Relevant…Quite Relevant
Category Archives: Love
Behind Bars
Behind the bars
of socialization
and choices made
unawares and assumed
I look and I long
to be set free quick
and to have my own day
to have my own day
I Love Mama’s Hands
I love Mama’s Beautiful Hands
so dirty with me, with us.
I love that She is not distant from me
But draws close and plunges to muss
My hair, my heart, my head and my soul
She molds and She mushes and messes
And then She will wash me and clean me right up
And put pleats in my Lonely Tresses
My Face Against Your Glass
The monolith of your decided thoughts
looms large in dreadfall shades and shadows stark
of lost judgments formed in historic fogs
and lacking light and love, short on comfort.
and I am shrieking-dwarfed in their shot gaze
unblinking, baleful red and white and black
for all those choices made back in lost days
in reactive guilt and in hidden shame
give recoil now to even the mere name
of who and what I am, what I am not.
and still I throw myself against those stones
those bastions large and looming, standing there
in granite ground into your heart and bones
that glass unbreakable that you have set
to look thru, thinking seeing is the same
as being, but it’s not, not even close.
because you cannot touch me…no…not quite
…you will not touch me, that’s it, you will not
then I am naught…and my face…ohhh my face
my face against your glass red, blue and white
red and blue and white and I can’t get a breath
my face against your glass, your glass my death
A Morning Phase
It’s a Morning Phase I’m in here,
walking in fogs and mists
thru familiar places long past
and gone but glimmering…
hinting,
haunting,
high above
in shrouded skies
wrapped in what?
Funereal splendour?
Swaddling clothes?
I can’t tell which
but then again
does it really
matter?
They signify
the same.
And I pass
along the path
dirt crunching
scrunching under
my trodding feet,
my padding feet
my tramping feet
looking for home
it’s a
Morning
Phase
I’m
in.
A Song For Autumn Without Music
Could I leave the bright waves
and take to the blue skies?
Could I leave my cold skin
and sail into your eyes?
Is the moon high above
just reflecting to me
all the love that you hold
in your heart?
If the leaves on the trees
can turn red, yellow, gold
why can’t I find a heart
that will tenderly hold
my body, my spirit,
my mind and my soul
while the tale of my true
love is told?
Mount up! Mount up!
Take courage on the wind!
Lift the hands of your sails on the waters!
Rise up! Rise up!
Leave the surface behind and let the bow of your ship
carve the clouds on your way!
I will sail all the seas
I will follow the stars
I will listen behind the beauty
beyond what mars
And someday I shall come
to my sea-harbour home
I will finally rest
deep in you.
Yes I will finally rest
deep in you.
It Feels Weird To Me
…like Grace Notes has become
an echo chamber and I am
speaking only to myself…
no matter…
I am liking my poetry,
and that pleases me.
To Skim Thru Night With Me
I skim quick thru the darkling night
I skinny along those fissures deep
and rough faults in thick dark.
The sable satin curtain parts
and I slide thru, slide thru alone
and hot with dark-fire smoke.
My eyes flash flash light to light
and gleam within the velvet night
and promise there’s an end.
But you must strip off layers, yes
you must there disrobe complete
and scrub away the past
to skim thru night with me right here,
to skim thru night with me.
Heart And Henna
Mark my heart with loving henna
not with needle-inky hate
let me feel your brush-sienna
early, lasting, long and late
Worry not that it will fade
victim of time’s ceaseless flow.
I am inside, tender-laid
and marked by your faithful brush blow.
Ever shall your marks on me
Bind my soft heart to your own
So mark me love, with glyphs made free
Heart of hearts, Bone of Bone.
I Wear Your Blood With Honor
i gladly lay beneath you
i wear your blood with honor
it glistens on my white skin
like moonlight on the water
just lay me down here easy
and let your choice flow o’er me
i wear your blood with honor
like scars of precious battles
and every drop, it burns me
tattoos and marks forever
i wear your blood with honor
and ever me your banner
upon the leaping windsong
i wear your blood with honor
upon my face, my soft skin
i wear your blood like medals
Final
…You move on
when your heart
finally understands
that there is
no turning back.
