Poetry

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I Am Home

They taught me to be alone That my reflected eyes Know how to hold me in compassion Through the cool glass of a mirror That my own arms Could wrap around my ribs Gripping the bones of my shoulders As I unconsciously rock my body To some forgotten and trusted rhythm That my voice could murmur so quietly From the depths within my throat Sounding through the soft static in my ears Where only I could hear these susurrations Vibrating through my inner spirals Yet, too many times I left this place To escape annihilation That I became it myself Lost to my own survival Return me to my body Each toe touching into the trust Of earth and ground Each breath opening my chest To the consistency of the movement Between time and stillness Each finger holding my face up To shine in the steady warmth Of the sun dutifully returning each morning I find this home within me I create this and find it has always been I fall to me knees in humble gratitude Knowing that love and a gentle holding Are always within me

They taught me to be alone
That my reflected eyes
Know how to hold me in compassion
Through the cool glass of a mirror

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It’s the lessons of grief That seek to allow an openness to love The mourning mother whose whelming heart floods Well beyond the reach of her empty arms As she grasps at piled earth and open air Where her fingertips once brushed stray strands out of eyes Tucked the tendrils back behind ears As though she was tucking each hair snuggly into bed at night How does she do that now Where does she channel her endless devotion Where this abyss now stands In shadowed reflection Don’t turn away Don’t recoil There is a forever to be loved here Even in this inevitable impermanence The blood spills Ephemeral The heart beats Even after it has bled out Eternal We never stop loving Grief is the learning of where to put that love Once our beloved has changed, moved, died No longer receiving our love as they once did The outpouring must be known As an endless river Unable to be held back by dams It must flow Where are your dry river beds Pour out into the hollows and valleys Love into the gaping void that remains Find the eternity of love in this way And I know My beloved may Leave Die Change So might I And still I know Once I love It is forever It flows through My open hands My open heart And overflows From these beloved chasms

Beloved Chasms

It’s the lessons of grief
That seek to allow an openness to love
The mourning mother whose whelming heart floods
Well beyond the reach of her empty arms

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All of my passions come landing here Muted In the soft whisper of finger tips tracing along The hollows of cheekbones The bowing ridge of brows My soul unfolding into another’s Piercing fixed gaze My feathered pneuma Is traveling like a flighted bird Into those ocular portals In through a house of turning corridors And doors around corners It’s following the coolness of a draft Through blind turns These thumping wings just a whisper Quiet Where can such passions set down gently When even delicate avian claws Seek to sink in

Silent Maze

All of my passions come landing here
Muted
In the soft whisper of finger tips tracing along
The hollows of cheekbones

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I dug under the town’s cobblestone streets Beneath the sidewalks where children ran laughing Into a toy shore shaped like the dollhouse That my mother gave away And I found the names I lost Carved into marble and stone So many faded plastic flowers Showing that even feigned nature Submits to the passage of time And that all remains In some othered way

Untitled

I dug under the town’s cobblestone streets
Beneath the sidewalks where children ran laughing
Into a toy shore shaped like the dollhouse
That my mother gave away

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When I was so far from the sea I asked her for her rhythm of water upon rocks She brought me to a roaring waterfall The steady torrent Of unyielding water Over ancient striations of stone Sound thundering in my ears I asked her, where is the rhythm in this overwhelming deluge And she patiently sat with me First, there is the one you know you are seeking So quiet beneath the flowing tumult Notice it softly on the rugged banks How the currents lap against the shale This is the pulsing rhythm of your heart and breath Next, feel the vibration from the ground in your feet So vigorous in its energies See how the nearby leaves tremble on the shuddering tree branches How the plunging water reverberates both in earth and air This is the resonating rhythm of your spirit and your soul Last, come here again over the days, months, and years So much changing for you both Watch how the outpouring surges in the heaving of storms How the flows grow cold and still in the dark of winter This is circular rhythm of your birth, seasons, and death I share all of this, that you might harken to the cycles of all things

Waterfall

When I was so far from the sea
I asked her for her rhythm of water upon rocks
She brought me to a roaring waterfall
The steady torrent

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Creator, Caretaker

For all my love of the wilds
I keep returning to the gardens
Where human hands have touched at nature
With the creative imagination of God

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They don’t think to warn you of the quiet creaking closing of internal doors The slow gathering of mangled twigs catching in the creeks In the places it wants to bend And turn The low smoke plumes that hang listless over the city In still winter nights when the sky has gone stagnant And, of course, what do I know of their wood stoves And fireplaces How to open the flue And clean out the soot When I smell the burning I feel hot spinning winds around me The contrast of the dryness of air stretched against my dewy lips The golden hills rippling with ribbons of licking flames along the curves Wafting swells of gray clouds blustering up into the seething hazes The outstretched limbs of scorched trees splayed open As their leaves catch aglow in their searing ruination I feel the fallen acorn in the ashes As it touches its first green shoot down into the fecund soils Drinking the rare drops Sheltered from the grinding sun Throughout all that changes The stillness and storms I am anchored here underground In and under This is where you will find me

Distance of the Fire Season

They don’t think to warn you of the quiet creaking closing of internal doors
The slow gathering of mangled twigs catching in the creeks
In the places it wants to bend
And turn

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I want to feel myself in the rhythm I want the ocean waves pounding themselves against the glistening rocks Reaching as far as they can out from the waters Like open hands Before falling back to surge again I want the steady wind of passion heaving in my expanding chest My lungs taking in everything Like a fully billowed sail Before sighing out to breathe again I want the firm thumping of birds wings against the the crisp sky Feathers spread wide open over the air Like rays bursting from the sun Before folding back into the body to flap again I want my hot blood to pulse in the throbbing of my heart Flooding through my every vein Like a watershed in a storm Before nourishing my cells to beat again I want the setting sun to plunge into the clouds on the horizon Lighting the atmosphere with a kaleidoscope of hues Like a rainbow bleeding in heaven Before succumbing to the night to rise again I want to feel the birth and death Of the cycles Of the seasons Am I ever so alive As when I’ve tasted life Trusted death And opened into what has yet to become

Rhythm

I want to feel myself in the rhythm
I want the ocean waves pounding themselves against the glistening rocks
Reaching as far as they can out from the waters
Like open hands

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