and so it was
in the end,
bleeding blossoms
on the wind, well
bleeding of the wind was blossoms
running from an artery
reaching thru eternity.
blossoms… just born days ago
fragile beauty, pinkish white
tongues of praise
and then, torn, taken
by the wind as its own song
of bleeding blossoms,
the blood of wind.
Softly blows the westling wind,
blows lovely in this blessing night.
And thus to love, and thus to mend,
to love softly just like the wind
loves everything it breathes upon.
Just like the dew upon the apple
branch that stretches to the stars
My heart’s desire does thus arise
to reach across the chasms far
that gape between us, Love.
So you must listen, close, my Dear
to Love’s Lost Song sung in the creaking
gate that dances in the wind
and hurries thru the rustling wheat
to tarry at your blessed feet…
For though I lay beneath a stone
and mortal coil lost its grip
and flesh be stripped to chalk-white bone
I shall escape death’s razor whip
and live there…in the wind…softly.
Listen up white cis-hetliberals…if you are ANY of these things at any intersection, I want to talk to you…
I am speaking in my intersection as a transwoman who suffers from things that share a great congruence with my BIPOC fellow humans.
I have been cogitating on this for several weeks now and I am ready to unreel it.
There is a thing called “Performative Allyship”. Google it to find its meaning and then come back to read further.
I have been working outside in our yard a great deal since June…using clippers, shovels, hoes, weed whackers…and a brand new battery powered cute lil chainsaw…and it is great exercise and it is also making our yard look just that bit more tamed…but not groomed, for we have always desired our yard to be reflective of Oregon’s naturally occuring foliage as much as we can.
One of the largest challenges as I do this work is dealing with blackberries…and THAT is where the nitty gets gritty.
First of all, they are bushy, thick, tangled, and VERY formidable to deal with.
Secondly, you will always ALWAYS pay with a little bit of blood, a great deal of discomfort and a ton of frustration. But there are ways that are more effective and less effective.
One could just spray them with poison…which makes them go away, along with poisoning everything…
Or one can do the work.
Do the work.
This is a line that comes up for ANY PERSON who wants to become an ally, whether in areas of race or areas of gender.
What “doing the work” in terms of blackberries looks like is this: take some clippers (lopper style work best) and start lopping off canes, about a foot or so from the ground. Stay there, lopping off canes…again and again and again…and then rake them all up and take them to the bonfire and burn them.
You pretty much have to start here because the vines and brambles are too thick, too strong, and block access to the real source of the problem: the roots. If you go for those first thing? There is simply too much pain and blood, too many cuts and obstacles, and you will end up doing nothing.
Then go back and admire how much better everything looks.
If you get that far, congratulations!! You have just engaged in the equivalent of “PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP”!
Things LOOK better…you FEEL better…and also, if you walk away thinking your work is finished, you have made NO CHANGE at all for the better and MUCH change for the worse…because that simply stimulates the blackberries to grow more vigorously, which they can because…
the roots are still intact and fully operational.
When you are “that ally” who comes around and cheers for awhile, and then declares the task finished when all the surface stuff is cleared, you are NOT AN ALLY!! You are hurting things, hurting people, and contributing to the problem.
AT THE SAME TIME: the second step of the work CANNOT commence until the first step is taken! It is NECESSARY…in order to set the stage for the real work to start.
So what happens next?
Well, you get a shovel and a hoe, and you start to get down around each and every stalk that is sticking up…and you dig it out…all around it, deep, careful, laborious, difficult…and you take your hands and crumble the dirt carefully back down…and you keep at this until the ENTIRE ROOT is dug up and exposed.
These roots are dark, ugly, tough, nearly indestructible, and if you tossed it back on the ground it would TAKE ROOT AGAIN!!! You must throw them into your wheelbarrow.
This stage is HARD. It makes you sweat. It takes a long time…because there are SO MANY ROOTS BUT ALL OF THE SAME THING!!
And in any patch, there are pretty much just a few BIG MAMA QUEEN ROOTS OF THE WHOLE PATCH…and some of these take an hour or longer to get up.
You have to make sure you get it all, too, or it just grows again.
So THIS part in the analogy is doing the HARD work…when a person you pose yourself as ally to checks you and calls you in or calls you out and you believe them, receive what they say and are correctable, you have successfully gotten a root out. Sometimes there are thorns still that prick you and hurt…and yet you keep digging…
Eventually, the reward is a patch that is LARGELY free of blackberry vines…there are always remnants that need to be worked on though.
And the final step is you light your bonfire and burn them…get the canes first, and stoke the fire hot and then throw in the roots…because they are ALMOST indestructible and are so difficult to burn!! But they WILL BURN!!!
I wish I had each of you out to our patch to teach you this while you worked.
This is why I do things the way I do things.
Many allies rebuke performative allyship and call out those who are performing it…but I do not. I keep it silent and I approve, in the same way I approve the children on the playground who perform for me and want to be seen and recognized and affirmed…I simply encourage, watch the stalks fly, give a nudge here or there about gathering them up for the fire…and let them get the joy and catch fire as they see their blackberry patch LOOKING better…
And then comes “the work”…that moment when I pick something out and point at the root and admonish that it needs dug…
THAT IS WHEN THE WORK STARTS and PERFORMANCE STOPS!!
And then, the vigil in the night while the roots are burned, the ashes stirred and sifted and fire lit again so the remnants can burn…
It is humbling, hard, and holy work.
There is another way you can deal with blackberry patches: you can mow them. And THESE patches always look so neat, and you can never ever walk on them barefoot or lay down and rest on them cus you will get poked and pricked and cut.
And that, friends, is the white person, the cis-het person that can miss me. THAT person will always have the memes up, will always link to the articles, will have mastered the art of words (mowers) to run over their privileged roots but will NEVER DEAL WITH THEM REALLY…
To be authentic, I generally expect this option from the majority of people who come around…because it is the most frequent response…lopping stalks and avoiding roots…and making the roots being there still MY fault because I was the one who pointed it out, who precipitated the exposure…
But the ones who AREN’T that way…the ones who come back with a backhoe and a crazed intense determination in their eyes to DEAL WITH IT ALL!!! LOL, thinking of you, Litter Mate!! Who for the sake of getting the mile done will go 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 20 miles!!
They make it so worth it.
No…backhoes aren’t needed…too much that should stay gets taken, and then has to be re-added artificially.
