Opening

I am like you,
afraid
but I am opening.


Winding threads of memory
pushing, pulling
slowly revealing

this full body of desire
tender
blossoming
fierce

hungry and vulnerable.

Like you (am I like you?)
I will open
and open again
and again

a pioneer
an astronaut
lifetimes spent dreaming
of the ultimate expedition
into the
deepest spaces
of human connection.

I am afraid,
but I am opening.

I am fissures to your cracks
chinks and holes to your fractures
rifts and clefts to your crevices

longing for exposure
(yes, please touch)
probing and plying
smoothing and sanding

changed for the revealing.

I am like you,
afraid
and I am opening.

Shift

Tonight I am
standing on the shore.
Sands shift beneath my feet and
I am waiting, even though
I tell myself I am standing/being/present.

But I know, in the deepest place of my
wanting, I am waiting.

There is, in this kind of waiting,
(for a love/lost love/found love/new love/old love)
a stirring born of hope
that can make you feel
so alive -

each grain
of shifting sand moved
in preparation for what might come,
the winds of blessed change
that forever alter
a landscape.

No one arrives.
Did you know this would happen?

I am here
standing,
wanting to be full and
alive without the waiting,
sands shifting beneath my feet.

The fire between us

Here we sit.
Not the first time,
but the first of any length of time,
the fire between us with
no middle in sight.

Not now,
indeed, not ever,
for you have found her: your true love.

And all I want to do is bless you.

All I want is your happiness,
and I am thankful, truly,
that there is a beautiful Italian woman
who speaks broken English and
turns you on like crazy and
loves you in all the ways
I never will. I am not jealous
and I don’t even want to cry.

We say our goodbyes and there
in the fire between us is
the hope that it might have been different.

Your arms open to me;
I fall in.
Alone with my choices,
feeling the loss of something never found.

Blessing II

What if I bless you?

I mean, really bless you.
Send you off with a kiss
and every best wish -
my precious message in bottle.
Set out to sea for unknown, exotic lands/
unknown, exotic hands.

More - what if give away every you there ever was?
Every incarnation.
Every possibility.

You as gravity.
You as adventure.
You as comic relief.
You as savior.

Give you away to everybody everywhere,
knowing the release will mean
someone on that distant shore will
catch you
claim you
unravel you
decipher you
understand you
love you.


And what if I'm ok with that?
What if that's the point?
Blessing you, and her, and everybody everywhere.
Knowing the sweetest gift is
the gentle opening of hands (of heart),
setting free what always and ever already was.

I will say:

I will say: I let your majesty move me.
Succumbed to your beautiful truth
in a sweet and satisfying surrender.
Open and bare and better for it,
stretched beyond where even you could find me.

Strong

I’d like to tell you to not be afraid,

You are strong enough and so am I.

But the telling of it is like promising fruit in the fall

when there was a killing frost so late in the spring

and the summer has been so dry

and the trees are struggling so.

It’s like that.

I long for us to be what we are born for

- bearers of delicious, juicy, fruit-

but I see the harsh while we are weathering, and you, little sister,

not rooted or hardened as I, must drop your leaves in such a season as this,

and seek nourishment.

And I, shaped by years of bitter seasons

recognize the storm deep within

urging, advancing, greater than the conditions that created me

allowing me this moment of calm and truth:

You are strong enough and so am I.

Blessing

I’m blessing you

with every breath I have.

I’m blessing you,

I promise, even

while my heart stops beating for a moment, even

while my mind quickly does its ritual dance of unworthiness, even

while this world of color and light flickers and fades.

I am blessing you

With every breath I have.

Unravel

If you unravel a heartache 
with hope to find its achey, tender core,
beware.

On your way, you will find your tears;
they come with the loss and regret 
that mark the journey.
Bring them with you to the center, for they are your guides. But know this:

It’s empty.

But more - it’s yours.
Completely.
It belongs to no other, no matter how you try to give it away. It’s yours and yours alone.
And it’s up to you to make peace with the emptiness.

