Just A Word

…and just like that
with just a quick word,
a pea-sized hard pebble
nudged over the edge
and tumbling down
the beckoning slope
and picking up steam
and skittering bouncing
off rocks and off hearttumblr_ngn4uaICOj1s6gw9vo1_1280the slide starts unstoppable
the whole slope is sliding
en masse, sorta slithering
and chunking and pouring
and ka-bunking til nothing

can be done but just try
to survive the earth leaving
disappearing ‘neath my feet
and keep my balance
and surfing the wave
of disbelief made of
stones rather than watertumblr_nsoybcYvjf1qat5pio1_540then i am that pebble
pea-sized on that mountain
and falling away from
my fellow climbers
as they watch me bounce
on the rocks down below
and tumble so quickly
my white skin scraped red
and my heart cut so raw
on the jagged scree falling
around me like raindrops
of stony and ancient
hot volcanic weeping.tumblr_nrp4dlCcno1r2zs3eo1_1280and the bottom is waiting
the same place i left it
and the summit is laughing
so high up the mountain
silhouetted against
the bright blue sky quiet
and gleaming in light
underneath my companions
looking down where I lay

so near, yet so far
untouchable always
and never crossed over
to join them on high
tumblr_nofjtrJWjm1s2q8feo1_1280

That Moment Boundless

It’s when the grey wind
blows warm across
cinereal waters and
picks up pearly moist brushes
to push ashen stiff clouds
outta shape against cerulean canvas
of sky and space

It’s when dark grasses
and yearning branches
and leaves and needles
moan in jealous longing for
the fingers of that grey whistling
wind tasting of granite and glacier,
slow flows and sunlight
and dappled fruit quick
and sudden

It’s when I sit on the porch
and think of those times and spaces
and I remember your faces and my own
grasses and branches
and leaves and needles
stand on end stiff and electric
to catch anything…anything
blowing across my waves
in the grey wind

What I Am Trying To Say

Between Voice and Thought,
between Thought and Voice,
between Presence and Absence,
oscillates the poetic pendulum.
Paul Valéry, from “Poetry and Abstract Thought,” The Art of Poetry(Princeton University Press, 1958)

tumblr_ncabnjfP5Z1r2zs3eo1_1280

You Can Only Go Forward…

“I am so sorry to all the people I hurt while I was hurting.”

I saw this quote online this morning.  It captures my feelings about that long, long past, much of which I am only dimly aware of having lived, but more like an observer than a participant.

Certain parameters have been laid out…and sadly those preclude forgiveness.  Apparently, there really is more than one “unforgivable sin” (and really, each human being sorta gets to decide what sin is forgivable and what sin is not, no?).

But the truly fine thing about being a human being?  The power of understanding embodied in choice and become action.

And I am…so sorrowful that the hurt that I was in…that I was in my “not-being” resulted in hurt to others.  And yet there is nothing to be done about the then, and the to come has not yet arrived.

There is just the now…finally and at last the now…and I am in it.

Glad, Grateful and Free…
Charissa Gracetumblr_ns4qrdBTDC1rl1a4zo1_1280

Confronting Your Own Privilege

“Is ‘heterosexual’ a slur? No. It describes an identity and experience. Because straight folks don’t typically experience their heterosexuality as an identity, many don’t identify as heterosexual — they don’t need to, because culture has already done that for them. Similarly, cisgender people don’t generally identify as cisgender because societal expectations already presume that they are. […]It’s an incredible and invisible power to not need to name yourself because the norms have already done that for you. You don’t need to come out as heterosexual or cisgender because it is already expected. Since it isn’t a derogatory term, those who take exception to it may be uncomfortable with trans issues, or perhaps they are unwilling to confront their own privilege.”
K.J. Rawson, interview via the Advocate

One of the greatest acts of advocacy you can partake of…confronting your own privilege.
tumblr_nrth4tpJ7a1s6f9kuo1_500

My Other Hand

My one hand?
It’s what you see here
on the page making funny marks
that become funny meanings
in your musing mind.Image 003But my other hand, well!
It reaches outside in the smoke on the wind.
It gropes in the night for a dear not-here friend.

it touches heaven
it waves at eagles
it feels the raindrops
and cries with seagulls
while the waves tumble in
and in…it is washed in them too

my other hand,
well it awakens you
tumblr_nscacubpyC1qllucco1_1280

Check Out My Hair

I lead face forward, my hair trails behind me,
smelling of all of the longings and seas
that evaporate in the hot sun of the rest
who think playing in shallows is safest and best.

My face is my sunscreen protecting my heart
in the winds and the rays of a place where it seems
that people don’t care and are not really there
and call daily connection dumb fairy-tale dreams.

It lets me go out and look normal and fine,
it lets me get by in a style called “all mine”
and it holds my eyes steady, they’re seeing and seen,
but my hair’s smell hides my secret “what I really mean”.

My hair holds my longing, it carries my ache,
my hair holds my grief over those who just take
and it doubts those who promise that they’re truly there
when it reaches to touch their face, but just gets air.

It’s perfumed with desire, and fear, and some hope.
It is curly and flies around, feels like a dope
because it tries to cross chasms on that taut tightrope
of belief in belief or some other dumb trope…

but that feeling of authentic being…that strength
of choosing a style that is me come what may,
when my hair is undone and is free in the wind
but still anchored to me, well my hair is my friend!

am anchored to it! I think my hair is me!
It’s my soul’s silver banner unfurled by this sea
of humanity streaming and nose to the ground,
my hair pops in the wind and brings heaven around!

So be circumspect when I walk by you today.
If you wanna know anything about the way
I think or I feel…or I purpose to be?
Jus check out my hair…if you wanna know me.
tumblr_nsjvtgPWAF1s5neh1o3_1280

Singing To The Bones

Speak to me gently…

I am listening with my bones,
instruments of hearing
my companions…

I listen by the fire.