— J.R.R. Tolkien 
And I Think Of You
i pull on
my stockings
soft and black
and i think of you
in the evening
i sit by the fire while
the teakettle sings
and i think of you
i pull up
my covers over
my sleepless visions
while the stars shimmer
shaking behind rainy cloudweeps
and i think of you.
i pull on
my silk blouse
it’s yellow and blue
and i wonder if i’ll
ever be good enough
and i think of you.
i have so much
to give you
meadows of emerald
skies of pure opal
red heart so true
soul of soft pink
and my
thoughts are just you
thoughts are still you
and i think of you
and i think of you
Twining Ice And Fire
the ice is silent.
silent and perfect.
silent and perfect and blinding.
the silent
perfect blinding
ice.
the fire sings
sings and dances
sings and dances and sees
beyond
the singing
dancing seeing
flame.
see them twine
ice lacing flame
flame licking ice
heating and cooling
drips in drops
of unity.
i promise you
my love
though ice
ascendant rules the day
fire will win
in The Day
and thawing come
and passion rule
and only water
here remaining
And I Fortunate One…
…I have lived into this…thank you dearest one.
“I want to fall to sleep with you,
and I could care less
whether it is in
layers upon layers
of clothing
or only our skin –
all I really want is to wake up
not knowing
where I end and you begin.”
– Beau Taplin
This Water, Cloudy
No…the water
is not dirty
or polluted or
even stagnant.
It’s just cloudy,
this water, cloudy.
It was clear and warm,
luxuriant and lazy
but quick-like, to pull you
in and then lay you
down easy and gentle
and snug.
But you
never came in
so my desire,
that unknown
cloud unknowing
leaked out,
just trickled away
around me
until the pool
was cloudy
and thick
with my
longing want.
Spectacle
those marks,
a series of slashes
joining a smatter
of dots and blobs
and curves arcing
across regimented
lines fixed in space
and speaking of
time and tone
indecipherable to
the common eye
and singing
of sublimity
in a master’s mind
and playable only
by those filled
with the desire
of the ages
Omg The Beauty
In autumn the evenings,
when the glittering sun sinks
close to the edge of the hills
and the crows fly
back to their nests
in threes and fours and twos;
more charming still
is a file of wild geese,
like specks in the distant sky.
when the glittering sun sinks
close to the edge of the hills
and the crows fly
back to their nests
in threes and fours and twos;
more charming still
is a file of wild geese,
like specks in the distant sky.
When the sun has set,
one’s heart is moved
by the sound of the wind
and the hum of insects.
one’s heart is moved
by the sound of the wind
and the hum of insects.
| — | Sei Shōnagon, “The Pillow Book” |
Morning Meditations
When you lose the rest of everything
and the curb merges with the gutter,
wander on down the grey road
in the weak darkness, thin and sorry
for its skinny powers.
Like you, it has been stripped
and hollowed out by pillars
of strange orange man-made lights
that pulse to rhythms eldritch
and out of whack.
Turn left at the golden arches
and meander downhill toward
that weedy field of thistles and look
beneath its frosty veil for the path, no…
the part traversing that bristly mane
low and lurking deep in the foot
of the silent graveyard speaking so insistent
of what it cannot say.
Head to the pylon, pushing thru the wild roses
and brambles and you can find me, sleeping and still,
swathed in brilliant reds that have been infected with
the sicknesses of too much and too little.
Cast-off Goodwill wannabes swaddle me
in the mangy light so far away from even
Bethlehem let alone a stable, and I struggle
to stay beneath the thready stream of thin sleep
doled out to me like penitentiary-gruel
to dulled-out dwellers in the dimness
that masquerades as just desserts deep-deserved.
Feel that moist air clinging to your cheeks
like my fingers used to cling to those faces
cherubic and innocent and unaware of the plague
awaiting outside the place we all used to live.