It is best to take it in stages, blackberry digging and becoming an ally…
Your performative allyship is okay…as a start.
I am a broken girl and I am
not so easy to love like
carefree normal confident girls
next door in cotton and flannel and lace.
I live inside a fortress and I hide
inside shields and my soul
lives centuries in seconds
I am a survivor of wars
that break the strongest
men so flimsy.
Can you love me so strong that mountains
collapse into the dust of quiet surrender?
Can you melt my doubts and burn my soul
hotter than cold death and abandonment?
Can you endure my very worst days and stand
me not knowing that I am beautiful,
can you erase the thousand tormenting words
the sibilant whispers from hell’s pits of isolation and horror? 
Can you stand that I am thinking even now “Why would you?”
Why would anyone?
I run from you,
but do you see that I run
far slower than I could?
Do you even know
what that means?
Why won’t you chase me?
Could you provide me anything
that I can rely on, any routine
that will be as sunrise and sunset
again and again?
Could you give me a pet name?
Could you kiss me, touch me?
Then do it again, and again.
I am a broken girl and I am
thirst itself so strong that Sahara is oasis.
I am a broken promise but I love
with loyalty that is the stars
commitment to shine in the night.
I am a broken girl and I am
Darling, are you awake? Yes?
Good…do you remember our beginning?
A little hut by the sea
wearing grey cedar shingles like feathers
ruffled in rainy winds and shot thru
with browns and blacks…
the red round rock stacked
shambling into walls that just spelled home,
nestled midst woven thatches of
marram shot thru with sedges and dandelions,
clinging to shifty sands like picnic blankets
strewn round that heart…that little hut,
our beginning kissed by windy sands
scritching out beach music
on violin decks and cello chairs of cypress.
You were a wordless humming song
and tidal in my veins you moved
in rhythm, rhyme, in time to that
strumming music tidal
joyous humming in the dancing of the waves
and sand and wind and sky.
We walked each day steady
across those shores ever reaching
to the sea and the sea ever running
back to sands and sunset ever blessing
everyday each moment with its many colored kiss
in hues of pinks and purples, oranges, yellows, hues of bliss
in reds and blues, and greys… you…
always grey lining blue of mine with you,
in silver shot straight thru
with grey shot thru my blue.
We knew each sunset,
whiled away another day
closer to that sunset last
and that final mystic gateway
at the end thru which we enter
Lone and sundered, hoping that we yet may
walk together on a new shore
where there are no sunsets because
there is only sunrise
sunrise
sunrise
yet again
and yet again…
We walk still each day,
and every sunset bows to us,
and then bows to the night,
to the next day yet born,
to the next sun yet risen,
to the next sunset kiss…
and the stars always
over head and constant,
glitter chips of always-light
against the thick and sable night,
the stars nod in return, return…
ahh…the beach at night.
Air refreshing, breezy, flexible,
runs its loving hungry fingers
thru your hair pliable
as we walk, the sand
packed and wet and clean
and time at last is friable
in the smell of salty air
its kiss brushes against you,
trailing fingers across your cheek,
over your skin, and I too brush against you
(rush within you kissing,
trailing fingers)
We are Quietness
nestled deep in certain stillness,
and snuggled yet deeper
in the steady static roar
of the ever crashing waves
and the gurgling swishy swirling
of waves playing tag
with sand and seaweed
and seagulls refereeing
crying foul foul foul
so the waves run
and retreat in laughing ripples
back to the waiting deep safety
of the vast receptive sea,
and us safely snuggled
in our you and me.
The sand is crisp and cold and damp
as we walk, you and me, our steps
singing skritch skritch skritch,
singing in time
to the cry of those legalistic gulls
and our feet slide as we move from wet to dry
and we skim across the surface
walking like penguins
so we can move thru time
and yet leave nary a trace
and you feel so safe, like you are home
and you feel so safe in my feeling that…
find safety in my adoration
and you are home…
We can see
a vast array of stars overhead,
a broad expansive sea swelling before,
and stretching there a beach, the shore
beneath our sliding skimming feet,
comprised of endless grains of sand
uncountable but having number,
speaking of the days of time
since time began…
everywhere
are unique things uncountable,
innumerable…and you:
a one off, one and done
and rendered even just that much more special
on this stage of infinence
in the midst of audience
of blank uncountable conclave.
and there upon that stage
you are all the more substantial,
present, solid, singular,
just the endless treasure of your beauty
and the vast stretch of my love
(echoing stars and sand and sea)
singing harmoniously
in the presence of this eternal array,
this echo of infinity
we’re in.
And we walk, away from our little hut,
towards our little hut, and away again,
and time is scrolling out before us,
we two, we poised to write
with heart quills dipped in love’s well,
and then time rolls back into itself
(ah, it sees its the sea,
rolling out to kiss the sand
and rolling back to dump those kisses
into waiting heart so deep)…
time rolls out day by day by day, and back again
neath the stars,
in the night,
with the wind.
I wonder in the midst
of this sandy sacred setting
which thing it is my heart echoes
as it aches and hurts so fierce,
so good as it longs, yearns
so empty and so full,
so hungry, satisfied,
so intricate, complete…
my fiery core of passion and of promise
what…
Rolls in and out in waves?
Glitters fierce like diamond stars?
Never ends like grains of sand
everywhere there’s earth?
It aches too fierce, too good,
it thrills, thrums too ferocious
to identify and focus on,
and then it gets dim and blurry
when I look at you and see the quiet
gentle fierce glad brightness
of your countenance at night that
dims the stars, and
blurs the sands, and
makes the waves stand still
breathless and in awe, and
I know then my core
is ever always you you you
we married,
long ago beside this same vast ever sea,
on the same shore of sand golden, tan
and singing to the music
laughing in the running waves
beneath the glitter gaze of stars
overhead and hanging on angel visions,
we married…
and the moon officiated,
she gloamed before us
as we walked into her temple,
her the Officiant,
the Congregant of Always and gentle love,
we walked her moonlight aisle together…
some marry on mountainsides midst craggy peaks
to the wedding songs of brooks and creeks
and others still mingle in the firelight
beneath the tall stentorian witness of deep forests
redwood and sequoia who roll out meadows
soft and green, and arrayed more beautiful and
richer than the wealth of Solomon in their dress of flowers
and stalks and stems as the birds serenade
and sing their praise to them.
we visited there, you and me,
we heard that brooky song,
we saw that craggy might,
we lay in meadow soft
resplendent in love and
we have in our many walks found that
we were foundered, mired
in swampy lowlands funky, smelly,
decomposing rotten and releasing
the last gasp of life in its methane relief
but still stinking of that unbecoming…
we have thought us lost but then discovered
that it is here that wombs become impregnate,
become renewed as elements of used-to-be-alive
stick to our skin in longing desperate clingy clutchings.
