Sunflowers grow | beneath cliffs, a din heard in the mouth small sound of roots deep, stems bracing waves that crash high like a hand held to the face with eyes closed pauses all of it here, some will arrive by wandering but it is dark and so much unknown to wander freely or consider to stay. We see only their crowns as they breach the unseen, their beginning is close, just a step into a place the sun holds without ever saying, hello/ we could know them: their bright faces petals a happy yellow and lovely, framed in what some would say is joy but they are shaking their heads slowly no, yet again with each rising and setting, they follow from the place they would leave if only these deep roots inch by inch would pull free - Did you know stems grow in the night to the west so the head can sway to the east at sunrise. The stem guides like stars in the night, desert sky are persistent or pollen on a honeybee is small easy to miss but irrefutable/ they, are guided far round cold corners wide, clementine eye, happy and content/ how the heart keeps the mind stays the heart to keep on and the sound in this hidden place, brushing upon damp walls: the wind at the end of its journey over wave and accidentally in this hollow is song like woman who whispers, do not let me break, please but same way, rounds corners and rejoins the sky- wandering you may slide cliffside into deep ocean, not seeing it is a cliff where waves will slam the mark of this place, and will swim near a place dry but dark and cold when no one is around to see you. Wild sunflower grow, long stemmed and leave, I would say this old cave- eventually. Eye following the sun even as it sets with you, no madness or sad keeping of memory but growing round cold walls into the quiet beauty one day, of knowing nothing of the previously known.
Category: Poetry
preservation
In that former innocence
a second sun bloomed
in my heart, and I
tucked dreams
and hopes
within my small fist
a moth within-
I held it
tense,
in careful regard.
Sometimes
I would tear, slightly
a ghostly wing
having
no space
in a hand to
move:
I shook or would
startle.
And so I began
when it was night
and I could hear the
urgency silenced
day-to-day
to still squirrel away
each fold of brain, the
tender stomach
delicate bones of a toe/
all beneath my pillow
where I would remember
whenever
I could rest
and today, there
I hold my hand
in sleep, reaching
feeling
something
alive
in my hands.
paper crane prayer
Blooming in dark alleys these bullets called innocence: children who discover the world sting my eyes these bullets called innocence pepper on the page sting my eyes and they are wet like my father’s when reading, The Little Prince and they are wet between the pages when reading, The Little Prince and I am riddled with responsibility between the pages a crumpled paper crane, a bookmark and I am riddled with responsibility leaning between pages now a pause a crumpled paper crane, a bookmark this tired from saving the world leaning between pages now a pause thinking what kind of story is as good as: this tired from saving the world and knowing/ the beauty of night jasmine thinking what kind of story is as good as: children who discover the world not knowing the beauty is them, blooming in dark alleys.
athena
I will build a bridge
when it is dark
and you cannot see
the mark of your survival
to remind you- take
the birds broken
at your feet where
they rest and sing
to them, humming
in small beaks a song
if you think
they no longer
can hear.
Remember the trophies
we shattered in the dumpster
that night they came in the
mail? – my sadness,
I will hold a fist
to you and pound
until the dirt lifts.
On the night they died and
took truths from which
you were sculpted- I
scaffold the mind in memory
balance upon broken strands
of silk like a spider, and
find the center/
let us read a tale
I saw between the stars
scripting us- it was
just as true
as this tragedy
and build a bridge
of broken trophies and
birds’ wings between
one story and the next.
a moment, still
Seven years ago I lived in the mist and rain of the Olympic Peninsula to walk where wild things walked and lay upon the moss though a spider sunk into my soft stomach. It only hurt momentarily, and regardless, it is never safe to be where it seems safest, where lightning would never touch, waves, could never crash in the long dark of winter- never the crackling cold the moment-stilled heart though days pass. Truth is my hair has been standing on end since I was born from the shock but I comb it smooth and lay across another’s shoulder like a cloak and walking again into the quiet of the Cascades or the Hoh maybe I will find a big, black bear and not be reminded how any moment the sky may fall like hers did unexpected and violent, maybe she was afraid, I keep wondering. I, am sharp flint of ebon eye facing bear, am rock of trembling, St. Helens/ could blow could sleep instead, for awhile peaceful as flowers grow bright upon the back. I think of my tree that is only memory now, how Magdalena strong and twisted could lean into the cold and wild storms, how memory is the willowy heart/ a captured softness to put in a box with her gray eyes and my father’s calloused hands.
magdalena
I ran away to North Carolina after my father died, rented an apartment and wore these black boots, dyed my pretty pink hair back to brown, and got a job at a pet store during the recession. I was enchanted by the fireplace that would warm me and my guy in the bare-limbed winters and it was by a battleground we walked with our dog forested with trees and unmarked graves. I would leave often on my own The Violent Femmes playing on my headphones something about wanting to be sedated, and I found this massive, gnarled tree apart from the rest, twisted and strong, I named her, Magdalena. Many days I’d go walking on my own to sit against the rough bark resting a palm or my cheek and music in my ears to look like I wasn’t just sitting with an old tree/ always I would say, goodbye. <As a child, I once licked the sap of a pine and my tongue went numb/ I did it because I wondered if it tasted like maple syrup> but more to the point I would chase the falling leaves from shaky stems too weak up above I could not see but I would try to catch them sometimes jumping so I wouldn’t miss, to hold the barely-there weight like a baby bird how it was silent the fall how it was innocent. I started to do it again once in awhile awkwardly and maybe a bit defiant/ I put them in a box with a picture of me near the Natural Bridge in Virginia I had given my dad, my pink hair peaking beneath an old beanie, the snowy world looking like a ghost beside me.
habitant
The people we play
the ones remembered
from memory or some story
a ghost beneath the nail we
scratch at hunting fathers'
tender and mothers' dreams
splintered beneath unkindness/
it's the mantle of yesterday
of what is loved and not
yet owned or even known.
Still we choose to be brave
to live a life kinder, flowers are
on the table because we thought
to walk to a garden, coffee brews
on a Saturday morning, little feet
already rushing beneath the sun.
My heart, does
a war rage outside the window?
Are the people who wage it
good? When I blow upon
the palm, even in this
dim light dust looks a little
like stars, and I decide
there the universe is
in my own hand,
and the children receive
this debt, a path lit
by this child we stay,
a joy that is owed.
In Due Proportion 