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.