But it is back,
always to the sea,
we are drawn, we,
to that intersection
of time and truth and bright eternity
that we see tangible
and with us in the sand,
and stars and sea.
and inside us,
you and me, burns a flame we share,
yes the same one, the same blade
of those fires that we see before us
in the night and yet to rise anew
in the day yet to be born,
the echo of stars and suns,
of the moon’s desires and passions
for lovers everywhere
and the twin of driftwood fires
that we kindle every night
as our offering to beauty,
to love, to us, to light midst
the crackling shouts of wood at last
consumed and released popping up up and away
in sparky eager pieces at last
free to become the stars overhead
that driftwood prophecies of old proclaimed their fate,
and the incense of their longing
drifting around us in thick vapours
that smell of longing
at last to be fulfilled,
smelling of worship,
smelling of Mama’s breath
and the courts of the Risen Lamb,
and smelling of Us,
you and me,
and our little hut.
like a river running…
dipped in for a drink
a pipeful, a turbine twist
and then running on
alone and so much more
ever questing to the sea
and no one knowing
what passed by
in the night unknowing
and unknown
I had it all together
rows and blocks
neat and trimmed
even if they sat
ragged round the edges
like clouds, like shadows
and then artesian wells
of soul, of spirit
invaded, armies
of color riotous
rejoicing round
those edges ragged
like clouds, like shadows
welled up out of
nowhere
and I am
now here
smoke drifts on the wind
vanishes to who knows where
my soul, wind and smoke
It’s here, upon the threshold…
—hallowed (hollowed) spaces—
Thresholds are lurking in between
where veils are thin indeed
It’s here that we discover
the Shine of unseen presences
wait for us on the way.
We’ve chosen to attend the call
of our elysian journey
whether it long desired
or if it struck unbidden
like lightning from the hidden
We court holy disruption
just asking to be broken
and laboring to break
ourselves forever open wide
arriving in transition
We do confess this molten truth:
old structures have imploded
the old ways, habits, patterns
no longer serve to fill us
no matter how we gorge…
for the old has listless fallen off
And the new? Not yet emerged.
We put the Powers on notice
we’ve come to risk and open
ourselves, we’ve stopped our grasping
our frantic desperate scrabbling
for how things used to be,
We invoke every mystery chance
to change course, change perspective
And drain the unexpected cup
communion bread and wine
of earth, and of Sublime
We say yes! Take these moments
the journey takes us on
we become pilgrims, we resist
the siren call seductive
of mundane muddy matters
We feel it! things are changing
we hear the invitation
to open up ourselves and reach
Beyond, to mystery waiting
We walk into unknowing,
allow ourselves to shatter,
to be broken wide open
to receive gifts far bigger
than our tiny flat perspective
could even start to ponder…
Back home again we shall arrive
(perhaps before we’ve started
perhaps when we’ve departed)
we, salmon selves, return to us
in dawning spawned awareness
of the rooting inner journey
And what is left, remaining?
a deep,
abiding presence
…Oh, there are reasons to go into here…
creating life from every death, for soil is alive, you see
that living soil feeds on death, it feasts on death
and brings forth life…
It is the Resurrection writ, inscribed
into the smallest detail of
existence…life giving soil…
“Feed the soil, not the plant!”
The ancient wisdom speaks to us, feed the soil for it’s alive,
cares not a whit for ethics held except the ethic of its pangs,
it hungers for the blood and bones it wants to eat, especially us…
Bone meal, blood, and ash remain, the finer points, the amuse-gueule
betwixt the teeth, all of them sharp
and hungry…
We learn the ancestral grammar and feed the trees with blood and bones
of every creature near and far, take solace in this sacrament
that spices every meal to come…
And comfort rises in this practise.
Four apple trees dance on edges of the grave and burial lands
Amidst the grasses and the hedges, above ground they flower, blossom,
Bare their ruddy fruit so sweet…
While down beneath, and out of sight
Below our hearing or our knowing
Those roots draw near the static graves…
So supple in the dirty night that closes, kisses, holds and grips
just like the roots that tender lick the bones and sigh in sweet relief
And breathe from bones in ever life
Transforming dust to living flesh
To feed our flesh and live again
And then to feed itself on us…
<snip>
And if you listen you can hear the long slow sign of skeletal roots saying
“you are here and I am hungry
for you, for your shape,
you are the apple of my eye”
And dirt clogged chuckle trickles up and filters thru the flowering grass…
Teach simple truths, learn to accept that death draws near to everyone.
Inevitable is that step upon the grasses growing in
the fields, flowering, fading, falling…
to the faithful hands of roots so hungry, sharp of tooth and eye
to eat your bones and drink your blood, inhale your ashes and your dust
and then at last to resurrect us…
when…then
become
The Apple of Their Eye.
The water singing, sending
fingers in the air, as mist
caressing, beckoning
to the regions
waiting there
across the bridge
and thru the gate
and home to the Singer
In the water on the mist
This is from 2016, and I think it is very relevant to right now, because there is so much here you have missed.
I really do not know how to interpret your “gifts”, quotations used because you have often used money to obligate, to create hierarchies, to…gawd, who can ever really know?
The heck of it is that I have zero trust to ever really find out, because I don’t think deep down that you are really prepared to understand that this is an existential path instead of a moral one.
Regardless…this day from 2016 is a really good day to take a look at, in that it records several really fine poems and a couple essays that are palpable…this one being the most salient.
…you say that I think I can do what I want and pronounce it all forgiven by my belief in my “make-believe god”? You say that I think I can justify whatever I want and call it a “Road to Damascus” experience?
You think wrong.
You will never know the depth of the pain and sorrow for each and every time that I have fallen short…
…and you also will never know the hurt and pain you caused me with your false accusations of abuse and physical harm, your violent anger and threats of murder…your false memories and placing words in my mouth that I never said or even thought…
You will not have a way of knowing that even in your falseness I see that as my own fault because I did not do a good enough job to birth you into wholeness and understanding of truth…and instead, you go on forever about things that are so insane as to be befuddling to me.