Smell that rank faint scent that lives only
at the foot of graveyards and only creeps
out in the dead of night…and take a deep breath,
for that breath is your inheritance now, in this
long first night in the fake wilds beneath
the petty-coats of this town but no longer with
a place to call home, or even a cover to keep out
the creeping dread of realization that this will happen
over and over and over and over and over and…
you can curl up behind me and we can spoon and
maybe our touch will lure the moon over
the crouched hump of the bridge that sings once
in a while with the passing of scrabbling
metal beasts scurrying thru this place
on the way to nowhere.
Or if that small comfort is too slow and uncertain,
trek across the creek and look under the bridge
by the trestle beams so dark and still and
certain of their strength.
They sweat in cold beads
and if you stick out your tongue
you can trap a few drops there and here
that will cool your ravaged hot throat torn
with such thirsty longing for what used to be…
and if you stick out your arm, well then
swift flows the river current for those
who would brave the rapids and ravages
of those waters.
But then again, you may as well
take the shortcut, up the twisty hill
and lay down amidst the still stone angels
and the lumpy skeletal headboards
amidst the sighing dead awaiting
for the Rising Morning…
I live here now, in this red infected light
of lone loss and dewy violet memory and
I’ve learned to thrive off things despised,
I’ve learned to sift the dregs and love
the cast-off lees and living here
wrapped so warm in Autumn Leaves
and with The Least of These…
I think I prefer authentic life even
in light somewhat diseased rather
than the full on blind brilliance
of that time past asleep in true light
but wasted light streaming on by
while my eyes were shut and sealed
and my heart full of things I knew
that just weren’t so.
Wander on
down the grey road,
for I am waiting
here.
Between Me And The Fire
there is always something
some thing that stands
between me and the fire
and casts a shadow that lies
on my face, a caul, a veil
it’s been called mask
and I bat at it, swat at it
the ninja master of
when you walk face-first
into spiderwebs
you never saw
but flail to no avail
to claw away this veil
(the caul)
me and my desire
(the fire)
and the thing
(whatever fits)
between me and the fire
me and body
me and love
me and longing
i cannot get to it
(the fire)
so i can dive into it
(and burn and burn and)
so instead i move sideways
around the thing and to the water
that waits for me placid, peaceful
yielding inviting thirsty
for me
it will drink of me
it will be one with me
it will give me itself for my body
it will marry me
(not just the idea of me)
and the flowers will sing
(they float)
and my dress shall dissolve
and my veil shall away
so that my breath
and my body
and the water
at last
become
one
A Thousand Times Again
Dearest Darling…
I would choose you…anytime, everytime.
Again and again.
You are the best forever.
“Her mindset will raise your children.
Not her body and good looks.
Choose wisely.”
I saw this quote…and I thought about the things that have been hurled at you this last year. I want you to know that the only choice that really matters is the one I made, and that I would make it again, as many times as I had it to make.
You are the person that I loved, and love. It was your SELF…your way, your mind, your heart that I wanted wrapped around any children I had…and I still think that you are the cream of the crop and a fabulous mother.
And you’re hot too!! Lol!!!
Love, me
That Rock…There
Clouds overhead, grey, full,
breaking, gathering can’t decide
which direction they are going,
whether they are hunkering down
thick and juicy or simply socializing
in a vaporous convocation that is all
twisty twaddle and no rushing rainfall.
It doesn’t matter, really. No, really.
It doesn’t matter, because in either case
the sky is constant behind them,
skimming the tops of mountains
and the troughs of wishy-waves
briny and stretching to the spines of stars,
The story of clouds is just pages turning
in The Big Blue-Black Book of Sky.
I lay here on the rock, below both
(the pages and the cover) and I feel
its hot rough rocky tongue against
my burnished sweaty salty skin and I am
slick with the sun’s caresses and drunk
on the wind’s soft moaning crooning
trickling down my throat into my heart.
