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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Wound

I’m opening it up and crawling back in.

The wound, I mean.

I can tell, because I thought of you today, and

five minutes later I saw you

on the street,

and I’ve been seeing a therapist,

and this is what I need to do, I know,

and then

I saw you today.

And isn’t that an omen?

Seeing you again makes me wonder

(I did so love you)

about all our unkindnesses –

lies and secrets

and betrayals -

committed in the name of love. Was it love? And

what possessed us? What beast?

Two reasonable people by any other measure -

but there you were, with your need for

adoring masses of women,

and me, compelled to stay

and rail against

that truth,

and beg for understanding

(I have a wound, don’t you see?)

But what reason does the heart need,

when it comes to such things? When it comes to being seen?

So, I am opening it up. And crawling back in.

Us

I thought about what I would miss about you most if we said goodbye. And immediately, I knew.

Our connection, I thought.

And the sex. Definitely.

In the car on the way home from your family reunion, I asked what you would miss about me most if we said goodbye.

Our communion, you said.

And the sex. Definitely.

What about you? you asked.

What was that? I responded.

(I heard you but was still gathering my thoughts. I had imagined you reciting a long list of my most uniquely me attributes – the way my nose moves when I talk, my penchant for speaking in unidentifiable accents, the way I overuse “you know what I mean?” as a filler between thoughts…)

But you didn’t. List those things. Or any others. You said exactly what I would. And it wasn’t enough, somehow, for some reason. Something was missing.

What about you? you asked again.
What would you miss most about me?

I answered, and added one more. I would just miss you.

But I think, the truth is this: we would just miss us.

And isn't that enough?

She tends toward darkness (a poem).

She tends toward darkness (swims in the deep).

The pull of the core, the inner workings,

the doorway to divinity. Diving,

descending, into black as night, lightless beauty.

She thinks about death (often).

Longs for it, really. Releasing, freeing, exhilarating

formlessness. Death in bright,

sweet, homecoming light.

She dreams of flying (not full flight – more just

bouncy steps that lift and

leave her suspended just long enough).

Respite in air, easy breezy, a gentle drifting back to earth

to bounce again. Lifting, lilting, lovely flight.

Her breath gets stuck in a painful

hollow between her chest and throat

(the place, she knows, of secrets,

and surrender).  Oh,

for a voice to move through

the mire – teller of the difficult truth, singer of the sweetest song –

she will be.

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.