No. I am blood guilty of sins of commission, and sins of omission as well.
But I place my faith and my trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and in His Cross…and I ask Him to see me thru.
I trust Mama to Defend me, Advocate for me, Sustain me, Console me, and Comfort me.
I will do so all of my days, no matter how good or bad I was each day, no matter how deeply I fail or how high I fly.
This will never change, though I hope and pray that I will, continually becoming more like Jesus’ Lovely Heart by the Grace of God poured out liberally.
And there are others too…who read here like Nicodemus…you from the past, who used to come out into my working environment so you could criticise me, call me unsubmitted, tell me how I had no rule over my soul, and basically oppose every thing I attempted…I know you read here and think me tragically deceived, fallen away, or (one dude, you think this) in the clutches of “sexual sin”…
you think that being transgender is an act of sexual fulfillment, which absolutely cracks me up…like, I guffaw when I consider your ignorance and assumption.
You all have missed me in the midst of your judgement.
Here is me: this song forever, along with the other ones I have posted this morning.
If you want to understand me and be in my heart, you must understand and accept these songs. Whether or not you adhere to the songs is not my concern…that is up to you and your own convictions and choices. I seek to love and accept you regardless, from you who say you dreamed of murdering me for years to you who shake your head and waggle your beard because you have judged me outcast and shunned.
Sometimes I need to make these declarations.
Today is one of those days…and I am still here…like Papillon…I am still here…clinging to the precious Bleeding Side of Jesus.
I’ve been fingering the tears
again, the rents and runs and ruins,
where earth convulsed and absence ruled,
raw abandonment carved away
all solid ground for good and gone.
I have no earthly idea why
the silence swung its hammer blow
and shattered what I thought solid
showing me that it was shells
surrounding nothing but a hollow
lurk that waited mocking there
and empty.
Three months (a trimester) time,
and edges that were razor sharp,
that sliced my gentle fingertips
(the same ones that speak spirit braille
and dole healing for blackest ail…)
to bloody shreds and ribbons red
has birthed…just rain, the steady drizzle
constant, velvet soft it falls
eroding bleak bewildered grief
answering frantic questions asked
(but never spoken) just rainfall
that whispers just because…
Smoothing cliffside, washing clean
rinsing scouring the mean
and low and petty dissipated,
rivulets until my fingers
felt, felt, just moss, fresh grass
and fog mingled in sassafras
and orchids peeking from the ruin
The fearsome Wreck of the New Charissa
(on a reef she never saw
and doesn’t understand) has even
still again become redeemed
in absence. In abandonment.
Once again,
the Majesty of Absence
is Present
and Beauty
walks again
I am all crazy foothills
tumbling and topsy
milling round the mountain
that juts up so sudden
in bittersweet russet
and chromium slate
and silver so still
and so dancingly daring
to reach above treeline
and shout to lost rivers
I am little to love and yet
do have a draw
that compels a return
to be squeezed in the chaos
and lost in the hidden
the hidden, the hidden, get
lost in the hidden.
As do you, ttaf supporter…though ye be old, ye waste the time of your life when you are MOST free to live by the true core of your faith, suffering no loss…yet ye value your gruel as if it is the very Lamb’s Wedding Feast.
Woe to you.
“…They can’t see from the inside, what is so apparent from a distance.
“Moment by moment, choice by choice, they begin to drift from their calling, and no one close to them ever tells them while they’re still humble and amenable enough to listen. The power they accrue begins to gradually silence dissent or to remove it from view altogether.
“These men end up spending their entire lives breathing solely in the intoxicating air of sycophant’s praises; never protected from their own hubris, never cautioned against their recklessness, never alerted to the ways they’ve lost the plot or begun leasing off large sections of their credibility for temporary rewards.
“Surrounded on all sides by genuflecting yes-men and women lacking the intestinal fortitude to push back against the toxic sludge pouring from their lips, they begin to feel more and more comfortable and even emboldened in it.
“As they do, the teachings and the words of Jesus become less and less useful, because those things begin to testify loudly against them, they start to clearly voice their opposition—and so they begin to silence them too.
“They learn instead, to bask in the applause of the salivating multitude, who gladly amen their every bitter word, no matter how reckless or incendiary—when they should be teaching them how to love more expansively.
“As the hateful choir cheers their ramblings, they grow more and more delusional, more and more comfortable bowing before the golden idols of their ego and ambition. With each day they slide further down the slope…”
it’s a
foggy caul
a skein,
night’s skin
here under
galloping moon.
She rides, Her horse
grey and shadow
She bleeds silver
mercury drops
quicksilver seeds
i melt into Her
wet rivers, dripping
slick with desire
swollen with devotion
aching with longing
until i am breathing
underwater, under
galloping moon.
Night has gnawed grey brittle bones
clean, bare and thin as grave clothes, shriv’n
of warmth, sheer worm-worn sheets like stones
as cold as mercy never given
and weary…in the fires and flame
of time’s compressing screeching keen
as red heart slows, constricts in shame,
wings tangled in the chancel screen
In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death
Feel Her presence there in echoes
of bones nigh breaking, at least kneeling
to the moment’s cadence, throes,
within the Delphic Sanctum reeling
For a breath without drinking smoke
and thirsting throat, a coal black caul,
a scarf of soot round necks to choke
a masquerade, a pallor, pall
In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death
The loss of life and stone stilled tongues
and this is real, is bitter tart
It’s in a face, laces the lungs
It’s breaking in and on the heart
that continues rustling rough beneath
those sheets, and fearful to the touch
that long slow wet grief’s glistening sheath
and trembly tears the only crutch
In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death
Whoever dares to come, show up
with tears impudent, bold, absurd
and brave enough to take her cup,
enough to quench flames shaken, stirred
and break her crumbly mouldy bread
and eat and drink the Overwhelm
in numb mute witness, slow soft dread,
in courage, waiting in this realm
In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death
Yet…beneath the brown and chuckly dark
a river runs, it’s clear and deep
like liquid stars, a crystal spark
flowing, a fount in this stark keep
Yet…all who partake of her sup
can find their certain path to drink
of living waters springing up
and resonating in the ink
In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death
A tide lived backwards in the crush
A tide rolled forward far and wide
A resonance of life-blood gush
Love’s unstoppable great glad tide
The crisis of this time is met
in intimate authentic breath
that fears no evil, dreads no debt
and singing rises from short death
In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death
Ahhh, how I love this poem!!