Speak into my soul with touch and glance
while I walk to and fro and spread a feast
that’s fit for angels to consume and dance
under stars and with the silky moon.tumblr_nrwiwkeKcl1rcf4reo1_1280Bone-music vibrates
from my bone-core deep,
emanates from my sternum,
surrounds me in its sticky grasp
and to its gentle bosom I am clasped…
in drum, in harp, in whistle call and
in that dance on puffy clouds in fall.tumblr_nqgtlmEydT1u051b5o1_500Hear its cry in my heart’s every pulse
and I must answer or I will remain
bereft and longing, agitated, always

and seeking in snows aslant and serious
and in ocean floors murky mysterious
and in that desert deep and in the forest strong
and beneath the breath of emerald wind’s ever-song
tumblr_nsbugs8L3B1t5g5c1o1_540Finally, I simply rest
sitting in the shifting sands
and singing over long-dead bones,
my song arising, flying here and there

and hear the song of mountains and
the thrum of reefs against the waves
insistent, fresh and ancient
in the days, these days

that I am

Singing to the bonestumblr_nnz1apfjc11sqc6b1o1_1280

 

My Coffee Speaks To Trees

it was a whisper soft, it was a song
at my neck’s nape i felt it trill along,
the answering conversation swirling by
my cheek in double time, so fleet, so spry,

and dancing round the rim of my red mug
and steaming coffee, rich and fragrant there
and laughing with the sounds come in the air.
i realized my coffee speaks to trees!

tumblr_ni0dcoEm3F1u56th8o1_500

it listens to the message in their leaves
and steams its answer back in song, relieves
the longing of the root, the trunk, the bees
just bumbling sleepily along with ease.

what did they say, i wondered, so i sipped
and into that community i slipped
and heard the leaves, the gossip of their tongues
and saw the wonder of those fronds so young

just wondering what were they meant to wear
when autumn came, what would the color be
that each would take upon their limber self?
what dress?  what blouse would scamper from Her shelf?

beautiful raiment, heaven sent and free
for each leaf to receive, to wear…and me?
I sat…and sipped…and marveled in the day
that I discovered this small secret way

of beans, hot water, roots and branch and bees
and leafy giggly gossipping ballet…
a secret language, dance, a brilliant play
and I now know my coffee speaks to trees.tumblr_nrklaeno7F1roirddo1_1280

 

Miracles of Modern Medicine

This used to be me…it isn’t anymore.

HRT works.  My brain is soo much happier.

Constance, it is something so simple, and yet so profound.

I am glad I made it, and I am thankful to those who valued and recognized the essential me regardless of container/package.

And those of you who didn’t…wow.  I don’t know whether I should pity you more, or those in your life who are similarly falsely assessed.  That must really suck.

I am free…and oh God the flying!

 

The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday

**(See the note at the bottom of poem please)

I deferred entropy yesterday,
with jaundiced yellow summer thoughts
that lingered in mid-air above
my head…then rose on winds…

Seraphim speaking at heavens brass
and brazen, silent skies yet become
broken by my desperate thoughts
and yet to become wild throat-shatt’ring cries!tumblr_ns8f87gHlH1qllucco4_1280I was silent with them until they
were just not silent with me!  Nay!
They called out to Isaiah, Ancient
Mariner sailing seas of grief
and beauty in the winds of time
and loss…

“O that You would tear open the heavens
and come down, that the mountains
would quake at Your presence!”

And then time halted, entropy
deferred to my voice ignited in
screams for the speechless
in songs for the weary
in shrieks for the despairing

How FUCKING Long oh LORD!
WHEN Will You SHATTER Brass?
Tear OPEN Silent Faded Blue Skies
and COME DOWN AGAIN and
LAY WASTE TO INJUSTICE
and harsh LACK OF MERCY!!tumblr_nj8axqwRES1rx3qvso1_500

slavery still happening
right here in River City

sex-trafficking thriving
looking up in Kansas City

poverty and addiction
meet me in St Louis

racism and genocide
above the fruited plains

all ignored while we obsess
over Facebook Fights and Twitter twatfests,
both garbage and cheap gossip dished,
in equal measure slung and sung
to show tunes and to shanties and
to soft-shoe shuffles
on Broadway!

How long, O Lord!
When will our
Purple Mountains
quake in Your Majesty?

And yet how shall I voice my cry
so bloody and alone? With deeds
just like some pile o crap, some smelly
filthy rag? With prideful blood-hoard
boasting buried in a pirate’s chest
so goddam deep?tumblr_nmykoqcspH1qz9bu3o1_1280And my heart faded like a leaf
and blew away like dried up failure
in the scheming eyeless winds…

And my vain colors oh so bright
and oh so pretty, my heart faded
in the face of all

the unjust things we do,
the things we are,
our inconsistencies and
our postmodern so ironic
ways so petty and deliberate,
so destructive and so cruel!tumblr_n0caivXHen1to3s33o1_1280We stand before God today
even though entropy deferred yesterday
we stand before God as Their Potter’s clay

the urgency of the present moment,
shaped not by nostalgia for what once was,
but remembrance for who God was,
and is, and ever will be.

that fierce urgency of the now
within a world in need
not of more pointing fingers
and dividing speeches, but of
people willing to rise up
and work as if we now already
are God’s people willing
and surrendered.

 I deferred entropy yesterday

It was the least I could do.
tumblr_nqrqguaVjr1rtc94lo1_1280

**Note to the reader:  italicized words are meant to be heard in your mind to the show-tune they are from…
Google is an ally if you don’t know your show tunes, as is You-Tube.
If this were read aloud, the reader would sing those phrases,
voice dripping sarcasm and anger.

Oh…and if you don’t like it?

Defer Entropy

My Sisters N Me

We stand at the shore in confidence.

Our feet rest on sands
but we walk on the waves
while everyone else thinks
that we are still slaves
of the old ways and means
of the city of dirt.

They have looked in my eyes
and seen me hopeful there,
and they called me out
singing that I walk on air
with them, light and free
even while being immovable
We are the fruitful vines
planted for new wine.

They hear my voice
and they touch my quick heart
and they lend me their beauty
and they stand apart from the
dull and the lumbering fools full of words
that just club and just crush…
they are for me and with me
and full of Kind Art.

We stand on shores, we wait for it,
the coming of justice and mercy
the liberty song

My sisters and me…

My sisters and me

Tears Of Grace

This time of day…“l’heure bleue.”
I know it as “the gloaming” and was conceived
in it’s glimmer glisten and was born
in its radiant dark glitter-glamouring.

It’s the glamouring that the earth casts
when she hides from the hunters who roam the world
and gobble up the quiet dark and then rough-belch
their choking smothering counterfeit-communion

*non-light*tumblr_ns40g3DiCp1qas1mto3_1280Outside her glamouring, round about
shuttering houses and shuddering hearts,
gardens darken and grow quiet within
while the ravenous rave and wander wild

and hunt,
brandishing their bluebeards
and pulling
stars from the air.

