Monday, September 7, 2015

Closure: A Poem

You are not mine, anymore.
Your love is not the substratum of my everything,
unconditionally holding me in its embrace.
I'm certain I say this to hurt you, 
to make you feel something for me,
even if it is regret, or sorrow, or pain.
For your silence is cruel
and speaks louder than a thousand voices,
and makes me want to know:
how could you love me
yet so easily toss me aside?
Like a piece of trash.
That is how I feel. Disposed. 
You took what you needed from me,
you called it love,
you called me goddess,
but love does not just take and use and 
then discard. 
That is not love.
That is not devotion.
That is not Goddess/God.
That is unconsciousness moving toward itself.
I'm trying still to see the good, to know that
this is my heart waking up,
and this is the beloved coming to prepare me
for love and more love and ever more love.
For the love that moved through me then moves
through me now and needs no validation, no reassurance,
no illusion of safe harbor, no you. It is not yours,
I am not yours.
And you are not mine, anymore.


Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Shrine: a poem

It’s cold again, too soon. Finding warm socks
and my favorite flannel makes me think of you,
as does putting water on for tea, and the quiet
gray of the afternoon. I know this won’t always
be so, and even now my brain is charting new
pathways that won’t lead me to thoughts of you,
and you will get lost in the overgrowth of new.
New life. Lived life. I want to build a shrine 
on the forest path we walked together, a place 
for the winter boots you left behind, the brass 
candlesticks, the pages torn out of books you
tucked in pockets, the cleft in your chin, your 
strong body, your tears and your anger. I will 
make an offering: there in the ferns, under the 
aspen and birch, among the pines, I will lay 
them to rest. There they will have a place on 
the earth, resting in the arms of the goddess,
resting in the arms of the woman I was when
I was with you, the woman you imagined into 
being, the woman who loved the man you were 
struggling to become. Right there, in the ferns, 
on the fertile earth of the forest floor, the life we 
never lived will take root, for how could it not 
grow there?


Sunday, August 9, 2015

I might just go quiet

I might just go quiet
return to mist in the
treetops
burrow beneath the
blue vervain
sink slowly into
the rivers flow

When the morning light
finally comes like
fire in the pines
I want to burn up
this noise in its flame:

You who came
unannounced,
chanting your mantra
"Love Me Love Me Love Me"
determined to
penetrate my heart


You who sang
to me night after
night and called and 

called until I surrendered 
in response
my  body
my heart
becoming yours.

I want to surrender still
I want to burst open
in this brightness
of remembering

Buried and rising
from the ashes
into the voiceless,
wordless hum and
rustle, belonging to
the forest path
the moss and stone.

You are not here
to hold my hand
you are not here
with your voice and
your rhythm
You are not
here

I am
I am this circling
this silent center
meeting myself
again where
first I met you.



Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Water

Perhaps you came to me
in error

I don't know, and it
doesn't matter anyway
anymore

here we are
and you have

come
and you have
taken me

with your
lightening

and your
electric
pulse

a divining rod
calling

forth from
under the earth
of my body

the waters of my
everything.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Sacred: A Poem

It is the
holy of holies,
not to be
entered, never
uttered.

And yet it
lies in
wait, perched
at the tip
of my tongue,
teasing me
with its 
flutter.

If listening 
comes
soft and light,
you will know 
it by the 
heartbeat
underneath.

And when you 
are ready 
it will
become 
your own.

And then 
we will
hum 
in the night
while we 
sleep,

and dream 
of wings 
that lift 
us as we 
rush against 
the wind
of our deepest
longing,

aloft in the 
heart
of our 
very own

deep blue sky.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Arching toward bliss


The truth: I have written hundreds
of poems that start with The truth:
I seek: and occasionally find.


You can find me in the in-between.
Ages. Jobs. Men. Thoughts. Time.
When I was told I was not strong enough,


I believed and
it was true.
When I was told I was too strong,


I believed and
it was true.
You tell me I am strong.


I believe it is: the Truth. I listen:
and occasionally transcend.
Sometimes we need the experts


To point us in the right direction.
To that which is: under our skin.
Light. Space. Heat. Thought. Bliss.


Be that bliss, that arching,
creating worlds and
I will believe: that truth.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

What is buried brings you life.


She makes her way with sticks. Dirt is
never dirty, and bushes, bark and berries
hold universes of possibility. She digs.
What is buried brings you life.

She knows in the bones of
her being that the backyard swing
will bring her the sky, that she will
touch forever and always be free.

The effort is luxury, legs pumping
hard back and forth and longer
and lighter and every now and then a lift
off the hard plastic seat.

Trees in the yard are her familiar;
a constant conversation
of every spoken nothing/
never spoken everything

pulsing in the thrum of the hum
of wind and leaf and roots that
reach for truth deeper than eternity:
what is buried brings you life.

Stretched out on earth that scratches
bare skin, she breathes sun from the soil on
this small patch of grass she claims as her
throne. As above/so below.