That’s where a heart lives – in the expanse of emptiness.

It’s true; you will be tempted to see the emptiness as abandonment.
Betrayal.
Proof of your undeniable unworthiness of love.
Again and again and again.

But remember, if you’re
brave enough to attempt the journey,
have hope enough to unravel the mystery, 
and faith enough to seek the truth –

you are strong enough to sit in the center of the sorrow.

And when you do – sit there in that place – let yourself untangle. See the threads that wound you up tight and bound your heart in ache loosen.

And then, from that seat of power, watch.
Filaments.
Lifted out of the achey mass. 
Your loves. Your hopes. Your dreams. Your aspirations. Your promises.
Seen, perhaps, as if for the first time.

Let them be lifted. Let them be free. Let them dance and float and fly 
even (especially) 
if it means they leave you. 
Let them go.

Again,
and again,
and again.

Recovery

I am stepping

What once was granite
Is grass
Once shards
Now sand
Warm and soft
Beneath my feet.

The shift came with the tide
 And with the moon
Sharing her secrets
I listened
As though
Through the bottom of my feet
Through the lapping
The encroaching and retreat.

I am rising
I am sun
I give you gifts of sweat and grime
A beauty blinding
Binding
Biding
All time

The propagation of light in a medium

In the curve of time
- spacetime -
between you and me

where distance is passage
to the center
of celestial being

like the distance between the front door

(where I
above by five steps
bend to your presence)

and the foot of the landing

(where you
look up and smile
that sun smile
that star smile
that smile)

all light that is in me
is moving, free-falling
toward your gravity

(speed of light – nothing travels so fast as
speed of light)

and all stars
and all clusters of stars
and all stars that are suns for other planets

explode in a deep cup of immanence.

I’ve never been so glad to be here.

where there is: you

Standing in the place - not of expecting,
but rather: knowing

where hope isn't merely hopeful,
but rather: a deeply felt assurance of what is yet to come

where time folds in a perfect crease until there is no time,
but rather: an unfolding of every moment past and future that brings you to this place

this place of not expecting
this place where possibility isn't merely possible

where love isn't merely longing
where hope isn't merely hoping

where there is: you

poet

she watched the words fall out of her head/and land on his chest as he lay in his bed/ she hoped they'd melt and slide off his skin/ she prayed they wouldn't make their way in/ to his heart.

To Rumi: I am tired of love poems.

Rumi,
I picked up
a book
of your love poems
this morning

I am tired of love poems

of wistful wishes
and languid longings
of fire
and flames
and passions
that burn

this world
that surrounds me
has made of love
a practical thing

to be contained
and understood
through methods
and formulas
and surveys
and psychology

Rumi,
I am tired of the fight
my half protected heart
endures
reaching out to those
in full heart armor

There is no field of ecstasy today, Rumi.

I am tired of love poems.

crack me open

crack me open

take from me
each ray of light that shines its way through

each succulent yes,
divine more, please

this shining bursting breaking
is nothing if it stays in me, merely
nothing if you cannot taste it, touch it, see and know.

When the seeds arrive in the mail,

I will drive to your house

and leave them on the bench

next to your front door.

I will leave them to you,

to your care,

for without you,

I have no place to plant them.

The peas, well, they were just for me.

I wonder - will you still plant them?

But the beets were just for you,

so I hope you find a good sunny spot,

and set them in the ground.

There are many things I will miss you about you.

But I think, more than anything,

I will miss the things we planned but never got the chance to do.

Like planting peas and beets, and watching them grow.

Offering

Alms to the green of the shoot

So new, so bright, so tenacious

Twining through

Ancient crusty earth

So compelled by surface

So desiring of depths

Sinuating, undulating, into me coming

Loosening holds of maddening habit

Ah, surrender now

Floating, falling, blessing each passing.

A Statement of Purpose

Who are you?