Gardens crouch and sing silent
dirges to sounds of hunter-horns
and thunderous hooves, clatter-hoards
who ride and murder

*the tender sable satin night*.tumblr_ns5yflHIfR1t8tvpvo1_500But inside,
safe in L’heure Bleue
I wander, and
I think of you

*not-lost*

I slide thru grey grass
lining the sinewy river,
I slip thru shadows like
a cat rubbing against

*your limber long lingering legs*

The gloaming dark,
the never ending
extension of a day
that never ends

*and never arrives*tumblr_nrcag3O1421tp8egbo1_1280 but instead just stretches in this endless summer hour,
this full blue one full of blue light
dark and thick and more potent in its indigo flourish
than any wagging threatening bluebeard.

It’s the hour when the earth tries to hide her sorrow,
hold back her tears and so I slide down her face
instead, quiet like a swan upon the surface
of a silent-blue snow rimmed lake

while she glows in the dark-blue
light and gloams, she lets me
fall upon herself blue, like
tears of grace.
tumblr_nrs7vn6ZDK1sooy9go1_1280

The Poem You Write

It’s in the spaces between words,
in moments you do not do,
it’s silent sounds of what you say
*that sound of what you utter not*

When I describe it, it just twists
and stands akimbo and aloof
sings of itself above your ears
there…it’s the poem you write yourself.

To set your pen to page and speak
your “Let There Be”, it gives a shape
but that leaves so much shaped behind
*the space your body takes in water*

when you dive in and swim and the space moves and disappears

Tomorrow I will write again
and let the vision in my pen
pull apples from the very air
and sprinkle heaven in your hair

but today, it’s the poem you write
in what you don’t say, don’t do, that kite
invisible and flying high…
your poem surrounds my heavy sigh
tumblr_nrti53r18J1ttzaedo1_1280

Precious Time

All the places of the world
that call and beckon me,
the wander lust and longing heart
to travel there and be.

Be rooted in such rare terroir
and taste of precious life
unfurling right before my eyes…
but Time…that silver knife

has cut me off from my own heart
you there, and me out here
I’d trade the world and all its wonder
just to have you near.

Present and Uncontained

It feels so fiercely good
to be free, to be found
in the reds and swirls
and sweats of my sisters
wise and strong
and wild and welded together
in the midst of bare trees
and empty pots
and dusty dirt.

We are living flesh,
we are alive and well!
We send the puppets of clay
back to the pile
from which they fell,
and now so impotently they yell.

My sisters strong
receive me, brood over me,
warm me, inspire and inform me,
challenge, elevate me!

Here
in the dust
in the wind
present and uncontained
by anything
except living flesh.

We Are Come At Last

Marshal your forces, you protectors of the crown,
send your dogs running, your dogs of dreams,
your dogs howling, full noses of my fur, my pelt!

Bring on your hunt, your horses in full gallop
and chase for all you’re worth, your lust and fear
of free blood running red, and full, liberty’s blood!

Your coats, scarlet!  Your smirks, affixed with tax,
and become terrible twisted rictus in your sweaty efforts
to hunt this free fox leaping, yipping, dancing on the dawn!

They shall come to me, your dogs, and wriggle ‘neath my touch!
They shall hear my dog-whistle words, too high for your dull ears
but so keenly attuned and pitched to their own straining hearts!

And they shall call to their comrades, your horses, who will alert and thrill
and leap into the air to gallop freely there…and you unhorsed…you laying there
upon the blood-stained grass of yesteryear…

Your time is up, for we are come to hunt you down
and tear that red coat straight away right off your back
and tossed into the sky, our banner free unfurled and our war cry…

No Longer!  Not Anymore!
Related image

Don’t Worry…

…in truth people are far too preoccupied with themselves to ever truly be interested to really know others.

Don’t let people know too much about you.”  (found online).

It is the rare human being who is free enough from self to even want to know the empathic experience of another’s life.

Just think:  so many ills that plague us would simply fall by the wayside…

Oh wait.  I guess there was a very wise and kind person who walked the planet a couple of eras ago who said that all the teachings and commandments of all the religions and all the prophets and laws were summed up thus:

“The greatest commandment is to love God, with all your heart and soul, strength and mind…and the second commandment is just like the first one.  Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others only those things that you want others to do to you”.

Like I said…you don’t need to worry about letting people know too much about you…they are not really interested compared to how much they are focused and obsessed with themselves.
tumblr_nrc5tfv2NO1qas1mto4_1280

Woman Under The Smiling Moon

I finally did it,
worked my hungry nails
underneath that hidden edge
along the ridges of my heart

and got a grip
on the flesh of my face
and ripped it clean off
and heedless of the cost
though I had counted carefully
as I knew how to count.

Everyone says I wore a mask,
was a mask, and I just shake my head
and laugh, because they live out there
and they know nothing (what a pit to know).

That face?  It was me so not me
and it held me in its grip so fiercely
and so furious in its keening hunger
to fit me to itself and find its being finally in me

But when I tore it from me
and snapped its parasitic drain
I saw the moon above me
and knew its secret then and there:
there is no man in the moon!

I am woman and I am free…
the moon is gentle in the night,
swimming ever above me.

Shadows and Silences

you consign me to shadows and silences
when you look away from wonder
when you sit and ignore joy
when you know what you don’t know

you put me behind panes
separate even though somewhat visible
I can see them there in front of me
by the dew of the morning fresh

you will always think you have measured me
but you have never really bothered
you dodge every questing tentative hello
and your twisting just says goodbye

but light is a funny thing, it changes
when you think it’s rays, it is drops
and when you see drops it is beams
light is never shining as it seems

you know i will sit here, still
because I do not go away
but I hunger in shadows and silences
just stuck here by your faint halfway
Image 006

Intention

“People show their true colors,
unintentionally. Pay attention”
*Quote found online*

in what they do?
in what they don’t do?
in what they speak?
in the spaces between those words?
in what they do not say?

what are colors, true?
what are these intentions?