So, new readers and potential “Constances” (Constance is the name I give to those who become “Constant Readers” and is my deep thank you of gratitude and wonder):
The best way to interact with my blog right now if you want to access all the living work and art that lives in the marrow is via the calendar in the Right Hand Column.
You can use that to jump around to various days.
Here is the important information though: it displays the current year…SO, to access a previous year and month, please scroll down to the BOTTOM of the blog and see the footer calendar (located at the very bottom left).
There, you can select a drop down menu that shows month to month from year to year.
What I find fun is to go to today’s month in other years…and then pull that down from the menu and load that page. Once it is loaded, use the calendar on the Right and click on the date…if I posted on that day, it is hyperlinked to that day’s postings…
And in this manner you can not only access my poetry, but the context it was birthed in and thru…and I think that it begins to show the depth and breadth of my heart’s reach.
I am not posting current writings because I am mostly keeping notes and drafts, filling my artistic ditty-bag. This is because I am doing other projects that involve visual arts and creating thru that means, as well as new spiritual practices and involvements.
Besides, I find that I must cry out against the thing with human skin that shits from its heart every time it utters something…that thing ttaf which is the mere familiar of the multitude of monsters that have become the living dead without even knowing it.
This poem though…what a treasure and delight to me it is. I think I captured it just right.
and it is in night…
like a babe in fresh blankets
snuggled and seeing,
quiet and jumping
in jammies with footies
singing of safety,
hot chocolate and nibbles,
then raindrops on rooftops
tingtingtingthrumthrumthrum…
…and in the cool
of the quiet evening
it was women walking
silky, as yet unseen
in the garden.
Silver shears caught
slivers of sunlight,
captured them gently
like butterflies netted
with meshed moonlight
and given to a special
catch and release program
to each bush they bowed
in authority and grace
snipping deadheads
from verdant relieved stems
smiling and murmuring
in the gloam
and answering
alarmy squirrels
with sighs
of contentment
and moving on
men strode
by with eyes
so full of mirrors
they saw nothing
else and everything else
as reflections of reflections,
having used their silver
30 times in their
own name
and the
garden sang
and sang
because of
the women
It’s on this painful threshold here
we suck the bitter sop of grief
and cling to dust, cry for relief,
we seeds that die so You come near.
Our teardrops carve so deep and mark
with crystal joy and sacred sigh
our burnished face, our emerald eye
our hull that breaks…in rain, in spark
and make us, each one so unique,
each one our own and also owned
by every hurting heart of stone,
by breaking soul and grieving cheek
an offering of healing strong
a unguent for this wounded earth
restoring life and giving birth
again to Your Unending Song
Oh Mama come and make of me
a heart cut red, a spirit shorn
and bleeding Grace for all who mourn
along this path back to The Sea
Please go to the link to read this whole thing if you fancy yourself a Christian and yet think that the absolute fucker is God’s Anointed.
He isn’t…and you’re worshipping a false god if you think he is.
Yes. I am Charissa Grace White, and I approve this Message.
Do justice. Love mercy. Walk Humbly.
We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake.
It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. We pray that our nation will see Jesus’ words in us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
When politics undermines our theology, we must examine that politics. The church’s role is to change the world through the life and love of Jesus Christ. The government’s role is to serve the common good by protecting justice and peace, rewarding good behavior while restraining bad behavior (Romans 13). When that role is undermined by political leadership, faith leaders must stand up and speak out. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.”
It is often the duty of Christian leaders, especially elders, to speak the truth in love to our churches and to name and warn against temptations, racial and cultural captivities, false doctrines, and political idolatries—and even our complicity in them. We do so here with humility, prayer, and a deep dependency on the grace and Holy Spirit of God.
This letter comes from a retreat on Ash Wednesday, 2018. In this season of Lent, we feel deep lamentations for the state of our nation, and our own hearts are filled with confession for the sins we feel called to address. The true meaning of the word repentance is to turn around. It is time to lament, confess, repent, and turn. In times of crisis, the church has historically learned to return to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is Lord. That is our foundational confession. It was central for the early church and needs to again become central to us. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar was not—nor any other political ruler since. If Jesus is Lord, no other authority is absolute. Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of God he announced, is the Christian’s first loyalty, above all others. We pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Our faith is personal but never private, meant not only for heaven but for this earth.
The question we face is this: Who is Jesus Christ for us today? What does our loyalty to Christ, as disciples, require at this moment in our history? We believe it is time to renew our theology of public discipleship and witness. Applying what “Jesus is Lord” means today is the message we commend as elders to our churches.
What we believe leads us to what we must reject. Our “Yes” is the foundation for our “No.” What we confess as our faith leads to what we confront. Therefore, we offer the following six affirmations of what we believe, and the resulting rejections of practices and policies by political leaders which dangerously corrode the soul of the nation and deeply threaten the public integrity of our faith. We pray that we, as followers of Jesus, will find the depth of faith to match the danger of our political crisis.
I. WE BELIEVE each human being is made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). That image and likeness confers a divinely decreed dignity, worth, and God-given equality to all of us as children of the one God who is the Creator of all things. Racial bigotry is a brutal denial of the image of God (the imago dei) in some of the children of God. Our participation in the global community of Christ absolutely prevents any toleration of racial bigotry. Racial justice and healing are biblical and theological issues for us, and are central to the mission of the body of Christ in the world. We give thanks for the prophetic role of the historic black churches in America when they have called for a more faithful gospel.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT the resurgence of white nationalism and racism in our nation on many fronts, including the highest levels of political leadership. We, as followers of Jesus, must clearly reject the use of racial bigotry for political gain that we have seen. In the face of such bigotry, silence is complicity. In particular, we reject white supremacy and commit ourselves to help dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate white preference and advantage. Further, any doctrines or political strategies that use racist resentments, fears, or language must be named as public sin—one that goes back to the foundation of our nation and lingers on. Racial bigotry must be antithetical for those belonging to the body of Christ, because it denies the truth of the gospel we profess.
II. WE BELIEVE we are one body. In Christ, there is to be no oppression based on race, gender, identity, or class (Galatians 3:28). The body of Christ, where those great human divisions are to be overcome, is meant to be an example for the rest of society. When we fail to overcome these oppressive obstacles, and even perpetuate them, we have failed in our vocation to the world—to proclaim and live the reconciling gospel of Christ.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT misogyny, the mistreatment, violent abuse, sexual harassment, and assault of women that has been further revealed in our culture and politics, including our churches, and the oppression of any other child of God. We lament when such practices seem publicly ignored, and thus privately condoned, by those in high positions of leadership. We stand for the respect, protection, and affirmation of women in our families, communities, workplaces, politics, and churches. We support the courageous truth-telling voices of women, who have helped the nation recognize these abuses. We confess sexism as a sin, requiring our repentance and resistance.