I bury my cheek into the rock
and its unyielding solid comfort
so tharny-steel-brown and white
and let the wind pick at the drops
of sweat on my skin
and the bits of grit
that the rock gave me to
hold me there and grounded.
Beneath that blue-fade black sky reaching, touching…
Beyond those jumpy clouds roiling, fulminating…
Stretched out on that rock reeking of sun and surf…
Wearing nothing but the sun and the wind and my sweat…
mmmmmm…
I close my eyes and clench my thighs
and cling to stark unyielding comfort
fiercely present and I sing…and I know it…
that rock…there…has been and will be
and in its arms I can be clouds or sky…
or just the wind singing of it, picking at it
for stoney steady souvenir kisses
and pebbly tastes of its embrace enduring
And then I knock and then I melt
and start to flow tangy and hungry
all around and over the rock
and I become conformed and shaped,
imprinted, and tattooed beneath
its scratchy touch and I am
changed and owned…
I am marked
wherever I go
whenever I go
it will go with me
that rock unchanging
in the contours
of my heart
even though
it is still
solid and
unchanging
There.
Love And Breath
When light fades in upside down slow burn
that looks like sunset when it’s actually
just God’s Hand on your heart
Their dimmer switch of love
spinning round on and off…
brighter…not-so-bright…dark.
It’s in that plenary dark it seems
like love gets lumped together with
some lesser things indifferent to
light, and trumped by passions fading,
passing, dressed like love but there
beneath the pomp and circumstance
they lurk…contempt and loathing
lingering like endless expectation-fogs
of timid cold perfection leaving
just the loss of warmth
withholding cleansing cold.
When love is dialed down, dimmed to death
within the dark in that slow fade
and one swift moment final…and then…
there it is when you discover
in the flipping that the one you love is dead
or dying in your heart that’s aching
for a dawn that’s never breaking
and your edgy flesh is melting
and the burning in your throat
is draining into every vein
inside the pulsing sack of pasty skin and flaccid muscle
and red blood gone white with grief…
and day it doesn’t stand a chance
amidst that endless drone of hope
distressed and impotent before
The Hand that keeps the lights turned
dim and distant
and all you can do is wait just wait
for brightness to return, slow, rising
up painstaking there beneath…
your heartache heavy…lumpy…
quicksilver mercury mercy
glowing faint, insistent, slow
becoming wonder rising but
indefinite and vague and blurry
your heart shaken shifted stirred
and torn apart and all that’s left is
love and breath
the dignity of daring to love
greatly, fiercely, full and found
in faith
that love and breath
alone remain
OOOphh!!
I am helpless as the sea
at the end of her string.
I am restless.
Restless and useless.
I, too, create corpses.
at the end of her string.
I am restless.
Restless and useless.
I, too, create corpses.
| — | Sylvia Plath, from Three Women |
My Beloved Emily
I write you many letters with pens which are not seen.
Do you receive them?
| — | Emily Dickinson, from a letter, November 1854 |
This Gradual Depth
chasms within me yawn toothy
inhale sharply in chuckly hitches
they opened in horror unspeakable
and unknowable at the same time
blockades destroyed by strange forces
of fire fierce hungry and gluttonous,
that devoured every heart untended
my only option for living
it is total surrender to sorrow
embracing these unending trials
that teach spiritual lessons of courage
in the facing of dark deepest fears
in discovering this gradual depth
of my strength of my courage my love
it is horrible challenging painful,
but if it weren’t for all this suffering
I would not know myself near as well
how I’ve lived and I’ve chosen experienced
so I do not give up I have hope
I am grateful for difficult things
that have made me into who I am
A Necessary Death
The poem I just posted is inspired by a fantastic book I am reading called “Women Who Run With The Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. It is truly a word from Mama for me right now.
As I was reading her take on the Inuit myth of “Skeleton Woman”, it hit me like a ton of bricks…I have been keeping certain relationships alive with heart-blood and it has changed those relationships into parasites…instead I should be feeding them with the tears of true grieving that accompanies a proper death and thus cleanse the heart and free the soul, diminished but restored and purified.
