Release your fears.
 
The peace you seek 
is right now at hand.
The Universe is complete
in every grain of sand.
On this rock of Truth
we are all granted a stand.

Provided bounteous bread.
Infused with delight,
baked for all to partake.

Given eternal life
made possible
by the love we make.
 
Planted with abilities of mind.
To each one's quest
our talents are tended.
 
Healed of separation.
Void of limitation.
Conflicts resolved.
Broken hearts mended.
 
Tame your tongue
and think anew.
All clichés
in time
come true.
 
Cast off hesitation, 
let all doubt go.
God's Love can never
be taken from you.
Consider yourself as One
in the know.
 
Within you shines brightly
the origin star.
You are fated to find it.
You need not look far.

No matter
aged or child,
safe at home
or lost in the wild.
Love is who you are.
You need not know how.

Slow it down a bit.
No need to race.
There really is no "there" 
to be first.
Only here and now.
 
God's Love
does not dwindle,
despite the depths you fall
or confusion you kindle.
Never has Love known more.
More can not supplant All.
 
Nothing changes what I say.
You can bet on your life 
these are winning stakes.
The universe was created perfect
and remains perfect in every way.
God makes no mistakes"
 
And Jesus smiled,
"All beings
on Earth and beyond
are my body and blood.
Accept this gift
with every breath.
Each moment, a joyful union.
Each birth loosening death.
 
I respect the words you say
and honor the view you see.
Please indulge yourself
and practice the same today.
Play with others as if you were me.
 
Focus on unity
and the love of one another.
Find the fine thread that connects.
God shines with perfect light
every facet of creation reflects.
 
Growth comes with each step you take,
and each thought passed by your mind.
 
How often have you thought
you have more than you need?
 
How often have you thought
it feels good to be kind?
 
How often have you thought
God wants you to succeed?
 
How often have you succeeded
in accepting what you find?
 
The past, a footprint in the dust.
The future, the fruit of our creed.
Here and now is eternity
to harvest honey.
There is plenty for everyone
and plenty of mouths to feed.
Does a child of God have need
for lawyers, guns or money?
 
Hard lovers and easy riders too,
I wink a nod of approval to you.
It is your respect I wish to earn.
The same applies to all as to others.
Mohammad, the Buddha and I
breathe as brothers.
They have much to teach me
cause I have much to learn.
 
My message is simple.
You are loved for who you are,
not the illusions you sustain.
As it is written,
you are birthed Imago Dei.
Created perfect
and perfect you remain.
 
Christian or Muslim, 
Zen or Jew,
those who have no belief
but to wade in the morning dew.
With you I pray and play,
Sing poetry and practice meditation.
Manifesting a Universe safe and pure.
 
You can choose to criticize
or taste sweet discovery.
Perhaps division leads to decay,
and denying Our Love
makes pain endure.
God wishes you only good.
That is for sure."
 
And Jesus smiled,
"The future looks dim for bigotry
and those who spare no expense
on their greed.
Gaining more than you give,
be it sport, trade or game,
is a hollow need.
You are all my sheep.
Do some deserve less than others?
Competition or cooperation,
which focus does Love keep?
Have you righteous reason
for denying equity
to your sisters and brothers?
 
Truth does not separate
treasures we have
from abundance we think.
Eternal thought is pure,
peaceful waters run deep.
A satisfied man shares
his first and last drink.
 
Supplied for you
are miraculous means
and your heart's beat
measures all ends.
You are conceived 
whole and complete 
and in time
returned to new form,
with family and friends.
I reach out my hand to you,
if it's a hand you need.
But as I told you before,
you are perfect just as you are,
you are grown from God's sacred seed.
 
Whether in the air,
on land or at sea,
you are the All to your very core.
One with The Creator
now and evermore."
 
And Jesus smiled,
"Have brave and original thought.
Be right here and right now,
alive in the moment.
Tread on fear.
Choose words that allow others heaven.
Reign in your soul,
storm in your brain.
Listen for music
that lightens your day.
 
Respect your body,
perfect but temporary.
Truly a glorious temple,
bones raised by spirit.
You are magnificent creatures
I'll tell you again and again.
You'll recognize my voice
every time you hear it,
and pass it on
every time you smile.
My message is always the same.
I wish for you a lover's kiss
and time to rest a while."
 
"You are composed of that holiness
which blesses the stars into view.
 
The moon, 
like the sun too,
blooming bright or blue,
is born 
from the same spark as you.
Rolling across the sky
each moment new.
 
Rhythmic rhymes sung in praise
heals all need and shares no lie.
Your economy flourishes 
with songs of justice.
Material fortune gained by deception
is withered and rotten.
Your worth is the love
you are willing to give.
Your debts, withholdings 
and the misbegotten.
 
Bliss does not require desire.
Satisfaction is simple by deduction.
There is nothing in the past
you need right now to know.
Your eyes light afire
when accepting God's Love
and know it is so.
 
Disease, like well being,
comes and goes,
ebbs and flows 
like all nature.
It can be strengthened
or diminished 
by the will of the mind.
Heal one another
I say to you.
Let your tongue 
speak its passion.
Allow guilt to resign.
 
Dance righteously
when your feet find that they can.
Being Light in motion
is a blessing for everyman.
 
Sleep peacefully under that starry night.
Regard one another
with abundance in your sight.
 
Live daily 
as if it were your last.
Remember each day
to forget the past.
 
Regard yourself well
and offer reparation.
The chain of love 
has no missing link.
You are closer to God
than your mind can think.
 
The sum of All is One.
You can figure it out
by dividing the difference
of what you must do
and what you think others should.
 
Do that which reveals joy.
Manifest wealth.
 
Do that which feels good.
Manifest health.
 
If you must resist a temptation,
resist the temptation to judge.
 
Give to others
a loving nudge.
 
Let peace be your passion.
Make charity a priority.
Respect each other
with clarity and sobriety.
You will be happy and wise
and always a majority"
 
Jesus offered namaste
and smiled again,
"Know that our hearts 
are forever entwined.
My blood runs in your veins.
 
Remember who you are 
and mind not the lies 
you may have been taught.
Think no fear and fear no thought.
 
God's Love lives
every where you look.
The key to all locks,
in every word
in every book.
Guiding your sight
and giving you wisdom
to see All can be right.
 
Meditate on my words 
but go beyond
these limiting lines.
I kiss your face gently
Ee'r the sun shines.

In dark of night
I burn in you 
ever lasting
inner light.
 
Love's language composes you
and sings your song forever.
God provides all Ways
and is always
willing to deliver.
 
Sow a spiritual garden.
Tend to the seed.
Focus on knowing
that All get their need.
Let go of limitations,
God provides as you believe.
My smile is yours for the seeing.
The Universe appears as you perceive.
God's Love is present in every being.
Give to others what you would receive."
Jesus came back 
and everyone smiled.
A smile from knowing
God within. 
Me and You
and every child.
 
Comments, criticism and hugs welcome.
 
© 2004-2023 by Rob Chavez