I think people mostly don’t,

intention

gosh it’s lonely sometimes
mine-field1

A Hot Summer Day And A Deck

a hot summer day and a deck
the sun it glints off of my glass
the sweet-tea ginger peach muddle
the mint wafting from sweaty ice cubes
floating, melting, disappearing

my peach is sweet, tart, it’s just right
fuzzy-firm against longing loved lips
I turn perfumed pages so eager
the story unfolds right before me
on a hot summer day and a deck

the book of you writes itself page at a time
it expands in my hands and the cover wanes old/new
it waxes familiar to my touch then *gasp*

“I never knew you”

every turning page snatches my breath

because I’m not quite sure if the next one
will be there, it could be blank or worse
it might write itself while I am reading
words forming from nowhere, just scrawling
in the high summer light on that deck

I can’t put it down for the life of me
I smell you in air as I fan those thin pages,
flip backwards but not ever reading ahead
(there is no ahead to be read in this book)
I miss you this hot summer day…

Kind, Beautiful, and Foolish

 

“beauty will save the world.”tumblr_n8ifvafz7z1tqm397o1_1280I read that and went on tilt
tilt permanently.

And when I repeated it?
I discovered this:

“beauty is an incommunicable mystery”Abstract-Illustrations1we worship Her simulacrum
in fashion/beauty businesses
we dissect Her til She’s become
a body flayed and labeled, neat
or purely abstract notion sweet
or distinct but distant divine Tweet.

Beauty, oh Beauty,
my blood and bones
inescapable essence
of my inmost being!7d72d822f5ac322c9286b2d3af488ca5-d8z8ojpYour hand gives help not harm,
mercy sweet for malice-charm,
forgiveness never ending
in the midst of endless non-forgivings
who think me idiotic because
I will not join them in their feast
disparaging, destructive
and ugly in the noggins
and practice of those thoughts!

Beauty, let me take what’s cruel,
what’s discarded by the fool
and spin it into treasure bright
and I will caper in the night
become Sweet Beauty’s Ever-Fool!tumblr_nrkyd44pqv1sooy9go1_1280My blood, beautiful foolish flow
spilt from this creamy skin so torn,
stripped away and splattering
upon the dismal dusty ground,
each crimson drop hung glittering
in crystal sun and pregnant with
the chance to drink of God right now
and They imbibe our Grateful Vow!

My face, my bloody hands, my crowns
once mourning, heavy ashes dark
now shining in Her presence sweet,
I cast those crowns down at Her feet
I wash with Oils of Joy and praise
that repair ruined cities there
and step into the gaping breachtumblr_nr0nudVxoI1qas1mto9_r2_1280with cups of cool water sweet
with words like stained glass murals bold
my heart a great cathedral, gold
me with my shards sat at Her feet
my offering of helpless thrall
for She is become all…my all.

And Incarnation sounds that horn
Participate, and come partake!
Imbibe glory, intoxicating!
For it’s Beauty, Beauty saving
all the crushed, cut down, outcast!
Day is come!  Night is passed!!378e8e09c257b65920602dcbf1f17dbc-d8vi64lFor Beauty will push through and soar
high above this broken shore
transcending all our ugliness
in our following, courageous
and pressing thru the mystery
to find the stairs of transcendence
and be reflections of that Beauty

“beauty will save the world.”tumblr_nr8uf1duJA1thfeewo1_500

 

I Shocked The Snow

When it fell certain,
so sure in icy curtain
that always found its weighty bosom
enough to smother any flame
and quench any taper burning,

it was shocked to touch my coal,
it recoiled from those embers
and gathered in itself
and gained in substance frozen
and thus renewed its fall.

But when it touched my petals
(those tulips in the snow)
with icy graspy fingers
around my petal’s throat
to choke out warmth and heat?

It found itself diminishing!
It found itself becoming flowery
losing all its crystal majesty
and melting into cool waters
that I drank to slake my thirst

And thus I knew myself, and sure
that I could withstand cold and ice
and still bloom in winter, hang the price!
My roots go deep in fire and joy
amidst the snows so white.tumblr_nylql1rkyd1qat5pio1_1280

On Leaving Behind “Too”

“You are allowed to outgrow people.”

I found that quote this morning…and it startled me, scared me, and then I was quietly excited about its implications.

I have never had any friends in the past.  There are a lot of reasons for this…some are due to me, and my own flaws and stinkeroo heart.  Some are due to others who saw me as a pile of treasure to be used and exploited.tumblr_n6q9lekvjJ1tsgjavo1_500But mostly…I never had any friends because the people I wanted to be friends with were women…and I was stuck inside a biologically male body!  This automatically shifted all friendships into the “potential romantic partner” realm…or the “creepy dude being overly friendly realm” (which I never was but was always terrified that I would be perceived as)…

…or with males, it put me in the realm of absolute befuddlement:  they with me and me with them.

My therapist has helped me to see the ways that males treated me just as they do other women in our culture and this revelation has been key in accepting and forgiving myself.

But in the past 6 months, I have been gaining friends.  Amazing, towering women (who would shout derisively at me that I call them towering lol) who have opened their hearts and spread their wings to me…earthy, rooted women who have twined their roots into mine and have stood with me present…every day.tumblr_nr0nudVxoI1qas1mto6_1280They are teaching me to value myself appropriately and not sell myself so cheaply for bread crusts when there is a whole feast of friendship on the table.

So I am gaining in perspective…in experience…in confidence…and in direction.  I don’t think I want to be part of relationships that are not substantive and real.  I don’t want to be in connections where I am thought of as a bother, a chore to be tended to, or a minor annoyance to grasp (like a pineapple).mine-field1I am a very unique person…and I am a force.  I have been called “too” in the past…”too much”…”too intense”…”too passionate”…”too hard on myself”…”too high a standard”…

Well.  Let this be known:  I am not “too”

I am me.

If that is “too” to you, then likely we are not gonna really connect and grow together.  I have tried to slow down, to sit down, to tone down, to quiet down…and I die inside in guilt, doubt and self-judgement.

I am not doing that anymore…taking that label to myself about myself “too”…

and I am knowing that I am simply me.

And that is the best and only thing I can be…

Those who will shall find me and in these new lands I will become even more…and less.  Less that “me” that is self-judging and critical and self-hating…and more in their wonderful offering of themselves to my heart.Image 001But especially less…for it is in the “less becoming” that I truly become.

