12 Sunday Apr 2020
They’ve opened up the moon to mining.
We have opened the moon to be mined.
The news rakes my insides raw.
Somehow it, amid the chaos of now,
pushes so far beyond the line
I can barely stand.
Yet
this is where we are.
And what tiny thread appears for me to follow,
thin as for sewing on a button,
is in total,
Love it while it’s here.
Love it while it’s here.
And, really, might that truly be
our utmost in the end:
Love it, whatever it is, while it’s here.
05 Wednesday Dec 2018
Fine beginnings,
like this one following a night of rain,
keep me staring out the window
even with a juicy book rife with Cassandra, uterus and Spoken
laying open in my lap.
Broken clouds, grey dashed with whipped white,
show palest blue beyond,
and hills across the bay- often obscured- are the storm-lit knees
and craggy thighs of a great woman
resting back in softened arms of earth
growing green.
30 Tuesday Oct 2018
The knots in the wood strong
hands might try
to force flat and out,
erase..
impossible.
The tree has earned those twists and kinks,
hardened, toughened grooves and bubbles,
bulged eyes skilled at a different sight.
Gentle the hand given access
to the yearning, sorrowed places-
they are not to be fixed.
10 Wednesday Oct 2018
Scars
attest to bridges crossed battling dragons,
to threatening rivers entered
that pushed at knees, sucked at ankles.
To deep mountaintop scree, ragged, sharp and steep where
falling
meant death and dismemberment.
We were there,
we know,
we learned.
Yours lay upon your body
differently
than mine;
equally, they shape us.
Scars pulse out of step with the rest.
Each must be attended to,
honored,
for what they give,
for what they gave up.
06 Thursday Sep 2018
Where salt meets sweet,
I sing to the waters.
Where sand holds wave, pelicans slap
great wings,
and solitary duck pops up from below
in a stilled bowl
waiting for winter,
I sing
and Wind joins in,
riffling the surface, ripples reaching
in patterns hypnotic and old.
Sing to the waters,
their reply waits for your greeting among reeds,
rushes, fishes and stone.
28 Tuesday Aug 2018
In the cross-hatch seat of the chair
wooden, dusted in time and use,
a cat
curled
and sleeping.
Looking over at her, floor boards below and sun
reaching through a far window,
doubt can not waver the sweetness
of a morning with feline, coffee, a book
and silence rising from the woods outside.
28 Thursday Jun 2018
Undefined,
perpetually assumed,
the answer to the question
of family legacy.
Is it money?
Name?
Philanthropy?
Power? Fame? Title?
Accomplishment?
Keep digging. It resides
well beyond the surface of things.
Might it be anger, abuse,
enslavement, enslaving, addiction,
a thick poison, barely visible
and acutely sensed?
Might it be secrets held, shames and generations of fear?
Likely, aspects of these remain
and are being carried-
whether chosen or not.
The question then emerges from distant,
unvisited places, whispered
as warm mother to sleeping infant,
And what would it be for you
to transform
such a legacy, slowly, steadily,
with loving devotion
so as to soften- just a little-
the burden of a misunderstood life
with a dash more kindness, and fist full
of intent.
Far from easy, and miles east of glamorous,
that work may be your simple, impossible,
and singular gift
with the breath you borrow
here,
one day at a time.
16 Thursday Nov 2017
Maybe it feels like standing forever in a head-high river current,
yearning.
Yet, igniting moments drop the belly
and lurch steps-
songs jump into hiccups, the nights being
so long.
And the syrup drip into sinews brought about by
–fill in the blank here–
well, if that thing, that other
is not what it’s really about,
what more enticing invitation could possibly surface
asking you
to re-weave yourself
into God?
14 Tuesday Nov 2017
Being caught by gratitude
between yes and no, by was and is,
between having and not,
brings the dance.
Heart suddenly solid, present and strong
like stone, not ice, with loving-
goodbye floods body with needed nectar
for not an awayness or an isolation,
neither a grip nor a grab,
not a mine or a missing or a fright,
but a moving of grace
onward.
30 Saturday Sep 2017
Sorrow pools,
tears break the rim and,
with them, shadow of knowing
that salty drops rise when it matters-
any thing,
something,
this thing-
and a quarter turn brings
appreciation,
saying
stop
in this place, now-
where old meets new
gently
and slow.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 