Dream: The Bicycle Cop

[Note: The poem was seeded by a dream I had in the morning before I left Romania, at the end of three weeks in Europe.]  

 

Dream: The Bicycle Cop

 

I fail my bicycle safety test.

I get my bicycle fixed;

This time, the bicycle passes

But the police officer fails me:

He’s obtained my medical records

And an x-ray of my back

Shows too much arthritis there.

 

He says my bicycle riding days are over;

It’s too damaging to my back.

 

I’m outraged, how dare he take away

My right to ride my bike?

I fear I’ve lost another bit of me.

Maybe I’ll defy the order,

Ride my bike anyway.

 

But here’s the thing:

I don’t even own a bicycle;

I gave it to a mental health

Bicycle charity in Glasgow

Before we left Scotland.

So why does my heart break

At this loss?

 

 

As I drift in and out of sleep

In the early morning

I imagine getting a bike,

To ride around Lodi

Like the unhoused folks do.

Or maybe a three-wheeler,

Like my old English teacher,

after he retired.

 

A young Romanian student

Drives me to the airport.

She has her bicycle in the boot.

She thanks me for the words I said

Proposing a role for poetry in EFT.

I read her the first section of this dream-poem.

 

We reflect on the feeling of riding a bicycle,

Scenery sliding by,

The sense of freedom;

I say, running is like that too.

She asks if I’m planning to return to Romania.

I don’t know, I say. 

 

 

The unspoken truth is this:

Although the spirit is willing,

The knees are weak;

The hills are steep,

The bicycle passed to someone else.

I don’t know how many more

Of these trips I have in me.

 

So: When will I come this way again?

Maybe never;

There are so many places, after all.

And now I walk instead of ride my bike.

 

But the words I’ve written?

I do think, some of them at least,

Will be read here, will safely cycle

Through this and many other places.

 

I want to say to her,

Here: I leave you my words,

Hoping they will help you find

Your way forward,

Even if I come no more

This way again.

 

                      -For Oana; July 2025; Bucharest-Lodi

 

For Bernadette Walter: Brave Mama Bear

 [Note: Off and on, formally and informally, Bernadette Walter has served as the Executive Officer of the Society for Psychotherapy Research for most of the past 20 years. A couple weeks ago, during SPR's annual meeting in Krakow, Poland, we celebrated her for her long service, as she stepped down from this position for a well-deserved rest.  Two friends and colleagues, Felicitas Rost and Shigeru Iwakabe, asked me to say a few words to her during the conference banquet, and the result was the following poem. -Robert Elliott]

Like me, you first came to SPR

Wide-eyed with wonder,

Like entering an enchanted forest,

And came out changed,

Part of something larger than yourself.

 

As the decades passed,

You grew up, in and with SPR,

Met people important to you,

Made life-long connections.

 

You’ve found yourself a home here,

In this forest of intersecting

Plants, paths and people,

Among the ever-branching lines of research:

Some of them are passing fads, like ferns

That rise up for a season and are gone;

Others are more like towering redwoods

That rise up out of sight and mind.

 

But I like to imagine that your favorite SPR trees

Are most like mighty oaks,

Generously branching, filling the forest

Providing shade and shelter,

Plentiful with leaves and acorns.

 

For twenty years or more, you’ve roamed

This forest like a tutelary spirit:

Watching, protecting, keeping track

Sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially,

But always there, careful and caring,

loving the forest

And its many different creatures:

Big and small,

Shy and delicate,

Careful and heedless,

Caring and self-absorbed;

You’ve loved us all.

 

Like a mother bear,

You’ve watched over us,

Recognizing and appreciating

The wise and foolish of us,

Fierce and determined to do what is right,

To deal fairly, to meet crises, losses,

Opportunities and possibilities.

 

And as you’ve done this,

You’ve grown wise, strong and brave,

And we’ve grown, too, under your watch,

Living out our potential to use

Our knowledge and skill

To make the wider world better,

To use our many gifts to help

Those suffering in mind and spirit.

 

But now after many seasons

It’s time for you to step back,

To open the way

For a new generation of guardian bears.

 

And you’ve left the forest in good shape:

The paths are there, the scary dark places

Have been thinned and opened to the light

As it slants down through the trees;

The risks and possibilities have been mapped.

 

You have made the forest ready

For whatever comes next;

For the new bears,

Who are carrying forward

Your courage, wisdom, and love.

 

And also for all of us forest animals

You’ve protected and watched over for so long.

We are grateful and carry you

In our hearts and minds.

 

                        -Krakow, June 2025

 

Birthdays and Memories

[My dear friend Art Bohart wrote the following as a present for my 75^th birthday last week. I’m pleased to post it here as a counterpoint to the poem “Seventy-Five”, which I wrote and posted here earlier this week. -Robert]

 

Today

My friend is turning 75

And having a birthday party.