I have been knowing this for sometime now, without really knowing…
well, I am getting there…

Gosh it feels so good to run barefoot!tumblr_nmxzr28pzd1u38l26o1_500

Shattered

things i thought
held me up
and help me up
i found out are shaky

i am thought odd one
guilty of excellence
called by the many
unreasonable girl

pieces are breaking
from the mosaic
but where they hung
there is nothing but grey

all around me the bricks
that I thought were solid
turn liquid and broken
and leave me hung, shattered

The Day I Turned To Stone

I remember that hard day,
the day I turned to stone,
how my heart filled with such dismay
horror-struck to the bone.tumblr_nqg8ww6JTv1txrs0no1_1280Words floated in the smoky air
and zeroed in on me
and stung me in my fleshy-chair
word-wasps and angry bee.

I broke out, far down the road
so many years gone by
and there laid down that heavy load
of stone, beneath blue skiestumblr_n6imzhXUXg1qzvg5fo5_1280and put on my warm softest flesh
and bloomed in my true form…
me, grown in stable gender-creche
and at last here…reborn.tumblr_nqj5bvampN1t07z8ao1_1280

Feather and Fur

It’s puzzling…
the sheer effrontery
of those raucous rooks,
those rapacious ravens…

they flock around
(why?  I couldn’t say)
and act all furry and red
and soft and they think
their beady close set eyes
are so foxy…

I act bored and disinterested
but I watch them carefully
with slitted eyes
and coiled muscles
ready to jump away from
blood-thirsty beaks

and harsh cries
that tear the air apart
and leave feather and fur
in their wake.

The only way to respond to my transgender child’s desperate plea was with love – The Globe and Mail


The only way to respond to my transgender child’s desperate plea was with love – The Globe and Mail
.

Oh Constance…oh.  This.  I felt this myself, and I rejoice in the knowledge that this child can benefit from the progress we are making in understanding gender identity and what it is, where it is, and how to live and be fruitful when the body and mind are at opposite ends of this spectrum.

Oh Reader:  the stories like this are multitudinous…how long will you dwell in that territory staked out by your ignorant and obstinate predecessors who labelled the epileptic demon possessed or the sufferer of birth marks on the face as touched by satan?

Reader, how long will you add the talmud of your own carnal mind to the Word of God and then use that as a club on your fellow image-bearers who are different than you?

How long will you continue to push your chips into the middle of the table and bet on a losing hand?

It makes me sad…it makes me glad that I have been delivered from that place, and yes, I have “lost all things” but here is what I have gained:  knowing what it means to walk with Jesus “outside the city”, having counted all things loss for this Honor and Delight.  He cut off all other sources of life, and all the more to His glory that it would be not me who lives but Christ who lives in me.

But keep reading…maybe one of these days it will penetrate your fear that nothing can separate you from the love of God:  not even swimming in rivers that you imagine I have crossed.

(c) Salford Museum & Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

(c) Salford Museum & Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Walking Backwards Thru Snowy Fields

It was a bird’s eye view,
a bride’s eye view,
all in white inside those
clean inviting borders
and me suspended overhead
and anxious in the tale told below.1310a349f850dd15dcb03d256b5d490eI could see the tracks I left
there in your field, small
hot holes in the icy frosting
so beautiful, or buttons black
against that argent wedding cloth
in the pristine cold and dusky dim dark.

I felt shame in their
crooked, casual assumption
that anywhere inside the fence
was safe and I could wander freely.
I saw that my crooked beadwork
detracted from your day’s pure garment.Imagxxe 2But that is why I am here,
whispering down your chimney
in the voice of the wistful winter winds,
soft, mellow, sorrowful and sheepish
and urgent too!  Cus I never meant anything
but a blessing and admiration.tumblr_mykpg4C5Xs1s96knno1_1280I wanted you to know…
I walked backwards tonite
in my snowshoes and those
actually worn backwards
and as I stepped into the telling tracks
one by oneImdage 1they filled themselves in
and I took my birch branch
and waved it gently
across the surface
and thus erase any trace
that I had ever been there.

I shinnied over the fence
and up the roof, and I think
Ima stay here awhile, in this nook
on your roof next to your chimney
where the faint heat speaks of warmth
below and laughs within and a time and place
where all are home and all is well again.tumblr_mev5k5sQ7w1rgrk0bo1_500

If I Could

I would open up the boxes
if I could…

take out all the hurtful things
and replace them with surprises
and treasures and delights.

I would take out death and horror
I would remove all harmful additives
I would open up the cigarettes
and replace them with
the weapons of a happy childhood

If I could
I would

Tripping On Mountains

When I looked upon your
crags and cliffs, their sheer faces,
granite and lacy lined in clouds
and light reflected in the facets
created in the interplay
between ephemeral and substantial…

When my heart rose, unbidden even
and reached for stars those ramparts high
pointed at in joyous and triumphant
anthems of liberty and struggle
to cross the gulfs of space so dark
and find the threshold of that light…tumblr_nr047ah7Bz1qat5pio1_500

When my feet flew, up trails brand new
and yet paths that felt so warm familiar
that I could run with my eyes closed
and have no fear that my mind’s eye
saw clearly every twist and turn
but I failed to see the burn…

When I stumbled, over root and rock
and tumbled right back down the scree
and the scattered talus slope…of me…
in the way again
caught up in delight again
carried in short sight again
feeling foolish and too fast…
again…

When I looked upon your cliffs and crags
so beautiful, so austere,
so far above meVicto-Ngai

As Is

The sounds it made were bold, cavernous,
an opera in a wooden box.
The grown ups said this was an early model
and it was in mint condition.

They spoke in hushed tones.
A perfect treasure, a magnificent and flawless toy.
It was not sold “as is”…dscf4606

“As is” marked the clock that had stopped ticking,
or the rocking horse that had a crack in one of its legs.
That label also conveyed a certain sense of defeat,
a lost cause—a treasure bearing some distinguishable,
irreparable flaw.

I have always felt “As is,”
that label covering over
the tag inside my collar
that says “As I long to be”
and the treasure of me
going awry…in only a matter of time.tumblr_n9r92oy73M1s3tosqo1_r1_1280

Well, thank God
They delight in “As Is”
rather than sacrifice,
They dote on broken spirits
They comfort contrite hearts
and will not despise the humble.212standsforstars

“Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows…
But he was pierced
for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities.”

Isn’t it strange
that we who are saved
by One who was broken
should struggle in the presence
of brokenness at all?

we are never nearer
than when we come
with nothing in
our hands to offer.