It is clear that these were flawed, defective and tragic relationships. Blame has been laid…and I have none to lay, so therefore I can easily receive all blame for all factors and choices…because then I can get it into one place and just let it die. Skeleton Woman is that force which brings the necessary death of something so that new life can come forth. Jesus Himself said that unless we lose our life we cannot save it, unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it cannot bring forth any fruit but will be alone.
They are dead, and I am not cutting my heart any more…there is no expiation able, or even needed…there is no act that I could perform that would result in restoring what was to what it never was.
The only way forward is to let them die.
Diminished and free…and knowing there is another chapter in this story which can now commence.
Skeleton Woman Come
skeleton woman, you have come
surfaced with hue and cry and thrum
and waters heaving, rising scum
and dead bones clicking and clacking
clikkity-knuckles wrapping and long
dragging in waters where your white hair
stays wet, stays living and ready to tenderly
wrap what it is you have come near to usher
into the womb-waiting death.
i have hooked you, and you me,
and i have done with running away.
here…my tears for your bony tongue
drink and be filled, i ask only one thing:
that you be tender, be gentle
take them now, see the rot?
the decay, the deformities, have pity
in your mercies bury them slow
and let your waters feed them
to the seaweed and the fishes
and if you deem it good
and resurrection come to them
may it be ever in the rising of the sun
across the frozen waves
within the shell-pink dawn
That Someday Purge
it’s been
quite a while
since i jammed
my fingers
down my throat,
nails scraping soft
tender tissues,
ripping them
into ragged
ribbons of
agony and sweet relief.
i really
don’t know
why i did that
all those years.
i cannot even
find the impulse,
the compulsion
to expiate myself
and purge me
of that void.
but now
i think
we live
in times
of cultural
bulimia
and we
binge on self
purge in guilt
bathe in shame
call it freedom.
someday
we’ll live
a life of
being not doing
or consuming
and our throats
will heal
and our song
will be sung
pure
and
unashamed.
Kintsukuroi
time is the greatest distance
between two distant places…
me then. me now.
Today I am grateful
for that excruciating
powerlessness I felt
over and over
again and again
as a young child
and I would just cry
and cry and just cry
and I would just try
and try and just try
to summon some presence
in the midst of such absence.
Today, I know how to
think differently, how to
give up, how to
lose hope without (how to)
losing Hope.
Then I was empty,
and full of a void
inside the abyss.
Today I am flexible
dynamic, resilient,
I am a willow
and never an oak
and my golden harps
which were hung
on my branches
forgotten and rusty
are now soft being
strummed by Hands
not yet seen playing
songs of resilience.
Today I feel grateful
for knowing incredible
unutterable sadness,
washing in ocean waves
of the world’s sorrow
and my growing awareness,
of dissolving, surrender,
of letting go over
and over again.
All my jagged pieces
pulled out and untangled
untwisted unwrapped
washed clean of the muck
so healing can commence
i am the moon
i sit in tall grass, silky
lashing back and forth
quiet like tiger-tails
talking in air, with movement
i think about earth
hung spinning in space
hurtling round the sun
amidst the bright stars
(but none of them close
so i am really not amongst
them, not at all)
and i am the moon
growing in silence
fattening on gentleness
increasing with time
and in finding myself
and then come those sharp
hungry teeth gnawing
and others come clawing
with silences ringing
or spoken words shattering
indictments sharp thrusting
and I shrink, get smaller
my light become shadow
and me just a sliver
barely hanging on
and then the world spins
and moves round solaris
and this achey cycle
starts over again
i am the moon
and i miss you so
To You Some Where
above the lavender i float
on scents of honey, promises
of wine, i drift on hints to come
and possibility, and lean in
hard against the cold insistent
currents dragging at my wings,
pulling me always to the sea
while i strain to the mountains
and the flowers there
i fly to you some where
i fly to you
The Ones You Love The Most
It’s the ones
you love the most
who can lift you
in an instant,
and destroy you
without trying.