III. WE BELIEVE how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ himself. (Matthew 25: 31-46) “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” God calls us to protect and seek justice for those who are poor and vulnerable, and our treatment of people who are “oppressed,” “strangers,” “outsiders,” or otherwise considered “marginal” is a test of our relationship to God, who made us all equal in divine dignity and love. Our proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ is at stake in our solidarity with the most vulnerable. If our gospel is not “good news to the poor,” it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18).
THEREFORE, WE REJECT the language and policies of political leaders who would debase and abandon the most vulnerable children of God. We strongly deplore the growing attacks on immigrants and refugees, who are being made into cultural and political targets, and we need to remind our churches that God makes the treatment of the “strangers” among us a test of faith (Leviticus 19:33-34). We won’t accept the neglect of the well-being of low-income families and children, and we will resist repeated attempts to deny health care to those who most need it. We confess our growing national sin of putting the rich over the poor. We reject the immoral logic of cutting services and programs for the poor while cutting taxes for the rich. Budgets are moral documents. We commit ourselves to opposing and reversing those policies and finding solutions that reflect the wisdom of people from different political parties and philosophies to seek the common good. Protecting the poor is a central commitment of Christian discipleship, to which 2,000 verses in the Bible attest.
IV. WE BELIEVE that truth is morally central to our personal and public lives. Truth-telling is central to the prophetic biblical tradition, whose vocation includes speaking the Word of God into their societies and speaking the truth to power. A commitment to speaking truth, the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, “You shall not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16), is foundational to shared trust in society. Falsehood can enslave us, but Jesus promises, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). The search and respect for truth is crucial to anyone who follows Christ.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT the practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life. Politicians, like the rest of us, are human, fallible, sinful, and mortal. But when public lying becomes so persistent that it deliberately tries to change facts for ideological, political, or personal gain, the public accountability to truth is undermined. The regular purveying of falsehoods and consistent lying by the nation’s highest leaders can change the moral expectations within a culture, the accountability for a civil society, and even the behavior of families and children. The normalization of lying presents a profound moral danger to the fabric of society. In the face of lies that bring darkness, Jesus is our truth and our light.
V. WE BELIEVE that Christ’s way of leadership is servanthood, not domination. Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles (the world) lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:25-26). We believe our elected officials are called to public service, not public tyranny, so we must protect the limits, checks, and balances of democracy and encourage humility and civility on the part of elected officials. We support democracy, not because we believe in human perfection, but because we do not. The authority of government is instituted by God to order an unredeemed society for the sake of justice and peace, but ultimate authority belongs only to God.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT any moves toward autocratic political leadership and authoritarian rule. We believe authoritarian political leadership is a theological danger that threatens democracy and the common good—and we will resist it. Disrespect for the rule of law, not recognizing the equal importance of our three branches of government, and replacing civility with dehumanizing hostility toward opponents are of great concern to us. Neglecting the ethic of public service and accountability, in favor of personal recognition and gain often characterized by offensive arrogance, are not just political issues for us. They raise deeper concerns about political idolatry, accompanied by false and unconstitutional notions of authority.
VI. WE BELIEVE Jesus when he tells us to go into all nations making disciples (Matthew 28:18). Our churches and our nations are part of an international community whose interests always surpass national boundaries. The most well-known verse in the New Testament starts with “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). We, in turn, should love and serve the world and all its inhabitants, rather than seek first narrow, nationalistic prerogatives.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT “America first” as a theological heresy for followers of Christ. While we share a patriotic love for our country, we reject xenophobic or ethnic nationalism that places one nation over others as a political goal. We reject domination rather than stewardship of the earth’s resources, toward genuine global development that brings human flourishing for all of God’s children. Serving our own communities is essential, but the global connections between us are undeniable. Global poverty, environmental damage, violent conflict, weapons of mass destruction, and deadly diseases in some places ultimately affect all places, and we need wise political leadership to deal with each of these.
WE ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED for the soul of our nation, but also for our churches and the integrity of our faith. The present crisis calls us to go deeper—deeper into our relationship to God; deeper into our relationships with each other, especially across racial, ethnic, and national lines; deeper into our relationships with the most vulnerable, who are at greatest risk.
The church is always subject to temptations to power, to cultural conformity, and to racial, class, and gender divides, as Galatians 3:28 teaches us. But our answer is to be “in Christ,” and to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable, and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2)
The best response to our political, material, cultural, racial, or national idolatries is the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Jesus summarizes the Greatest Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:38). As to loving our neighbors, we would add “no exceptions.”
We commend this letter to pastors, local churches, and young people who are watching and waiting to see what the churches will say and do at such a time as this.
Our urgent need, in a time of moral and political crisis, is to recover the power of confessing our faith. Lament, repent, and then repair. If Jesus is Lord, there is always space for grace. We believe it is time to speak and to act in faith and conscience, not because of politics, but because we are disciples of Jesus Christ—to whom be all authority, honor, and glory. It is time for a fresh confession of faith. Jesus is Lord. He is the light in our darkness. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Source: Reclaiming Jesus
From 2016…my thoughts on the popular evangelical christian “shotgun passages” they use to blanket condemn anyone who is not cisgender and heterosexual. I am reposting this because I sense that there are many readers from the past, several of whom have issued blanket condemnation of me and others like me…and who I have not seen or exchanged a single word with for many years…and yet they somehow know the state of my eternal destiny and current connection with God…
It makes me so sad…but not for me, actually! For THEM! So cocksure, so sage and sad, caressing their chins ever so mournfully and yet so piously, rubbing their beards…and wallowing in their own human pride and selfish piousness. People who claim titles like apostle and prophet, pastor and teacher…
people who Lord it over one another and practice a spirituality that is actually “homo-sect-uality”, and in fact the epitome of that abuse of power that Paul describes in the 1 Cor 6 passage, wherein an older powerful man exploits a younger and vulnerable boy…
I have seen (and experienced) that very exploitation myself.