Human. Flesh and blood and bone. Heart and soul and mind. Running, leaping, laboring, dancing, resting, beating, bleeding, thinking, praying, dreaming, becoming.

Who are you?

Woman. Lover of men and women and children and all of creation. Giving, taking, birthing, dying, holding, pushing, receiving, losing, loving, leaving, coming.

Who are you?

Sight. Lens and nerve and impulse and shadow and light. Vision and perception and eyes that see and see and see. Eyes that will no longer avert their gaze from racism, sexism, hatred, indifference, inequity, despair, pain, violence, poverty, abuse, injustice.

Who are you?

Voice. Throat and larynx and vibration and buzz. Resonance and dissonance and pulsing waves of sound. Sound that will dare to name what is seen. Words that will work to bring light into darkness. Voice that will risk judgment to become part of the solution.

Who are you?

Human. Woman. Sight. Voice.

This I am. This I have. This I must give to all that I love. With this I must make purpose. With pieces and fragments, songs and stories, hope and risk, I must become the path I seek.

Poem

Eating Raisin Bran straight from the box: drinking Super Dieter's Tea: reading poem after poem on the Internet: I find 32 clues to the life I’d like with you: and write this list of hope and risk:

1. Garden gates
   
2. Raking leaves
   
3. My clothes in your closet
   
4. Long nights
   
5. Fights
   
6. Eggs in the morning
   
7. Forgiveness
   
8. Oral sex
   
9. Bathtubs
   
10. Watermelon
    
11. Laundry stains
    
12. Pounding of a heartbeat in my ear – is it yours or mine?
    
13. Old furniture
14. Dirty knees
    
15. A little help unzipping
16. Horizons
    
17. Flaps of wing
    
18. Apples and peaches
    
19. Curling up like commas
    
20. Shadows
    
21. Compost piles
    
22. Sunlight
    
23. Supper on the stove
    
24. Mending
    
25. Beautiful music
    
26. Trees in the yard
    
27. The smell of shirts and sheets and skin
    
28. Fingertips
    
29. The passage of time
    
30. Chickens
    
31. Sipping wine
    
32. Saving grace

Intimate Encounter

Slipping
sideways

through a thin
slice in the night

he enters
unreal and

ghost like,
wraps

himself into
her and makes

for her a feast
of tongue and

touch and
gentle moan

making soft
slow love where

before there was
none.

Hungry,
she is hungry,

and he feeds her.
Every part

of her is
held in him

for this night.
She is loved,

She is
precious,

She is
beautiful.

When the night is
gone, he is gone

slipping back through
a crack

in the day not
meant for her

not meant to stay.

I have so many times wondered why I still call you friend, not best friend, not lover, not partner, not boyfriend or old boyfriend, or a man I once knew, or why I still call you anything at all.

I have convinced myself and one or two others (that grain of truth can be such an asset) that this is all thoughtful, logical, a contractual love and affection that works for the now.

And of course, it does, when my heart falls in with the dullness of my brain, and the barely scratching of numb and blind fingers is, for a moment, all that life need offer a woman stuffed full with empty boxes that begin in the cellar and overflow into every living and sleeping space of eternity, until all that boxed up emptiness is the fullness of her existence.

I remember times that cracked open into crisp cold sunshine, prompted by bursts of Yes, I Can, and up from the cellar, forged ahead by breaking through and breaking down, breaking, breaking the boxes– are they really only cardboard? Did I stomp them in my fury? Methodically open them and flatten them and neatly pile them up by the door? Did I forgive the box and welcome the emptiness? Did I welcome the box and forgive the emptiness?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes, and the world opened to light, let it in, let it in…

Since I have known you I have ignored so many things. The boxes in my cellar are spilling their emptiness over in piles and heaps and I cannot even stand to look at the ugly mess for a second. If there was once a beauty there, or for heaven’s sake just a certain orderliness, I have run it down, ripped it out, ravaged it and scavenged it in an attempt to find something … something better? ..and have left it to rot on the cold cement floor.