you love the most
who can lift you
in an instant,
and destroy you
without trying.
| — | Dorothy Koomson |
Like Mama
and i must find the courage
to smear me on the world
like oranges on the morning
smeared on the fingertips
that pry with nails sharp
i must be resolved
to be spread thick and creamy
on hearts so dry and crumbly
and tasteless in their leaven
like butter sweet and salty
i wanna be like Mama
so generous of spirit
so purposeful of heart
so resolute of vision
so loving in the tumult
let me light the longing twig
let me quench the burning branch
flame to tinder tender
and rain to thirsty flames
and known by Mama’s Name
A Treasure Made Trinket
i clothe myself in wonder
for you, wrap myself in night
i am your pirate plunder
you can have without a fight
the milky way my shining sash
the moon my pendant true
and cricket song my lingerie
i give myself to you
you there, so strong, so brilliant
straightforward as blazing suns
your ready laugh, your brewing storms
the way your rivers run
from mountains high, jagged austere
you flow into the sea
for you i wait, indigo here
for you to give you me
we…night and day bonded and true
and joy our wonder-fates
you wrapping me, me inside you
Eternity awaits
It’s In Rivers (My “Work” Response In Godly Play Training”
Yesterday I did a training for a method of faith formation in children called “Godly Play”. What happens is that you hear/see a bible story and then you do “work” related to processing the meaning of it.
The story I heard was that of Abram and Sarai…and when asked where I saw myself in the story it was immediately evident that I was with Sarai…in the back…in laughter…before seeing the promise come true.
Obvi I made a poem…but the opportunity to do it the way I did was SOOO freaking gratifying.
I hope you enjoy it
It’s In Rivers
Like Sunlight, Like Fog
I’m often told I’m confident
(like the march of blazing sun
across the hills of night
awakening each day)
I’m told I look like rushing waves
that roll in from the sea
and pounce upon the sand
in joyful swelling sounds
This makes me laugh inside my heart
because I’m more like fog
that silent moves unsure
which way it wants to go
But still committed to the march
inexorable and slow
to be true to myself
in soft embrace sold out
to be completely there
and wrapped around all things
I cherish in the hug
of insubstantial presence
there, and yet untouched.
The Birth of My Fourth
it’s a crushing weight
tangible presence
part and parcel
of the essence
of this thing
just like red is
the truth of blood
and copper is
the air exhaled
by laughing lungs
it’s the love I feel
for your fire-self
your glowy soul
alive and strong
and destined here
to speak with laughs
to laugh with song
to sing in truths
to love in speed
to linger ever
as the crushing weight
here in my chest
upon my heart
this bloody living
love of you
The Crucible of Grace
If you seek to extend grace and love to cover over a multitude of sins, the worst thing you can do is undercut that extension by talking about it and pointing it out. Right?
This weekend has been excruciating, because the long-awaited and much dreaded article outing me to the entire world was published. And I am letting it stand uncommented on, because the person who wrote it apparently needs this as they deal, process, and move forward in becoming.
But it is awful having my voice stolen from me…it is awful being portrayed as a cruel caricature of who I am and who I was…it is tragic to see the consequences of what I chose and lived twisted so tragically as life spins on by and the gravity of the Fall pulls everything to that fierce collision with nothingness…and it is heartbreaking to see the person that I literally would instantly die for, right now this moment, if it would restore them to wholeness, flail around trying to recover their bearings and watch as they grapple with emotions and choices and basically just suffer a sort of death process.
The place this article was published did not contact me (though if they had, I would have said to go ahead…my loved one needs to speak unfettered)…the things that were written, well let’s just say that one person’s account sounds right until another person in a situation gives their lived experience, and then things are usually a lot more complicated and delicate in determining “what happened”.