There, in the deep of the deep and
the sky of the sky she swings. She sings.
She waits. Skinned knees/crooked
smile/wild hair. No apologies.

What is buried brings you life.



Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Searching for Signs: A Poem


There was a moment
we thought Winter
might stay,
 
Ice and Cold and Gray.
I was making ready
to welcome it -
 
And learn the ways
of Eskimos
and Polar Bears.
 
Warming with fire,
not sun.
Fishing in frozen
 
streams. Making friends
with this new destiny.
But you kept on
 
searching for Signs:
the Red-winged
Black Bird,
 
The crocus, the sap.
And the yellow and blue
Of the sun and the sky.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Winter Poem: For Bob

In early morning winter sun
I slide to you on sheets of ice
Brown black golden blue
Everywhere white
 
Here you open the door
Open wide the field of longing
How good to draw close
Into the gray green scent of promise
 
Comfort comes in daylight
And eyes wide open
We wrap into a curve
Of breath and body/memory
 
Under heavy woolen blankets
Feet in socks up to our knees
Giving this (our own) occasion 
A soft place to matter

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

You can have me


I am not tough but I am strong.
I am so easily peeled.


You can have me
For a snack.

 
For a nickel.
I melt and I mush

And there is my beauty.
 
You can have me.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Free

you are a bird
and birds 
do not stay

still
I bid you stay
for a moment

and you were
wild but stay
you did

and when
the beauty of
the sky called

you saw
you were meant
to fly

so I stretched out
long out on
the new ground

beneath you
to watch you soar
blessed and free

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Loss: A poem


I wore your sweater
nearly every day for 3 years.
Believing your essence
was somehow
knit into the collar, the sleeves, the
oversized warmth of the
blue yarn.

That sweater saved me.

But death is death,
and you left,
and that is true,
that is real.

So many years ago.
You, my first true love,
my possibility, the one
with the power to christen or damn
me, could not stay.

 
You have so long
been gone,
and still there is

an unmovable motion,
an inconsolable, eradicable
loss.
 
If I could tell you one last thing:
I want to shed the garment.
Pin the grief to the collar, set
it free on the sleeve,  
untangle the weave
and bask naked in the
sun, or the cold if
I must, but yes.

 
I want to
let you go.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

I will ride:a poem.


You bid our love be slow,
Measured.

A thousand hopes come
Galloping
Up to the gate

A beginning.
And then, too soon,
An end.

What's this? A mask.
A pretense.
A game.

The truth, my almost love: a lie.

For another love
to you
is true.

Lies of omission
Are still lies.

The gate locks.

But hear me
When I say:
Hope will return.

And I will ride. Watch
Me, or don't,

But I will ride.



Sunday, December 1, 2013

Wherein:a poem


Wherein I think you are the one:
You speak my language. Describe your life as I would my own. Your hopes, your dreams. Your longings. Your views, your values. The way you spend your days.

Wherein I realize I’ve been trying too hard:
Very hard. To be something. Amazing. Witty. Beautiful. The way someone who doesn’t know she’s beautiful is beautiful. The way someone who doesn’t have to try is beautiful. The way a child sleeping is beautiful. Or a mother giving birth. Or the moon.

Wherein I tell you what I wish I could say; what I wish you could hear; what I wish:
I have loved you forever. Since before forever. And I love you still and always and ever more. Never was there a question of if, never a question of when. Only still. And always and ever more. I do not know the lifetimes or the circumstances or the lessons we have conquered, and it doesn’t matter. There is an openness, a realness, a truth. A connection between us that reaches beyond the need.

Wherein you have a heart:
A broken heart. I say this because the desire that fills me is to bring you to life. Wholeness. Completion. Have you felt this before? And while this desire is compelling and urgent and everywhere, I wonder about it. What if: my desire is about my own need for wholenes? What if: my desire is to be fully alive? In my own heart. My very own whole heart.

Wherein I find myself in your bed:
Face in pillow, hands above my head pushed against the headboard. There is no making love, only easing pain. Your cruel father, your dead mother, your long lost daughter and every lover that left and took with her the ragged pieces of your ravaged heart. I am not them, but I am here. There is no kiss no sweet no tender. You take me not for bliss, but for erasure. Elimination. Forgetting, numbing, dissolving.    

Wherein I pay attention:
To the pattern, the story. I am noticing: I am angry.  And still, my whole heart loves you. And still, you are beautiful. I am beautiful. And still, this is living and this is real and this is a truth: this is waking up.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Sight: a poem.

I want to say something
Of the way darkness seeks

The light
And the light, darkness.

The pursuit is necessary,
Urgent, everywhere.

And more: a heart that can see
Cannot differentiate.

Merely, it opens.

For suffering, for softness.
For rage, for ravishment.

For the breathtaking
Beauty entwined in every pain.

This is nothing new;
My saying it is not profound.

But the truth of it bites me,
Hard and on purpose –

Asking, now that you see,
What will you do?