And “As Is” gives a certain hope,
for in this recognition of brokenness
we see the promise of
wholeness.tumblr_noi74zupo91qas1mto2_1280

In Flames And Becoming (For Charissa, on her first birthday)

I lit myself on fire last night,
so deep within the forest green,
deep in the dark, and black with night,
this full sloe night of birth and dreams
and true becoming in earth brand new.tumblr_nqm8ejLNZa1t54znqo1_1280I found the heart of that deep secret wood
and there in its tough-tender core that lay
so quiet, t’was forever winter and brilliant
and glad in the glade and the still and the snows
and the frozen mists wreathed round that door       (Her Door)

and crystal light skittered in ice jewels that glittered
on burnished ground gritty, substantive and pebbled
and real…real like me…and that Ancient stone table
awaiting me waiting there, and charred remains…
hinting at that dazzling “forever-more.”winter-houses-11__880There…in the frozen deep heart so pure,
so true and alive in that rooted green wood
that beckoned me step into it with my courage
and my heart, my faith and my love,
my faith…in love and in Grace.

Why, you ask?
Why did I immolate my tender heart,
and my teary soul?

Because…

I’ve grown tired of misuse,
I’ve grown weary being taken
there, for granted and discounted,
not allowed to breathe or be…
and so I lit myself on fire
with the living breathing flames
and unbecoming sticks of me.tumblr_nr4qqmjdh91qat5pio1_500

Why?  Because…

The river called me, bid me come,
the fields wooed me to walk in them
amidst their wheaty woven tresses
and their rustly whisper blessings
words so urgent, speaking of
the needed fires that would burn
deep in the forest, fires of love
and burn me straight down to the ground
where Phoenix waits, my lost and found…

because the stars swam overhead
and flew across unfathomable deeps,
because the fox ran on the night
because its paws tattooed me sweet,
because the fires beckoned me…
I lit me there, me…blazing bright.

tumblr_nr4phfI7yH1qat5pio1_500There, in the flames my starved soul
it did remember its deep song,
words springing full in fiery dance
and I sang there in my one chance

to reclaim me…
and my own knowing of myself
and knowing this Divine Romance…

I came,

ghosty, buried, squirming there
outlawed by law, thus qualified
to call out Law once and for all,
as mere smoke drifting in cool night air
and dissipating…then disappeared!

OH! How I burned!

I danced in red flames fundamental,
so elemental and essential
in the drum beat, and embodied
in the whistle, in the call
and hue and cry, in fragile beauty
and in loss and in the cook-fires
and the dreamtime, when bereft and full of longing

OH…I burned there…
OH…How I burned!

In the forest…
In the snow…
I burned there…
Burned for Her
I burned for me.
Portrait-of-a-HeartI’m not going on without me any longer
and I’m not a mark, or soft sweet honey pot
for strange predacious thrusts of others, NO!
I know when things must die, must die

…and when those things must live.
I’ve learned to walk away,
I’ve learned to stay

as the watcher and the knower,
oracle and visionary and intuitive gold maker,
as creator, quiet listener, inspiratrice, clever inventor,
and a guide to vibrant life that lies so deep in the deep green wood
and that same life it glows in me, it grows in me and goes beyond
me always and no matter what may matter, what may come,
Come what may, come my way…
tumblr_nr3xil51X51slipiho1_500That was last nite…
the fire of my bones
Today I have me risen…
and walk the path of crones
I am centered, un-apolo-getic,
rooted in the truth and all that I am now is…

is raw and wild
with ancient knowing
of the blood
so fiercely flowing
thru the rivers
and the streams
in the creek-beds
of my bones.

Today’s the day
to rise from ruins
(necessary ruins precede my rise).
Today’s the day to burn away,
the old that is just not aligned
with truth that feeds
those fires hot
and fuels transformation.

All of the animals gathered and watched
what they thought was a glorious sunset
on the horizon, that far lost horizon.

But it was just me, burning, on fire,
and all ruins falling and Phoenix arising,
cus I lit myself on fire last nite.

I lit myself on fire…last nite.tumblr_nr4m20hSZM1qat5pio1_500

I Think It’s Memory

There’s deep green truth
in the spectral grey heart
of this ghastly pale notion
haunting our desperate minds:
our own truest blue heart
is most deeply discovered
in desperate ragged edges,
jagged, sharp, contrasted,
in tight precipice moments
(both high, and oh so low).tumblr_nr3s43ffiK1rn12zko1_500It’s on those thresholds,
in those moments
of “life”, of dismal death,
weighted and full moments
where indecision and decision
wrestle for supremacy,
where comfort lulls,
boredom deceives,
and indifference dulls…tumblr_nqy1drd2ru1qc6wuio8_r1_1280Tell me, what’s the essence of a heart
delivered from this life lived badly
to a certain death well-died?
And there and back again
into life lived and risen
from the bony spectral grip
of that small death called
cowardice?

Iris Fox ©2013 Gretchen Powers all rights reserved

Iris Fox ©2013 Gretchen Powers all rights reserved

I think it’s memory,

(and of course courage
to forget what is dead
and press on in pursuit
of those matters that matter)

to bravely (courage)
recall (re-member)
those things long ago
when first love was
fresh, free, fragrant…
that gives us perspective
to risk a decent death
and choose to lay down all
in hopes that we will rise
before the Great Rising.tumblr_np4plshztV1tv3g49o1_1280It’s when we remember
in poised precipice moments
that we can see most clearly
how our affections flow
and what and who we are…

But:

what we remember deeply,
all that we have ingrained
into identity assumed
(like costumes for the play)
it’s far more likely we’ll recall
when crisis, pain or comfort make it
hard to remember anything,
the deep memory will hold against
temptation of forgetfulness in
“the Forgetful Green.”tumblr_nq9w38M1RM1qat5pio1_500If we refuse to actively remember
the story in which we participate,

(moments where God
has acted mightily,
the times humanity
has learned in tears
of reality and immortality,
of the autonomy of God
even in this)

then in sickness and in health
undoubtedly we will forget
that memory even is a thing
in this world that’s forgotten
and bids us forget as well.tumblr_nmlz7sSJYH1u3o58go1_540Lay aside the panaceas, cure alls,
life supports, and take up courage
to embrace a good death given
Die a Decent Death, in faith
that such thing does exist!

What is a good death?
The question’s asked and answered
by people who mourn and lament,
who weep at gravesides lingering,
who live and die and live as those
who follow That One gone before
in boldness and then risen high
above the false finale of
the gasping gaping grave!