Mostly what happened? The binary. The binary punished me from the beginning of my life, it trapped my parents into seeing me as someone I wasn’t…it tore my soul in half and left the only option forward for me a dissociation from self and adopting performance as my currency and agency in the world…it left a bloody gaping void within me that never ever could heal, and in which the Love of God was sufficient, but only just…it led to the birth of children who deserved more and got less in spite of me trying to give them everything…
What happened was a flawed imperfect person full of hope and love and wanting only to have kids and love them and raise them up into life did her best in the skin and role of a man…and is now vilified and excoriated for this…what happened is that I was born in a time and place and culture, and practiced the things that I thought were right and true and proper, and those so at odds with what I know now, what I matured into, grew into, and yet how does that undo things that happened 30 years ago?
And what happened was so much pain in my decision to transition that an entire narrative had to shift to account for the horror and the loss of a father…and I read of things, and am painted in ways that just do not match up with what I lived, what I remember, what emails and letters say to me, what other people who knew us and were around us a lot recall…
What happened was my dysphoria and depression and despair did indeed affect my heart and soul, and that affected everyone around me, and likely was the metaphorical equivalent to belts and abuse so does it really even matter if I never did the actual things I am accused of doing? Actually no…it doesn’t matter that I never did them, because it is clear to me that I was them…poisonous, toxic, radioactive, damned for being absent and cursed for being present and above all accountable for every last ill in those lives so precious to me.
I never really understood before why God’s answer to the horror of the Fall was to come as Jesus to this world, and suffer and die…I do now though. Because there are no words that I can say that would explain it, justify it, make it right, make it better, disappear it…all I could do would be to simply die in their place…
…and if I could do that, I would want it to happen hidden, without anyone knowing, and the provision of that death simply being wholeness and happiness for my hearts…
I love you, hearts…I will grieve until the day grief itself is satisfied and all things are made new. Say on. Whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever you must.
I only ask Mama, please hold me close and sustain me in Your Love.
Forever In My Bones
The echoing of silence
implications of ashes
a song inside my tears
a signifying bond
the moan within my blood.
implications of ashes
a song inside my tears
a signifying bond
the moan within my blood.
The writing of a moon
engraven on this water
and carried by the winds
into your heart beyond
the reach of tongue or pen…
this is my ever burden
my sentence that I carry
forever in my bones
Louder Than Beethoven
She talks like cliffs,
speaking words of grey granite
and loose limestone that
stand against blue skies
and grab onto puffy clouds.
She’s exalted over valleys, far distant in chasms
between the green and the happy streams
and places there beside her words
where eagles spin and scream
and echo in the sunset’s gleam.
She is low meadows laying soft.
She is all signification, all there
but you must have faith to listen
because she speaks in silence
louder than Beethoven.
She is not easy or attainable
but she will not hurt you, just
make you count the cost
and if you don’t, then rest assured
you will hurt yourself.
I love her in the mountain air
and in the meadow mist
both lively and lazy.
She is my best friend, and
more solid than all the earth.
The Baby Box
Lee Jong-rak is the South Korean pastor who created the “Baby Box”. The idea is that mothers who do not want their babies, can leave them inside the box which includes a thick towel and lights and heating to keep the baby warm. When a baby is placed inside the box, a bell rings in Lee Jon-rak’s home which the box is attached to, and he or a member of his staff will go and collect the unwanted baby and bring them inside to his orphanage.
Hundreds of babies are left abandoned at the side of the road in South Korea yearly and Jong-rak knew the perfect way to save the lives of these innocent babies. There is a sign above the drop box which reads: “Place to leave babies.” He confessed that he didn’t expect the box to be as popular as it has been.
On one occasion a mother dropping her baby off explained to him that she had poison to kill herself and her baby but because of this box, she had an alternative. On another occasion, a baby was left with this heart wrenching note:
“My baby!
Mom is so sorry.
I am so sorry
to make this decision.
My son!
I hope you to
meet great parents,
and I am very, very sorry .
I don’t deserve to say a word.
Sorry, sorry, and I love you my son.
Mom loves you more
than anything else.
I leave you here
because I don’t know
who your father is.
