Vanishings

08 Friday Mar 2024

Posted by in death, poems, poetry

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When death meets you

long before memory remembers,

wrapping tender and dark tendrils

around your heart,

a shadow casts upon all that follows.

Inexplicably.

Without reason the most beloved people,

one after another after another,

disappear.

And the pain nearly kills you.

Vanishings become a lifetime of dancing,

red shoes stuck to your tired feet,

exhaustion pulling your heart toward the edge,

right up to the moment when you find out:

The she you could not have named,

She died.

And you were with her through the end.

Ghosts haunt lifetimes.

We reach back

17 Saturday Feb 2024

Posted by in daughter, generations, poems, poetry

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We reach back in the generations,

untangling threads,

and wonder over familiar terrain,

hunting fruit-bearing trees never noticed

before.

But before

was when the wood was too green,

flowers knocked off by freeze,

bees unable to work their magic–

harvest waiting for the right season.

I wander the woods

after sharing those stories again and again,

ones asking unanswerable questions,

sensing the complexity of things.

I did not know,

until now,

I am the winged one

returning to the grove

to hum between pink petals

and play my part

in the fecundity of my ancestors.

Ancestors

whose bones move beneath this skin,

whose bones make blood

carrying me to the end of my days.

No other way

17 Saturday Feb 2024

Posted by in offering, poems, poetry, transformation

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Watching the weather come in

through breaking light,

February flowering trees moving

below with the wind,

I can’t recall the bird I heard last night.

Sleep dropped hard–thank god–and

dreams of a friendly pockmarked face

and who he was.

I’m small here beneath swirling sky,

flea to the breathing animal I try

to rest upon.

I’ve no idea what’s coming.

Somehow, with birth arrived a tossing of

security

for a life that wouldn’t crush my soul.

I know no other way.

And don’t think I want to.

Rise

30 Saturday Dec 2023

Posted by in approaching, beauty, becoming, movement, poems, poetry

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They rise to the occasion,

the ones you called

to a come-to-Jesus–(minus the Jesus)–and,

truly,

they break bread and drink wine.

With you.

For the first time.

Mountains of stone become sand.

Standing centuries diminish to an hour:

Movement.

You initiated it and

rise, they do;

an occasion

holding both

life

and death

because, really, how damned much time

do we have?

Really.

Grapes, and the blessing,

the bleeding,

of injury and heart,

must not be

wasted.

Moments of chance,

swim up

to our lightly closed fists.

Let the bright, fluid young creatures in.

This may be the last.

And nothing like living waters

ushers in a new year.

Upwelling.

A little

18 Saturday Nov 2023

Posted by in community, listen, loving, movement, offering, poems, poetry, prayer, presence, rebirth, receiving, return, stillness, welcoming

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We save each other’s lives 

a little

every day.

Follow a pointing finger,

find the child.

Hear a cry never

bellowed,

resolve the ache.

Listen through hands,

to a quaking,

a breaking

of a heart yet again,

and turnings of ages will echo

through bone.

These are callings

answered by few.

Let the unmoved move

with slightest

kindest

deepening

touch,

reach stars buried

and waiting

for a return to dark sky.

We save each other’s lives

a little

every day.

In this is more

than enough.

Lost its own

26 Saturday Aug 2023

Posted by in distance, flight, growing, movement, poems, poetry, question, undone

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Fuchsia smurf hat

and a cashmere scarf,

feet cupped in sheepskin..

it’s August

and far from cold.

Sometimes you hold yourself

in whatever way you can.

The yellow jackets are on full attack,

two stings slowly healing.

Jay carried away a green fig,

no time to pause for sweetness.

The boundaries have become sloshy,

I’m waiting for true definition.

The wait may have lost its own edges.

I will

25 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in dance, grace, mystery, offering, poems, poetry, prayer, presence

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I will dance the confusion,

throw hands into smoke-laden air,

wreak the blockades of form imposed.

Dance the rage,

the rejection,

the finding when seeking’s not done.

Dance the diagnoses, the assumptions,

the warped expectations.

Dance the exploding starburst of my own heart.

What they hear

is not me.

What they see serves

their interests.

The shape of me,

the rhythms, my name–

I will dance it with fingers splayed,

feet lifting

off the ground.

I will throw down my broken song,

its weight and timing and edge.

This is my dance,

the only one I will ever get–

and no other can claim it

but me.

Mimosa blossoms

16 Wednesday Aug 2023

Posted by in change, motion, movement, poems, poetry

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Mimosa blossoms are falling,

pink stars upon the ground.

A greatest turning point has arrived,

no fighting it.

But Beauty tumbles on; Steller’s jay pecks

into the plump dense seed of a hazelnut

still wrapped in its ruffly green,

his strong feet holding it against a branch.

I hear him, though now he’s standing

on the arm of a towering black oak.

A man living on the streets sings

while he walks the sidewalk along the fence.

Triple digits again today, most will be hiding

indoors

as long as air conditioning holds out.

Nothing’s the same.

That’s alright,

Same was a comfortable illusion anyway.

Really

11 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in change, poems, poetry

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Through repeated actions taken

by others you learned

you’re expendable.

Expendable.

.

Stay there.

Hold it,

wait,

hold yourself dear.

Dear.

And open the door to that being–

swing it wide…

Hello, Expendable.

How are you this day?

And,

who are you really?

Really.