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Stepping

I’m thinking of that first 
night we stayed in your bed 
until two am
and you walked me to my 
car and I tripped going down the
front steps to the driveway,

the stairs uneven and my gait 
unsteady. You were two steps 
behind – a kind
figure following me down,
listening to me chatter on,
watching me stumble in the dark,
asking if I was ok.

I’m thinking of that now,
somehow chattering 
away at you still.
Do you think less of me
if I tell you: I imagine you
still close behind, a gentle
shadow in the 
unseeable landscape,

watching and listening
as I take another wobbly step
down - away from that night,
away from your bed
and your late night kindnesses,
and into my own 
unfamiliar and necessary deep?

Friday, September 20, 2013

Pattern

You are every wounded bird
I have ever loved.

Your heart is your broken wing,
and I am tactile, so I must touch.

Your song is your broken heart,
and I can hear you, so I must sing.

Your flight is my destiny,
and we fall in, formed. It's inevitable. 

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Passage

I want
you
to take me

to a place

remote
woody
and wild

a place 

of horizon
and shoreline
and hope

I can see

how I
might
open

there 

with-you
in-you
for-you

in the wide

space
of silence and 
hum

of birds

and sky
and hearts
unfolded


and free.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Feast


He cannot make
a place in his heart for you.

You taste the tart and
true weight of that,


roll it about in
your mouth,

under your tongue,
against your cheek.

The tangy juices make you
salivate,

yet no wrenching claw of despair
grips your being,

no deep pit of agony
swallows you whole. Rather -

this luscious, bittersweet,
golden moment stretches across

a field of all your
moments; so full,

so ripe - you
grab it, and feast.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Seasons

You look at the calendar.
You are surprised.
It is September 6. 

You haven’t been paying 
attention, you guess.  At
least not in the way that 
knows the day, has it seeped 
and steeped in your being, and 
in the way you go about things.

This happens, you surmise, 
when you spend day after
day in an office, staring at a
screen, moving in and out through
rushed and time-bound increments.

You forget to pay attention, to
breathe, to lift your eyes, open your
heart and feel the day.

And then those days, those months, 
those seasons just roll on through, and 
you have to think back: 

June was hopeful. July difficult. 
In August we ended. And now 
September is just beginning,
with empty calendar days and
hours approaching and asking
you to live, finally, 
just live.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Compass

I want 
to lie with you
in the underside.

the belly.

taken by
our appetites.

round and soft and billowy.

wind on the surface
permeates
the deepest hollows.

we will find

our true
true north.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Liminality

I am neither in nor out.
Meaning, there is no reference point.

And I will do things, 
like meet you
to fling paint and 
drink wine,
even though I know 
it’s more an invitation
to soothe our broken hearts and
seek solace in our 
mutual desire
for loving 
and being loved.

And yes, our comfort in
each other is 
hot and fleshy and fun
and leaves us spent for the moment,
but it’s not
in and it’s 
not out,
and there is no reference point.

You are shy and I am silent,
we are protecting
our still broken hearts,
but now we are 
even more naked,
even more exposed.

We talk about what we want:
you begin and I am grateful,
you are speaking
my heart as you open your own
our deep need 
for healing from within  
what is it to be so self-referred?
fulfilled? contained?
our deep desire 
for connection from without
will I ever belong?
to anyone? anything?

We toss about a way or two
to moil through the mire together,
but our hearts are
neither in nor out.
There is no reference point.
We cannot see the way.

And so I say:
like it or not, we are living
the in-between space,
not together and not separate,
grasping yes, but somehow still healing,
we’re threestepsforwardtwostepsback
a mirror,
a reflection,
a possibility,
a reminder.

And even without knowing
the depth and breadth
of the stories that
brought us into this
liminal space of heartache
and darkness,
the reference is our
orientation to the light,
whatever else we may
or may not be to
each other.

We are a witness
for the journey
of the threshold  
– the doorway –

and the courage of the heart
that beats and beats
no matter
how far in
or how far out
we may be.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Hungry Ghosts

Standing outside, waiting for the door to open. A glance, a meeting of the eyes, the surprise of acknowledgement, the undoing of my soul.

She is everything good.

How many times will I lose this beloved?
Father.
Sister.
Lover.

I am the loss of love a thousand times. A child asks, when will I die?

This is who I am:
Tempest.
Violent longing.
Constant companion.

Finding my way, finding my life, finding my life as my way.

Spills
Pulls
Pours
Fills
Washes

Listen: our dignity and our chances are one. We were in love with change and the possibility enlightenment was real.

Awakening

In the slow deep space of
awakening

the cusp
the fringe
the veil

the angel-kiss of eyelash
the tender stroke of kindness
the blessing of beginning

again

lifts me
gently

into the more.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Fireflies

Fireflies
will forever make
me think of you, and

cool evenings
in the cover 
of tall trees, and

damp earth, 
tender hearts,
wood smoke and

sweet, small
flickers of hope
in the deep night green.