A decent death, a certain hope…

I think it’s memory…
I think it’s memory.tumblr_mnjid9PJp21ry9w1bo1_500

 

It’s An Artform

To practise this quote, and to also be one who extends Grace…it’s an artform.

But I get this now, in ways I never did before, and I have been walking in it…early and often.

It has been a wise move, and I have grown well in it.

Don’t let someone get comfortable with disrespecting you.
tumblr_nop2whGn1p1qc3hxxo1_540

The Triune Choice of Transgender Humans in a Binary World

I wanted to press this because I admire the courage of this person, and I wanted to call attention (again) to the plight of transgender people.  Sadly, we are limited to just a couple of options:

1.  Be true to ourselves, and get harassed, bullied, and very likely even assaulted and/or killed.

2.  Hide, and be subject to awful harassment, bullying and assault from ourselves from inside our own being.

Of course there is the 3rd option, the one I took:

You can always just rip yourself in two…dissociate, so you don’t “know” about yourself (and neither does anyone else), and you can simply study the prison that you have been given and called life and learn how to perform.

Perform well, and get rewarded with praise, affection, what is termed “love” (and from the perspective of the givers surely is love, but from the perspective of the dissociated person it’s never really known for sure if they’re loved), and all the privileges accorded to one who conforms to their prescribed role.

But the fallout from this…the gender role half life, if you will…is terrible.  Stress, dysphoria, depression, and ultimately despair.  The ripples of that rending of the soul in twain go forth from that moment…

…but they don’t diminish with time, they magnify, grow larger and have increasingly more destructive results in the lives of all who intersect with that person.

I know.  This is what I did…and I’ve been informed by those who had the grave misfortune to exist in those waves and troughs that I ruined them forever in my cowardly and hypocritical choice to dissociate rather than displease (or worse) my parents.

Hey, I was 6 years old…I shoulda known better…I did know worse…eventually.

So there you have it, folks…the 3 fold option for prisoners of the gender binary back in the mid 60s.  If you know a family with a gender variant member, and they are seeking to grapple with it now in a world that is slowly growing more flexible as attitudes and superstitions change…reach out and give them love.

They will certainly need it.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly
Charissatumblr_npuxgzCrCq1qg4kx9o1_1280

riverheadlocal.com

Transgender youth skip school rather than face discrimination, humiliation from educators and peers

The N.Y. Civil Liberties Union is calling on the State Education Department to provide detailed guidance to public school districts on preventing transgender youths’ discrimination and harassment by students and teachers.

Many trans* youth don’t get the education they deserve due to undue harassment and discrimination from both educations and peers.

This is why EVERY school should have a fully inclusive non-discrimination AND anti-bullying policy which protects youth and educators alike on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.

Neighborhood Bully (Apologies to Bob Dylan for the Adjustments)

Well, the neighborhood bully, she’s a woman
Her enemies say she’s on their land
They got her outnumbered about a million to one
She got no place to escape to, no place to run
She’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
She’s criticized and condemned for being alive
She’s not supposed to fight back, she’s supposed to have thick skin
She’s supposed to lay down and die when her door is kicked in
She’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
She’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen her family scattered, her people hounded and torn
She’s always on trial for just being born
She’s the neighborhood bully

Well, she knocked out a lynch mob, she was criticized
Old women condemned her, said she should apologize.
Then she destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for her. She was supposed to feel bad
She’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That she’ll live by the rules that the world makes for her
’Cause there’s a noose at her neck and a gun at her back
And a license to kill her is given out to every maniac
She’s the neighborhood bully

She got no allies to really speak of
What she gets she must pay for, she don’t get it out of love
She buys obsolete weapons and she won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by her side
She’s the neighborhood bully

Well, she’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
She’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved her is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
She’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
She’s the neighborhood bully

Now her holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract she signed was worth what it was written on
She took the crumbs of the world and she turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and she turned it into health
She’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to her for?
Nothin’, they say. She just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
She’s the neighborhood bully

What has she done to wear so many scars?
Does she change the course of rivers? Does she pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully
tumblr_nnse5t19Z71qat5pio1_500

Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music
Lyrical adaptations by Charissa, in honor of courageous women everywhere, especially transwomen

The Triune Choice of Transgender People In a Binary World

I wanted to press this because I admire the courage of this person, and I wanted to call attention (again) to the plight of transgender people.  Sadly, we are limited to just a couple of options:

1.  Be true to ourselves, and get harassed, bullied, and very likely even assaulted and/or killed.

2.  Hide, and be subject to awful harassment, bullying and assault from ourselves from inside our own being.

Of course there is the 3rd option, the one I took:

You can always just rip yourself in two…dissociate, so you don’t “know” about yourself (and neither does anyone else), and you can simply study the prison that you have been given and called life and learn how to perform.

Perform well, and get rewarded with praise, affection, what is termed “love” (and from the perspective of the givers surely is love, but from the perspective of the dissociated person it’s never really known for sure if they’re loved), and all the privileges accorded to one who conforms to their prescribed role.

But the fallout from this…the gender role half life, if you will…is terrible.  Stress, dysphoria, depression, and ultimately despair.  The ripples of that rending of the soul in twain go forth from that moment…

…but they don’t diminish with time, they magnify, grow larger and have increasingly more destructive results in the lives of all who intersect with that person.

I know.  This is what I did…and I’ve been informed by those who had the grave misfortune to exist in those waves and troughs that I ruined them forever in my cowardly and hypocritical choice to dissociate rather than displease (or worse) my parents.

Hey, I was 6 years old…I shoulda known better…I did know worse…eventually.

So there you have it, folks…the 3 fold option for prisoners of the gender binary back in the mid 60s.  If you know a family with a gender variant member, and they are seeking to grapple with it now in a world that is slowly growing more flexible as attitudes and superstitions change…reach out and give them love.

They will certainly need it.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly
Charissa

riverheadlocal.com

Transgender youth skip school rather than face discrimination, humiliation from educators and peers

The N.Y. Civil Liberties Union is calling on the State Education Department to provide detailed guidance to public school districts on preventing transgender youths’ discrimination and harassment by students and teachers.

Many trans* youth don’t get the education they deserve due to undue harassment and discrimination from both educations and peers.

This is why EVERY school should have a fully inclusive non-discrimination AND anti-bullying policy which protects youth and educators alike on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.

