a prayer,
this fog before
the dawn, crunchy
leaves so light
on the old elm
ignites wildfire
in the blue hour
dry | scattered
who couldn't
let go
and awakened
full but still thirsty
before the sun
could release
the moon's edge.
Like a river
effortlessly, truth
takes many turns
and hand-over-hand in
darkness, thoughts:
soot and smoke
on the water,
pray a choice
of stillness
despite.
And of freedom, a
life not owned
by shadow,
shake
instead like all things
shocked must do
as all living is shocked
until nothing of old
leaves any ember
that may spark/
even hope
and the cruelty
or the way
smiling
can be a rebellion
when loved have gone-
pray any fire,
a peacemaker
if the rebellion
must go on.
And for the wailing cat
hungry mouth
and mangy
coat
too messy
to grow love
or to have a
warm hand
upon it,
pray, too;
for daisy chains,
crowns on would-be
princesses and princes,
for baby frogs in pencil
cases, and lizards
clamped on
sweaty
ears
because
the children's play
is survival
and to smile at the abyss
at its ferocity, then
because we are fierce,
the same.
But, pray especially
for paper dolls
torn with rough edges,
the square pegs
in round holes
that they know
who they are
and are curious
of what they are not-
a rain held as it grows
having been brave
to accept their
beauty,
and that of others/
knowing need.
Pray for the thirst
the blue hour
sparks
every line of every
hill, clear as the
moon’s edge
when the sun so close
will soon arrive
or soon go,
a time to shake free.
Tag: hope
creases
like this-
barely shadows
thin clouds across
the sun
in a palm
and a brew
of lightning on
night sky
or love in sudden
tense regard,
bright and bitter
in the doorway
waiting to go
or leave
is how I remember.
Ghost in the door,
palm with its
reminders,
a mouth
closed
too tight-
all a storm
dark and a little
sweet
in its making
somewhere
along the Atlantic.
And this,
the reason
to go when I ran,
maybe
yellow could be
like dahlias
and black just
professional attire/
not reminders
to re-mind again
that the cracked
walk, the fractured
frown following –
a memory of
monsters
of grief and
abandonment
now held
in the bones that
must be un-done
and how tiring.
Could sing
unkempt and
broken vowels
like the hair that
wasn’t combed and
spoke instead
that the heart
is red, and bloody
but so quietly
and of fiery dreams
set ablaze
to burn hotter
than the very thing
that could have
taken them away
if not taken in a hand/
the broken relics
to find.
In the night
a coyote runs
along a river
telling the pack
how he runs
and I run with him
for awhile
every belief
left unchallenged
the held heart
shrieking to
be free,
to love.
Gray cloud,
same old, same
old ghost in
the palm,
in the fading lines
of barely there
maybe
a bright moon,
maybe a white moth
on the tufted ear
of an owl.
in caves
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.
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.
Credo.
I believe in the soft, distracted smile
turning my way and the girl who
draws vines on her white Keds
in permanent marker.
I believe in stately trees and turning
pages beneath their boughs
with searching hands.
The adept hand signing, “hello”
when there are no words to be heard
or knitting colorful yarns on
telephone poles. I believe
in gardenias that bloom between
the alley and the sun, the sounds
of Cohen from someone’s kitchen.
I believe god
is held in the mouths
of philosophers and children:
that beliefs are dangerous without
love and art is an act of goodwill.
I believe in ethics and the
responsibility of leadership but even more
in the resiliency of the human spirit
like a ghostly pounding heart
as we sleep.
I believe in the spaces between:
in pauses and think-backs and could be’s,
especially in “perhaps” and
I believe in the dog’s paw
that smells like sugar cookies
now that we are family.
I believe we should be careful
of words like, “inconvenience.”
I believe in the storytellers and song-
makers and especially in grandmothers
watching mothers turn the page.
I believe in simplicity of
needs: the hand that must be
held and the mouth that
must be fed. And, the
needs that go untended,
the boy clutching his teddy
as he dreams.
I believe in the untenable
breadth of the universe
and the starlit dust
inbetween it all. I believe
‘god’ is in the trees
and the wave tumbling
towards the shore and
the eyes of strangers.
us, mirror
The way of a mind like a seed
on the wind floats up
instead of with the wind
somehow, or people born
wedged in sidewalk cracks
deep away from the sun
know where happiness
resides tumbling
upon its arrival:
in this I feel almost
a lucky misfit.
Even a self divided is
scattered like pages
lost within the house
with no binding.
I see windows in every room
that inform nothing except
where I have arrived from,
and, I, in every room
stitch a binding, day-
in and out, am
surrounded by a puzzle
of words on paper.
But aren’t us the
song? Aren’t us the
dream and
attuned to truth:
the paradox of remaining
genuine when a melody
unfolding.
In Due Proportion 