It is my true hope that scales would fall off their eyes, as they did my own…where I discovered that the REAL transition of my life was transition from a self-righteous pit of death and striving towards a humble and broken compassionate vessel of the Love and Generosity of God.
There is also a link to a blog post by John Pavlovitz, and his listening experience to true christians who have been condemned by others…
“…Now, let’s see: I spot behaviors in this passage, behaviors that all focus on choices of the will…choices to commit various sexual sins (still not talking about orientations), choices to break commitments made to God and to other human beings (adultery and idolatry, which is a VERY tricky and subtle fault), choices to be envious that result in theft and coveting other people’s possessions, choices to become drunk and pursue a lifestyle of choice to indulge escaping from mature and fruitful living, choices to speak with anger and intense hatred in bitter speech to other human beings (yunno, like the comment section of articles), choices to THREATEN PEOPLE INTO DOING WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO…like the shunning that YOU REGULARLY DO to those whose ORIENTATIONS are imagined by you to be behavioral choices…
and yet somehow, ALL of the above choices you extend Grace and Mercy to, and almost all of those choices you have almost certainly been blood-guilty of yourself!! But you sit cheek and jowl in the pew with your fellow “unrighteous” and allow for yourselves and your cohorts in unrighteousness to participate in the Righteousness of Jesus and thus not only be forgiven, but in your mind EXCUSED from scrutiny…and you are content with the understanding that each person must scrutinize themselves with God (oh wait: Paul said that he did not judge even himself, for God is Judge)…”
Source: Love Wins (at John Pavlovitz’s blog) | Charissa’s Grace Notes
I am reposting this prose essay that I wrote in 2015. Based on current readership, I think it might hit some hearts that are perhaps now harrowed by grief and plowed by sorrow, and tender, softened by trial to receive seeds of humility that may grow and blossom into the fruits of compassion.
At least…I hope so.
May we all find the grace to become as Bartimaeus.
It is clumsy and has arthritic hands when it speaks and cannot hold small fine brushes or move with nuance, and so it paints with a broad brush in generalizations and caricatures…it is cartoonish, buffoonish…it is guffawing and backslapping……and the absolute worst is that it advocates the very hatred and othering and policing against others that has wounded and killed so many in LGTBQ circles.
Somehow, hatred and othering is okay because “they have it coming”.
I would say that I am embarrassed for the individuals to whom I refer, except that I am so deeply dismayed embarrassment is too embarrassed to show her face. I think it is clear that hatred is a human heart problem…and will never ever be conquered by more hatred…ever. Hatred can only be driven out by love, and when love is met with more hatred, the only secret weapon it has in its employ is grace, as displayed by forgiveness and then more love.
Constance: if you fail to grasp this essential truth, then you will be doomed to circle the constellations in this galaxy of ideas and ideologies that provide us with cosmic meaning and orientation, and you will dwell in one thinking it is finally the one with no idiots or haters present inside it…until you hear the voice of hate and bigotry emanating from within the very halls you hallow and inhabit!
It was a golden time,
a stretched out place back then,
twisting up and over there,
and underneath the sun and more…
a yawn opened in heaven’s floor
and down to earth came Joy and more…
he was and is our so much more…
When John had horrid accident
(Lafayette screamed outloud to Moraga)
and whistles blew so shrill, so quick,
while McElhenny dodged Nomellini oh so neatly
(but poor scared children could not know the drill)
and thus their roar for glory yet to come…yet to come
left them there bereft and frozen
while Joyful John slept, waiting…
and there in Heaven, bleachers full
gasped and held their breath…
one and then year two
until the smile that broke a thousand
cold cold hearts wide open once
again cracked the cold and silent night
and Heaven’s Bleachers roared in joy!
Quicksilver baton twirling,
sigil of the coming glory
and the battered Captain Tittle
smiling humble, signing Y.A.
and the whole beloved story
for a faithful fan of Joyful John
and his undying confidence
in Red and Gold forever held
in jubilance and wriggly ecstasy…
And as that silver wheel spun high
and slicing thru the pale blue sky
the years twirled out as quick as lightening
and slowly Heaven’s Bleachers swelled
with lookers on who cheered and held
the living in their love…
Until the Niners strong and true
(St Clair, RC Owens, Perry, all there)
emerged to follow greatness on
and on into forever…
and even Easter Bunnies stopped
with making eggs to cheer for Rice
and call out loud to old John Brodie…
These many years since then, it’s come
The Wicked Witch of Martinez, thrum
and screech and fear it brings to try
and make our Joyful brother cry
but we stand firm with him and sing
and Heaven’s Bleachers full do bring
their tidings here to us this day
that Joyful John is needed here…
STAY.
For earthly throng still cheers our team
Beloved Niners, see it gleam, as glory gathers
there beneath the coming dawn so gold, so red
I laid down on a rock
to have myself a sleep
the lichen whispered in my ear
of mystery-wonder deep
and even though the clock
spun round, toward death did creep
the rock just waited, patient, near
for me to make the leap.
this is about
silence
under the clouds.
silence defined
by noises here
and there too
and that
in between
glowing and
present
in the 
Come down to the old brown barn with me.
It waits under the milky moon dripping, travelling,
the pearly moon freshly dunked
in far and sighing opalescent seas
and then come flying, fat and flitting swallow here,
to these far mountains and awaiting our arrival,
peaceful you and shivering me.
Come dressed in silks and sighs
and nothing else remaining.
Come adorned with slings and arrows
to lay down long at last in love
unfeigning, unfainting here,
in the end of battle.
The barn sings low and swinging
all our wonder up and ever outward
while the silver moon is clinging
wringing high and deeply dipping down
into the gulf dividing us asunder
from the gods and from ourselves…
and the mountains…
ahh…the mountains there
so tall, so stark
and unrelenting in the dark
the mountains dare to root down and reach up
and hold everything together
as it twirls, spinning.
beneath the stars so bright
the mountains hold us tight
and all together in
this moon-drenched
love-slick night.
I wrote this 4 years ago…a lifetime ago…when I first began to see I really really REALLY had a shell over me…and that it was possible to live free.
I want to challenge you today, especially if you are cis-gender and not transgender: what shell are you living in? What transition must you make as a soul, one that is not a transition of gender, but your own answer to the call to “cross-over”?
Are you called to cross over into creativity and leave behind the world of grubbing for money?
Are you called to cross over into true relationship with God, leaving behind the shell of conservative evangelicalism that is nothing more than a gateway to the gas chambers, with a sign over it saying “Welcome to Hell?”