I remember when I turned 75.

I staged my 85^th birthday party

Just in case I didn’t live

Till 85. Robert and Diane came

To help me celebrate.

Sadly, I will not be there today

To help them celebrate.

 

This writing is about some of our times.

It is also about Time. Time,

The great haunter of life.

I think of Time like sheets of wind

Filled with rain. I do not know why.

Through the mist I see “shadows of the things

That once were.” They still are, deep in

My unconscious. I see Robert and Les

Coming up to tell me how much they

Liked my presentation at the Person-Centered Conference

In Leuven, way back in 1988.

Can I really see so far back?

I was 45. I was just (belatedly) starting

My academic career after my earlier one

Of turmoil and neurosis.

Their praise meant the world to me

And gave me the confidence to think

That I had something to say.

I am not sure I’d be where I am today

Without them.

 

Fast forward to 1996. Another shadow

Out of the mist appears.

I am sitting with Robert and Les.

Robert and Les are talking about their new book:

The formal birth of emotion-focused therapy,

A new direction in humanistic therapy,

Perhaps even a saving of humanistic therapy,

A savoring of humanistic therapy.

It is the only humanistic therapy that makes a

Major dent.

Even though I am a person-centered therapist,

It is the one I recommend to most students if

They want to practice as a humanistic therapist.

 

As the slide show through the mist progresses,  

Rome comes into view.

Robert is now a tour guide.

I, who am “public transport handicapped,”

Have planned no trips around Rome.

Robert, who is public-transport literate,

Rescues me. I tag along while he and Diane

Take us by bus and subway and bus

To the see the catacombs.

The next night we roam Rome by foot.

We see cathedrals and fountains and enjoy

A dinner together in the cool evening

After a day of hot sun.

That hot sun brings back the tortured memory

Of how we suffered together on a bus tour we took

In the blazing heat to the Colisseum and nearby ruins.

Diane had to sit down for awhile while I could barely stand.

It was so hot I cannot remember enjoying anything. Did we see where

Caesar is buried? If so, so what? By then I couldn’t care less.

 

Memories of a friend who enriched my experience

Painted into my memory

Coming now as time becomes precious.

I thank him for all the research that has enriched

My understanding of psychotherapy,

All the contributions he has made to methodology

Which helped me escape the strait jacket of positivism.

The development of a revolutionary form of humanistic therapy,

Which has expanded my consciousness of possibility,

The moments of friendship I and Karen have shared

With him and Diane.

If my life were a tapestry, hung somewhere in a

Mythical corridor of a mythical inner museum,

And it is, there would be all these experiences

Painted in, from the years 1989 to the present.

Like those old tapestries that told a story.

He has enriched my life story.

 

And now the show moves forward.

 

Time grows short. In some places hopes for the future grow dim.

The future looks darker.

Still, as we venture into the unknown

I am glad to have him and Diane as traveling companions.

 

Seventy-Five: Questions and Answers

 [I wrote this poem to mark my 75th birthday a couple of days ago. If you prefer, here is a link to a video of me reading it: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zxk8cfmeyhh6oehky9kl8/20250531_220555000_iOS.MOV?rlkey=ffbj59vwahqro27akepito3n9&dl=0] 

 

1  Memento Mori [Often translated as: "Remember you must die"]

 

I’ve already written so much about my life

And my manner of  dealing with my eventual death --

Ignore? Delay? Bargain? Face?  --

That as this milestone approached I thought

I’d nothing more to say… Wrong!

Death is eternal. It’s always with us.

 

Looking back, I see I’ve pulled a Jedi mind trick

On myself:

I’ve imagined my death, to get me to live:

To do good, to make a better world.

To touch and be touched by the lives of others,

To leave a legacy of inspiration and connection.

 

I’ve defined myself by this contest with death,

Racing through life to accomplish enough:

As if by running fast enough

I could outrun my end,

Make an end run,

Like going to warp-speed in Star Trek.

 

As if by being good enough:

Faithful, sinless, self-sacrificing,

I could out-saint my ceasing.

 

As if by believing hard enough:

in something else -- eternal life?,

God?, the Eschaton? Some Grand Simulation

Of all of us? – I could out-believe

My inevitable end.

 

But all of this now seems silly,

Vanity, and chasing after wind: 

As if the point was to make

An impressive performance,

To convince me and you.

 

 

2  Vita plena ["Full Life"]

 

Now, as I reach three-quarters of a century

I find this life-long strategy has broken down:

Oddly, I no longer feel so afraid

Of my own and others’ deaths.

This puzzles me:

Where has my lifetime of anxiety gone?

 

Am I now finally inured to my fear of death?

Have I rubbed it down to numbness,

Even worn it out? Has my fear of nothingness

Finally come to nothing? 

Am I even the same person that I was

When I first began my career of fear?