Work In Progress

Found this morning:

“You are in a time of transition, of growth –
of becoming more than you’ve allowed yourself to be.
It’s bittersweet. It’s painful. It’s beautiful and it is so very necessary.
Don’t stop trying. Don’t hesitate to dream big. Don’t give up on yourself.
Don’t give into your doubts. You are a wonderful work in progress.
Day by day you are planting seeds and soon the harvest will come
and you will reap glorious things.”

With love,

Dele

dscf2904

Reaping Waves

I’m no Viking, not me!
Charissa Grace?
Pshaw…I do not sail
on waves like crops,
oars for ploughs
and battle lust for seed.
I shudder at the thought!
Of harvest moments
in peaceful lands
and no limits but my lusts
and the certainty of loss
at the end of Ragnarok.tumblr_not59dYYGf1s5u2cno1_500

I sail on clouds, on streams
on brook-magic mists rising
in the gentle night and dusky dawn
and sow in rose-glow song
to the fields of new morning
by the light of the Morning Star…

tears are my seed
laughter my harvest
in grace taken and shared
in the cycle of that itty bitty seed
so small, so unstoppable
so certain at the beginning
of the Endless Daytumblr_nqyd9yxhEh1s5neh1o1_1280

Breaking Beans

the *snap* of crisp green beans
the smell of the fresh linen
infused with lacy scents
of baked bread lingering

the sound like
*past* and *present* and *future*
punctuated with
period.  period.  period.
and my heart the ellipsis that lingers

like the freshly baked bread.tumblr_npqjbzQDhF1thfeewo1_500I toss snappy green bodies
*broken for you*
into the big tin tub
that has held generations
of bloody green beans.

I hear the sound, somewhere between
a thump
and a ting
and the tremor of a gong,
the tolling of a bell

and you,
I hear the sound of you
breaking, snapping
and thumping into your tub.

This season could last forever
as far as I am concerned.

This season cannot roll past fast enough
if you want to know the truth.tumblr_nr28o2lNKD1u0xmcmo1_1280Truth.
Thump.
Ting.
Tremor.
Toll.

I stare at the horizon (beyond)
as my fingers find familiar quan
in green beans
*snap*ping like
castanetstumblr_nqtiiuBszi1snlnsio1_1280

Father’s Day Aftermath

I’m down and troubled and I need a helping hand
and nothing, whoa, nothing is going right.
I’ve closed my eyes and thought of you,
and yet you’re just not there
to brighten up even this darkest nights.

I’ve just called out your name, but I know wherever you are
you’ll start running to never see me again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, every time I reach out to call,
you are not there, no no no
I need a friend.

Well the sky above me has turned dark and full of clouds
and that old north wind so chilly’s begun to blow,
I try to keep my head together and call your name out loud.
It’s in vain, you will never be knocking on my door.
I just call out your name, but each time, it’s always the same
You go running the other way to never see me again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, every time I reach out and call,
you are not there, no no no
I need a friend.

Hey, it’s so hard to know that I got no friend? People can be so cold.
They’ll hurt you and desert you. Well, they’ll take your soul if you let them,
oh yeah, but even my soul’s not enough for them.

I just call out your name, and I know where ever you are
You go running so you never have to see me again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, or any other time at all…
Lord, there’s just VM yeah yeah yeah
I need a friend.  Yeah, I need a friend.
tumblr_nr0rfyenoE1qas1mto6_1280

The House of My Heart

If you sit down in my life
and find it snug, merry, warm
and full of the smells
of bread baking and
food cooking…

then you have made it to the porch.

If you stand in horror
at the mess you see
the dirty laundry next
to the washer running
24×7…

then you have made it to the mudroom.

If you walk, amazed
and cannot find words
for those rooms unfolding
and full of art, of music
of funny lil knic-knaks,
and the only uniting theme
is wonder…

then you have made it into my heart.

And if you find the stillness
filled with golden light
and fierce joyful gladness…

then you have made it to my soul.christine-ellger

40 questions for Christians who oppose marriage equality (GUEST COMMENTARY) – Corner of Church and State

40 questions for Christians who oppose marriage equality (GUEST COMMENTARY) – Corner of Church and State.

A VERY interesting and thought provoking article and series of questions…Reader, this is posted more for you than anyone else.  See if you can hold your need to “binary-ize” things into your “either-or” world view…just for a second or two.

I am less interested in answering the question of right and wrong at this point, and more interested in asking what kind of heart are you showing, advocating, and modeling by your current approaches to relationship with LGTBQ people?

I mean…33 plus years of relationship was over in the flick of a heartswitch and the drop of an envelope in a mail-slot…

Boom.

My life has gone on.  No…more accurately, my life has finally begun and I have been blooming and growing spiritually and emotionally and growing more healthy physically.  The loss of relationship has in my case been a very healthy pruning in that so many new people have come into my life bringing messages to me like I have rarely experienced in my past years done in the dungeons of christendom.

But I do think about you, Reader…and the life you live of inspection and constant lifting of yourself and others into scales that are not even accurate…

…and I encourage you to read these questions and ponder them…

because to answer them and be challenged by them will require you to change your lifestyle, spend your time differently, and draw your boundaries very different!

You never know…you just may find that the river you say I have crossed that you won’t be crossing is the River of Life and that what matters is the water, and not the bank you stand on…as if that matters…as if you could really make that claim, that your bank is “the bank”…as if that pleases God who left heaven and took on the form of a bondslave…

…and as if that River of Life doesn’t have twists and turns to the human eye that could end up with us actually still “on the same side” (cus that’s a thing in this divisive binary world, being on the same side is far more important than belonging to Jesus *SARCASM*) and you not even realize it.

Just let go.

The list is getting sooo long, and the burden is getting sooo ponderous, all the things you must inspect and check and ascertain…how bout just letting all that go, and simply doing this:  Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself with something more than a letter that slashed and burned and then preened like Little Jack Horner…
Victo-Ngai-19

I Lost Time Today

I lost time today…misplaced it completely
as I sat, wondering how
the lavender takes body and position
in the skies above.

Does it wish its way up there?
Does it woo with song and dance?
Notes so sweet floating on air
to paint and wash and seize its chance
to smear its bloody beauty stain
upon the sky’s face once so plain
just blue…and now in wonder-grains
of beauty brief that won’t remain…

I lost time today…