07 Wednesday Mar 2018
A frog in the front garden,
between snow storms,
has much to say:
First, forget the plans-
they were a ruse anyway.
Second, recall sunrise
and the songbirds’ melodious chittering.
Third, fourth, fifth,
forget the numbers,
holding on is holding back.
And then he busts into chorus
the whole warm night through
and a memory of what’s to come
sands a path deep into sleep,
wishing a good slumber
to one and to all~
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?
03 Wednesday Aug 2016
How is it your lips found mine
from a thousand miles,
in that sudden night warmth that wraps a person
in some late, dark fogs
while salt foam hisses closer up the sand?
How is it, stranger,
there’s familiarity in the creases on your face,
the new color of your eyes?
Proper ones on a beach
may never know
what every particle of sand and
hidden star understands.
There’s this,
now,
nothing more-
the breaking, dying, spinning, softening, flowering..
It doesn’t get easier, or more beautiful.
Following fear
knocks agony into coves where
it never belonged.
Thank goodness for wind.
09 Monday May 2016
the first memory,
a fear of ghosts,
might choke you in your sleep.
wake up.
one step forward with a little foot
and another,
and another with your foot, not so small-
recall your body
to pierce darkness inhabited
by the terrifying,
and purposely forgotten.
wake up!
repossess what’s yours, kid.
throw your little arms out into night’s gullet,
rid the rotting presence rising
from beyond the grave.
we’ll approach together.
your journey neither begins
nor ends
trembling in a spindle bed
below third floor timbers,
its vacancy above met
by broad staircase
channeling
down
what no one else will face.
07 Saturday May 2016
In the dark unfolding familiar
and friendless place
where place began,
a necessary and
deceptive
seed was planted.
Nourishing form, forgetting spirit,
growing grew and suckers spread.
A viral overload threatened.
Silently
soil
fed
resistance.
Until…
One day,
she runs.
From sick enclosure out into night,
thinly covered,
taking nothing, no shoes,
she bolts in a snap of a now! beyond
hallways, doors, gates,
with pounding heart, searchlight eyes, flying hair,
bare feet slapping pavement,
escaping by back ways known
intimately as the corners of her old room.
Rushing behind houses, through hedges,
ducking limbs, all chance of observance
and grabbing dominion.
Outside the limits,
with no objects to keep her,
by her own deliverance
she finds
her true way Home.
17 Thursday Mar 2016
How searing the Darkness.
Sights, dismissed, rise
through earthquaking uplift,
making smaller even
the microstrains of normalcy.
Withholding time from the forgotten,
the never known,
ends
when what had been thrown aside speaks,
“I am you.”
Thank the breath still given and
every fiber of your being
for the strength
to bring the orphaned and hated and dispossessed
close enough
to see the pain in their eyes,
and to assemble what Light
does soothe.
28 Sunday Feb 2016
We played with our shadows on the far riverbank,
and danced to droning rhythms under redwoods,
my sister and I that night.
Nothing we couldn’t touch, that didn’t touch us,
with laughter, stars and river song
mixing our blood
and pleasing our bones.
Out of mud and desire,
family creates itself.
16 Monday Nov 2015
Bathed by cricketsong
in dying light,
tiny apples burst round on the limb.
Fall swoops
like twilight bats
and trails of smoky ritual.
Guided by questions,
a door opens,
letting the irrational and mysterious
walk through.
I offered you rage.
You returned it as fertility.
Thank you.
21 Wednesday Oct 2015
The imprint of the dream,
a sudden waking
a gasp
an “oh my god” and
you return
to the surface
from a who-knows-where and
a deep
dive
down
carrying now
a dancing fish.
Upon the glass, a reflection.
Through the glass, a being.
Beyond the glass-
a destination calling you forth.
Without end
begins
with accepting the task
that brought you here.
12 Monday Oct 2015
For the shes,
for the women who held in reserve everything but
what they betrayed in the fathoms of their eyes,
I dance for you,
let my laid-down hair fly
and skin sweat rivers
underarm and between thigh.
My laugh is the wild thing you withheld
and the leap it was never safe
for you to take.
The salt this body gives up,
one gift I can give.
Carry me to where your bones rest,
I’ll bring the skull I’ve been handed
when calling guides from the directions.
You’ve yet to reach my dreams
but when you do
I know
your unpinned hair will be the least
of what you bring to night sleep.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 