 

Perhaps it’s all that I’ve accomplished

In my own, one life: Articles, books,

Scouting the frontiers of psychotherapy research

The science-y fiction of imagining a new

Kind of therapy, new ways of helping,

Or better: old ways made new, returning

To the lasting ways of seeing, doing,

And being with each other.

 

Or perhaps it’s family: The amazing family

From which I’ve sprung; strong, stubborn,

Visionary, inspiring both me and others

To see farther, to craft better.

Treasuring my siblings, each exemplary

In their own way. Together, we’ve seen

Our parents through their dying, filling

These shared memories with meaning.

 

And the amazing family Diane and I

Have grown up with:

We growing ourselves as parents,

As our two sons grew themselves to adults,

And our grandchildren now grow themselves

Into young adults.

 

Truly it has been a life full of incident,

As if to say:

I wasn’t just sitting around, you know!

Maybe the specifics of what happened are not

As important now as they once seemed:

Who did what to whom, and why?

But I do know that it’s been a life full,

Rich and intense, like a fine glass

Of petite sirah wine.

 

 

 

3  Quid Nunc? ["What now?"]

 

All this now leaves me with more questions:

How will I keep myself motivated to work

So hard, if the stakes are not life or death?

 

As two new-old friends we saw yesterday

Asked us: What is next for you?

What is important for you now?

 

I think what they meant was:

How will you use your remaining time

Between now and your death?

And are those projects that have occupied you for so long:

The psychotherapy and research writing,

The organizational work

(Let Emotion-Focused Therapy thrive!),

The training and supervision, and yes, even

The bits of therapeutic work.  Do you

Really want to continue doing these things

Indefinitely, until you fall over?

 

I wasn’t happy with my answer then,

Nor am I satisfied now: A book project?

To develop my poetry? Science fiction?

Spending more time with our grandkids.

Protesting against autocracy.

All worthy goals but maybe not the point.

 

I told them: This is the very question

I’m struggling with in this poem:

I’m working on it!

And then our time ran out.

 

What I do know is that these are important questions,

Questions worth asking, even if good enough

Answers have not yet arrived, or possible.

 

So I sat and savored this conversation, rich

And intense, like a glass of petite sirah,

And the inkling of some answers came into focus:

 

 

4  Responsio ["Answer"]

 

If I’m honest, I’m sure what’s

Taken the sting from death is this:

A deep sense that we’re all connected,

Each to each, more deeply than we can ever say.

You live in me, and I live in you:

Past, present, future,

Quantumly entangled.

 

Difference, privilege, marginality, imposing

Our will on unwilling others:  All of these

Are vanity, and chasing after wind.

 

Instead, it’s kindness I seek.

The true JEDI mind trick

Is justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

To look for greater connection to each other,

to make our shared joy more,

And the pain we cause less?

 

This is worth living for,

Even after three quarters of a century.

 

                

-Robert Elliott; Lodi, California; 31 May 2025 

 

 

Etymological Haibun for Deacon Tom

 [Note: There are many interesting, caring and compelling folks at St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Lodi, California. Tom Hampson has been deacon there since early 2020, and in many ways has made us feel welcome there and in the Central Valley more generally. Last Sunday the congregation there celebrated his time among us and marked his retirement. He has supported my poetic efforts and so it is appropriate that I mark his retirement with the following poem.]

 

Haibun is a Japanese literary form combining prose (often about a journey) and one or more haiku, in this case: 5½. The haiku are often shorter than standard (for example 12 syllables).

 

Word journey: If we listen, the deep roots of the English word “deacon” can tell us a lot about Tom Hampson, St. John’s deacon for the past five and a half years. The word deacon comes to us through Latin from the Koine Greek diakonos, originally meaning “servant”, used in the early church to refer to a “servant of the church”, specifically a person who assists the priest or does the Gospel reading. The Greek diakonos in turn comes from dia, meaning “thorough” or “from all sides” and konos, meaning “to endeavor or try”. Travelling back in time even further to about 5,000 years ago, we get to the source of konos: a Proto-Indo-European root *ken-, meaning “to set oneself in motion”. A little-used contemporary cognate in English is “conation,” a fancy word for will or motivation.

 

Haiku  1: (for animal lovers:)

Old shepherd leaves [4]

Flock: Lost? Sheep dog stays, (5)

Knows flock well [3]

 

Haiku  2 & 2½:

(theological, Gospel of John:)

Church servant tries [4]

To be everywhere: [5]

Feed my lambs [3]

 

            (alternate version:)

Church servant tries [4]

To be everywhere: [5]

Risks burn-out [3]

 

Double Haiku  3&4: (philosophy of action:)

Act of will [3]

Deacon connects Being [6]

And Doing [3]

 

Makes through-line, [3]

Anchors us through times [5]

of test and change [4]

 

Haiku  5: (good-bye:)

So much action [4]

And serving. Time to rest? [6]

Sheep are OK [4]

Dear Me

[Flash poem in response to prompt: Letter to Self, 26 April 2025:] 

Dear me!

