The space between sleep and wake: a poem.

The wind gust

swept in through the small

window above our heads,

and I was sure  it was a woman

you had invited into our bed

without my permission.

You stirred and stole the blanket.  

Finding another, I wrapped myself  

in a cocoon, glad for the warmth,

the dark and the quiet,  ready for the next visitor.

That's what she does.

She will smile and show up, because

that’s what she does.

Heart heavy, or hollow, or hallowed,

whatever.

She will smile and show up, because

that’s what she does,

making excuses and apologies.

Eyeing the empty place setting at the table,

fielding innocent inquiries,

accepting  sincere well wishes.

And well,

you know.

She’ll wander among the cheerful
guests, feeling more alone than

if she’d planned to arrive that way.

More alone than

if she’d stayed at home, alone.

Which is where she’d rather be.

Home. Alone.

In her bed, under her covers,

weeping.

For the letting go of the hope

that this time,

she wouldn’t be alone.

But instead, she smiles. And shows up. Because that’s what she does.

Beginning is a heartache.

Beginning is a heartache.

Beginning is a seed, with tender

flesh and deep desire

for singular attention,

for rain and light

and cloud and wind.

Lean with me into this rubbing, 

this prodding,

this aching flesh of beginning,

not for polish or protection but for bursting open,

for ripening and rootedness and

becoming more and more.

Take me, touch me,

by sun and by moon,

by hand and by heart,

and we are permeable and

enmeshed and timeless

even as a thousand hungry ghosts

entwine with us as we begin.

Beat with me into a heart,

a wild kind of heart, a steadfast tree trunk

kind of heart, deeply rooted

in the story of us, branches

beating loudly with the blood of

bud and blossom and

delicious fruit of you and me,

feeding the hungry ghosts of

old loves and lovers and stories,

putting them to easy rest

deep beneath the fertile ground of

our brave heart song and

our bountiful harvests

and our effortless letting go at

season’s end of all that

no longer brings life.

Sing with me this song

of beginning and beating

and blossom and bravery,

and we will never end, and we

will ache forever in each other’s arms,

leaning always into the more,

into the deep, into the tree.

Everyday (Every day)

You tell me you are not afraid.

You tell me what you require of love - speak of

magic/passion/making love

everyday

every day.

And I am

afraid.

Not for what I feel for you.  

I trust my deep desire for you, 

beyond words (I want more of you)

everyday

every day.

I trust my willingness to

open my magical and passionate

self to you (I will open for you)

everyday

every day. 

A ripple moves from belly to throat, beyond and back again.

Will you see me, when I open?
Will you know me, when I open? (I will open for you)

My magic is of the earth: steadfast and mostly silent

unless you listen closely.

My passion clamors with too many words

do you know what I mean?

My everyday is just that: commonplace, ordinary

it's all I have to give.

The ripple/the wave/ the tide

moves me forward into the fear, beyond and back again.

Because maybe, you will. 

Magic

Everything feels

so hard and it’s

raining outside.

Sleep is hard; I blame

hormones. But red wine

lingers, telling another story.

In my mind
I see you as you
were - on the opposite edge

of the couch,

legs stretched across

my lap and a million

miles from me.

You take my hand,

say something sweet.

But distance makes translation
difficult-the tender heart that
flourished in
morning love made hours

before buttons possibility

in a dense cell coat.

I wonder, then, about magic.

And -
if there is enough,
between us and
the million miles stretched therein,

to sustain.

If wanting is all that is required, we

are home, my love.

We are home.
Morning bursts full
and alive; we can rest in her

arms.

Tell me, again, something sweet.

Fire

There are lines

that cross -

intersecting passions -

meetings

of ghost and

dream and

longing.

Like, when you call me “baby” -

and everything in me

responds -

as if I am the one,

the only,

ever.

But all the while

I am dancing 

among the 

many that came

before.

We dance 

together

at the refiner’s

fire; 

gifts of

past-love/old-love/lost-love

leap and prance

among the flames -

sacred offerings

holding space

upon the altar

of our new-found love.

I wonder - 

what woman 

has shaped you, dreamed 

you, nurtured and 

fed you, even in 

spite of yourself?

I long to 

dance inside

her skin,

to know her 

belly and her 

breasts, the scent 

between her thighs,

the way she called out

when you were inside her –

as if this knowing

will seal our 

fate: yours and mine.

Back and forth,

we dance.

Around and

around

the fire that

transforms

burns,

heals,

destroys.

Clay

I see my hands
are broken

even as I
open them to you
even as I
offer them to you
even as I
pray they can
shape
what this world
has given them

and make magic
and beauty
and life

with you.

Listen

Her fragile heart speaks

the language of the smallest bird, snowflakes
and (sometimes) whispers.

There are no secrets; only shadows 

that nest in high trees and search
the clouds for
openings
of gentle light: a hearkening

for songs of flight.

Stay

Rain in January
makes me want you.
As does
the glass of red wine in
my hand,
the half-read book on
my lap,
the memory of
my fingers
finding your lips and
needing to stay.

Witness

She saw herself
as a witness - a presence
requisite to truth
located in the
center of the edge,  underneath
the surface in the discourse of
the everywhere.

If you could see as she did,
what might you testify?

The starling, fallen on
on a cold city sidewalk has
a story - not told
by wing -
not told by song.

The heart still beats
even if not in this world.
Can you hear it?

There is: a poem

There is: a truth
A soft truth
A beautiful truth
Of trees
And sky
And gently falling snow
And early morning “I love you’s”
And endless possibilities

There is: a truth
A hard truth
Of loss
And anguish
And violence
And regret
And children
Taken too soon from this earth

There is: a truth
An incomprehensible truth
Of clenched fists
Pounding on aching hearts
And wide open arms
Embracing the whole
Reconciling the truth: there is.

Love song.

Perhaps you heard.

Love-screams filling my body.
A full-tilt/belt-it-out/body-soul song

traveling through kisses
crying out through hands,
belly, thighs, skin.

Meant for you,
meant for me,

sung for love.

Longing.

I wonder
if the longing, sometimes,
is more for the loving
than the lover.

Do you know what I mean?

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