Oh, if you knew this of me, if you knew you would be hurt without even beginning to understand. The hurt is real, the usury that I have been accused of is true, it’s all true and it always has been. I wait, even hope for false goods, false gods - yes, they are – I know they are, and I pray that I won’t recognize them, that I’ll forget real beauty and grow accustomed to this game of pretending I want what I don’t, what I can’t even stomach, and oh, the game of being hurt because you cannot even offer me what I know I don’t want, but hate myself for wanting, begging, and accepting every little meager nothing you offer me again and again with a smile on my face as if it’s my duty to be as flat and lifeless as the very cardboard I beg to be released from.

I slip into this dead cocoon of waiting (longing?) for the nothingness you dangle in front of me, soothing and comforting you with my yes, it is so good of you to take me out to nice restaurants, what a lucky woman I am, I hold your hand and kiss you and make love to you when you say it’s just not a good idea for you to do any more for me, because we’ll get into a pattern, and I’ll never move myself out of this poverty if I don’t figure it out on my own.

And there I sit, in the very most bottom of my precious box of No, I Can’t …I sit with the empty weight of every reason that I find myself right here in this thoughtful, logical, contractual love that works for the now, every reason why I hate you and love you and beg you for more.

I am letting go
of the knight
in shining armor.
Even though my whole

life has been lived in
preparation for his
arrival, a song sung
to his greatness

and to my need for
his protection. I am
doing everything I
can to undo the conditioning;

the deep, deep need in my soul
for his strength, his prowess, and
almost more than anything else,
his undoing at the sight of me.

I catch myself again, again, again….
perhaps it’s a soldier,
maybe a CEO,
maybe even Barack Obama.

It’s the man whose strength
of character matches the beautiful
and sublime outline of his strong,
capable body. It’s the man who will

step in the way of any evil that
crosses my path. The man who
makes love to me with the strength
of tenderness - and above all,

a most amazing passion.
If he exists, this man…is
he happy in his role? Is it
really enough to exist only to

guide and protect his loved
ones? Does he long to be a loaf,
to not have the weight of the
good of the world rest on

his weary shoulders? Is he
sometimes afraid…more than
afraid….terrified? And in those
moments, who is his beloved?

Who comforts him and reassures
him that the darkness in his path
holds no power over his life?
Is she a woman merely

beautiful and submissive,
telling him only what he
believes he needs to hear?
Or is she like him in strength, in

prowess…enough to make him
whole and make him humble with
one glance?
It’s all a fantasy, I know.

All of it…the idea of a man
and a woman being more
than a bundle of hurt and
mixed up emotions…more

than a drive for physical and
sexual fulfillment….more
than the playing out of tired,
old stories, myths, fantasies,
fairy tales.

A Lonely Visitor

each breath
each word
a piece

of your
broken
heart

a
lonely
visitor

A Lover
A Friend
A Father
A Son

shadows
of your
soul

left behind
in your haste.

You will not
be returning

so I shall carry
these lonely
visitors

in the
altar of
my heart

I shall carry
these wandering
ghosts

dark-hearted
and despairing

precious and
close
I shall carry them

Sweet little sister

Sweet little sister,
you have wept enough.

The distance
Troubling
You most
Is not the distance
You feel
From others

From this man,
Or that man.
No, it is

The distance
You feel
From your own soul.

Listen to me, little sister.

Be strong.
Do not beg,
Do not plead,
Do not fear that
Your opportunity
For life with a beloved
Has been given to another.

Be still
And travel
To your depths.

Cross over.
Walk steadily.
Run for your life.

Do whatever
It is you feel
You must do,
But do it.

Please, please
Hear me when I say
The time has come
For you to greet yourself
With all the passion
And fire hot love
You can muster.

Be strong, little sister.
Be strong.

Abandon Hope

I am
abandoning hope

and living in
the knowing

this moment is
all I need