What are you doing back here again,

After 50-plus years?

Do you think you can go back in time?

Is there something unfinished

From your last time here,

Something that needs fixing,

After such a life in between?

 

Is it that you fear

You might have become,

A dreary me?  A weary me,

Who longs to return

To their source?

Who hopes for a renewal, a restoration

Of the lost time: that lost self?

 

But don’t you know:

You have always been enough,

Then, so many years ago, 

At this college in the redwoods,

And, yes, even now.

 

-Robert Elliott

Crown College, UC Santa Cruz, class of 1972

 

The Dark, Long Night

Note: This poem is my first political poem after over 50 years of poetry-writing about personal and psychological processes. It is an attempt to face and address our current political polarization through an act of radical empathy. The opening image of the poem came to me in a dream, which then seeded the rest of the poem, with the two sides portrayed like opposing choruses in an ancient Greek play or in two dialoguing aspects of a person in a piece of psychotherapeutic two-chair work.

  

1. Blow it Up!

In my dream we are milling around

In the torch-lit night,

Full of crowds of people chanting his name,

Playing dice with dictatorship.

 

Democracy is a distant abstraction

Dying a death of despair,

Heedless, unhearing,

Its promises bankrupted by greed

Broken by promises not kept

By wrongs, ancient and modern,

Allowed to fester,

Shot up with the heroin of false hopes.

 

But the people in this party are celebrating,

A carnival atmosphere,

Exciting, full of lights and illusions.

And the people cry out,

In furious jubilation:

 

We have this feeling that

We used to be the center

Of the universe.

But we’ve lost so much;

It hurts so much.

If this is how things are going to be, then:

Blow it up!

 

We’re sick all those fancy people

Looking down on us,

They think they know better than us;

But they know nothing.

Blow it up!

 

He gets us, when no one else does.

He cares about us, when no one does.

He makes us feel good, when no one else does,

And everything else in our life feels like crap.

Blow it up!

 

When everyone hates him

And thinks he’s a dangerous fool,

An autocrat or a narcissist,

We know how he feels.

We are his, and he is ours:

When everyone else looks down on us for loving him,

Blow it up!

 

All I know is: Every year

Is worse than the last.

We’ll never get out of this ever-deepening pit,

And our children: It will be worse for them.

Blow it up!

 

At least he will do something, anything;

He’s going to break things that need to be broken.

So we can rejoice in the chaos and carnage,

Because we have no illusions:

What could be worse than how things have been?

Blow it up!

 

Our only hope of getting

Where we need to be

Is going to be

To keep our faith in him

And to fight his enemies, who are our enemies,

To force the new dawn of OUR new day.

But to get there: First, we must:

Blow it up!

 

 

2. Let’s Raise Each Other Up!

 

This is bad enough,

But I can’t seem to wake up

From this bad dream.

And I have a feeling that

It is going to be

A dark, long night.

 

Yet there is one thing I do know:

I need to look around me,

For friends, for company

To get me through the dark, long night.

And there they are,

In a chorus of still, small voices,

Singing this:

 

We have no illusions:

We know this night is just beginning

And will be dark and long. So:

Let’s raise each other up!

 

For so long, we’ve lived in the margins

We didn’t have much,

But we did have hope

That things were finally

Turning for the better,

When everyone could say,

Let’s raise each other up!

 

So we look out and see

All these other lonely, different,

Marginalized people, looking back at us,

Hoping for a friend.

Lost and confused,

We don’t know everything,

But at least we know this:

Let’s raise each other up!

 

They get me, and I get them.

They want to know about me

And I want to know about them;

We can care about each other

And help each other feel good

When things feel like crap. So:

Let’s raise each other up!

 

When the people who are

Going to run things now

Despise us for being woke, or gay, or trans,

Or different, or foreign or undocumented,

And for loving each other,

Wise, each in our own ways,

Let’s raise each other up!

 

It’s scary and painful,

With every year likely

To be worse than the last

In this ever-deepening pit. So:

Let’s raise each other up!

 

And the other-Others,

Our siblings in pain:

Even those who sing his praises

And hope for their special dawn,

It will be worse for them, also. So:

Let’s raise them up, too!

 

If we join together,

And don’t give in to despair or hate,

And don’t other, each other,

At least we can do something

To raise each other up!

 

Our only hope of getting through this,

Is going to be holding on

To our faith in each other

Through this dark, long night,

Believing in the possibility of dawn,

Where things can be better for all of us,

Than they are now,

If only we don’t forget:

Let’s raise each other up!

 

                                                            (version: November 2024, Pleasanton)