I used to
think about
something bad,
but I guess
this box is safer
for you.
That’s why
I decided
to leave you here.
My son,
Please forgive me.”
Sometimes I say the same things to my own children, but there is no answer, nothing but the wind whispering in the trees and memories that stain my heart red.
In This Fresh Forever Air
after a storm the air
scrubbed and electric
and crackling with ancient
newness, fresh like a goddess
reborn in wonder and at home
moves across my face
and into my lungs
like eternity alive
and shouting
singing
after we clear the air
and our words sparkle
fresh, cracks highlighted
by tears like raindrops
offered in falling curtains
of feeling, of love, of joy
lingering slightly stained
crimson like liquid crystal hearts
it’s then we see each other
again for the first time ever
and our hearts say hello you
while our eyes scream missed you so
and our voices twine again in song
like the sound of rivers
with the light of mountains
in the fresh forever air
in this fresh forever air
What It’s Like To Transition
How about you, Constance? What transitions are you facing in life?
They are worth the suffering.
This Place of Living Bliss
a foggy night in late summer
seems like such a strange thing,
seeping up from the ground
like bathwater draining in reverse
we go walking in this cool
clammy oddly warm chill
orange under streetlights
and red under starlight
and I sit and watch us walk
away thru the rising mist
and wonder how we got here
to this place of living bliss…
That Last Post…
was Number 2,000!!
And it was for my dearest darling…my one.
Love you, Baby!
with my all
The Center of All Things
I sat down by the fire
in the middle of the roses
planted all around
and fragrant with buzzy bees
so busy in the dusk.
The air shimmered
as you approached
skimming across the grass
like a clipper ship
under full sail and
high on the sea.
And when you sat down,
beside me there in
the crackling fragrant
breezy busy air
it was like the entire
universe had come home
and I was at the center
of all things.
Waterwheels and Wonders
I’m pretty lonely, now
that I am not in
the juggling circle
with all your other eggs
tossing around frantic
and always on the edge
of splatting on the stones.
I just got tired of the suspense.
I got bored with the panic
of will she catch, will she miss
and that somehow miraculous
growing of another arm
there just long enough
not to hold but to toss
back up again spinning
in the cool bracing breeze.
And the worst times
when I hadda catch myself
and then pretend that you did
so you wouldn’t drop you
splatting on stones
and seeing that a huge
quantity of love diluted
by a huger number of recipients
is just about like no love at all.
So…I sit now…watch you juggle
and see the eggs move round
and occasionally I snatch one away
so you can twirl just the most important.
I can’t do that thing anymore,
where I am something to be
managed, parcelled, watered?
I wanna be ground to your feet
soil to your roots, sun to your leaves!
I want you to be breeze neath my blades
and rain on my petals and sun synergistically
all around me and warm.
So go ahead and keep in rhythm,
there is nothing over here, don’t reach.
Eggs hatch, and become real,
and you can quit imitating
a windmill and become instead
a waterwheel and wonder turning you always.
Othered Once Again
it’s like the instantaneous arrival
the spontaneous appearance
the epiphanous eventuality
in one thunderous moment
of dull leaden light that clashes
and smothers and chokes out
everything else…
that moment when fear
puts on its mask of hate
and joins the ritual circle of death,
eyes wide shut,
and I am othered
once again
The Ruin and The Wreck
It’s the ruin and the wreck
of what has been, what might have been
that stands so stark, abrupt against
the soft caress of night and in
the harsh daylight that shows the stress
and strain and bite of time…
so cruel, so kind
in dismantling artifice
and taking more to leave it less
and thus confer a grace upon
the mess of pride and prejudice
there…in the gentle wind’s soft kiss,
that which remains and sanctified
by tears from skies so gray and eyes
so blue and thus made holy in
the loss they gain substance
and stretch across
our hearts
our spirits
our souls
that yearn forever,
ah forever
it will burn
there…that fire
and those bones that burn so bright
in the ruin and the wreck
of what has been, what might have been
become what is
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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