We all are called to trans…from death to Life…from works to Grace…I pray you find your courage and begin!! Cus the water is fine.
“It caged me in its cold confining bars.
Long have I been its lost and longing thrall,
its tenant-serf of weary plodding on.
It’s clung, tentacled round my throat, my eyes,
and darkness was its cruel confederate
who caged my strong uprising Ne’er-Say-Die…”
wave ever rising
hanging there eternally
wave ever falling
Source: Wave | Charissa’s Grace Notes
This, another poem from last year, comments on life like a vapor, yet must be captured within you, there in your body…
the fog gathers, nesting
over the deep quiet glen
dialing down sunlight
damping every sound
in this gloam my supple soul
nestles in, gives up control
and ceases struggle to be good,
or important, or subtle…
From last year…I really love this lil beauty!
Do you know the place where the light passes in?
That’s where you’ll find me when darkness is seeping
from crevice and cranny while Spring trudges weeping
I sit in the place where the light passes in.
You’ll find me there singing of beautiful life
and of faith like pure gold burnished shiny with hope
as my tears fall like diamonds so soft in the wind
In that place where the light, where the light passes in…
(continued at Source: Where The Light Passes In | Charissa’s Grace Notes )
This poem is written in recognition of all that culminated in the legal name change I obtained three years ago today. I am very happy with this poem, rich in allusions and metaphorical double-backs…
It will reward the diligent who read it and then meditate on it. Resonances emerge like poetic harmonics and sing of many strange and holy waters.
“…the stone under my head grows soft
and i think about my long ago
half-brother, and his ladder.
i search the brooding night sky
for mine, my eyes
pleading like puppies
hungry for milk
but my ladder is my heart.
i know that, finally,
and the skies will open
only as my heart pries open
to spit the pearls formed
within this shell-shocked soul
the stone under my head becomes flesh
and i think about how jacob named
that stone, that ebenezer memory
of open skies and accessible heavens…
bethel…and it echoes in the dark,
rings midst the stars and
chimes in cloudy choruses.
that stone,
that living stone had legs
to wander, God’s house sojourning
from place to place and time to time
ever wandering…
the stone of Scone
stone of destiny
stone of coronation
old, red, sandstone
the stone under my head becomes red
and throbs and thrums and thrills
my soul open and searching the skies,
and i sense it will speak
as it spoke so long ago
and whisper my name,
my new name from heaven.
but it pushes me to listen elsewhere,
my answers not from
rock and sand and ruin
but from the Cornerstone Rock
and its bloody open hand
red and throbbing and thrumming…”
This poem is the sister poem to another one I wrote on the exact same day, several minutes earlier.
It was three years ago, and it was the day of my court hearing which would change my name legally…it was a huge day of excitement and anxiety…and it led to my professional execution less than 2 weeks later.
Ohh, but even in the loss of so much, it is worth it…for in it were the seeds of becoming.
I hope you enjoy one of my own personal faves
…and me…spit up and emptied
and waiting for You
to fill the silent spaces
that ate grace and jeered
while feasting on my food.
me emptied, waiting …
and my heart,
ego-stained and washed clean,
captured
by Your face,
Your gift,
Your grace…
waiting…for that one grain of sand
to start an avalanche within me
of hope, nay!
of Hope…
This was written the same day as “For JP” which I just told of my horrified discovery regarding how it was defiled and twisted.
Catch the irony that on the same day that I wrote that poem, I also wrote this one, which describes the very deepest desire of my heart.
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
The keepers are all that remain, the ones
with both feet anchored to Earth
and their hair being pulled by the stars
to the Milky Way and Beyond
They’ve learned how to swallow it all, it all,
the medicine of ghostly tragedy
they can hear the high keening stories
the stories of tender hearts’ piercings
The keepers, the ones that remain, remain
they keep the connections to meaning
they keep the transitions so sacred
and they bridge life and death with their bodies
they become that bridge, graceful, suspended, suspended
unseen and constructed from blood
and composed in the song of the blood and the sweat
and revealed in the sacred teardrops
and they stretch over oceans with skin, with their skin
they anoint with the oil so sacred
of trauma endure-ed and conquered
by outlasting its flailing last gasps
and they hold in the dark, in the still dark
like an armor that never needs donning
and that never need be taken off
they are Mama’s Heart in skin and bone
The keepers are all that remain, the ones,
The ones too stubborn to leave
the ones too persistent to wipe out
The keepers alive in Her flame
I am so enjoying posting old work for a while…
certainly so many things rushed out of me in the trauma flow that
many nuggets got carried further downstream than where people stand to pan for the gold.
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.
I am reposting a lot of old poetry…not because there is nothing new…but because these are some very nice lil poems that few eyes ever noticed…and they deserve a moment.
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.
there, in clouds and nothing but clouds
above and below as I…walked? Or did I
swim, or fly, and in the distance
hearing songs of you…and clouds
obscure and yet they also part
and thru the silver mist She came…
Her Heart and Ears and Eyes (the singing)
stilled and still and still She came Singing
and in this cloudy parting is the only knowing needed
that I am Her child, Her emissary
sent to bend what thinks itself straight
and straighten what is broken, bent.
Me the paper, pen and ink
Mama, unsayable, beyond the think,
the clouds, the parting, emerging and wordless
song…and She the emerging and yes
the clouds parting
when words are written here
Ya know, even Jesus,
being a dude and all,
didn’t get it!
He thought He
could do it all
with just 12…
and Himself of course!
L. O. freaking L!!
What else would you
expect from a man?
They always think a few inches is a ruler!
“Hey buddy, suck it up Bro!
Rub some dirt on it
Call it good”!
Umm…yeah no.
We know different,
am I right?!?!
Every woman knows
it takes 14
to make a goddess!
A living zesty busty
hippy jazzy sleek
fat hale hearty
slick and
slippery
oh so yummy
JUICY LUCY GODDESS
made of us…we happy 14.
Our Hearts have twined,
our souls have moved
And Mama, She poured
out Her glue
until
We have
elided, danced
and birthed and
been born US!!!
goddess awake and so divine
and we decree our ministry:
the mission of the Broken Pot
forever pouring, ever filling
ever loving, ever willing
always welling upward welling
HEALING
Then? Mama Herself
presses in and on to us
(We Happy 14,
extension of Her face,
Her mask created!)
And caps this Broken Pot of wee
with Holy Trust and Sacred Mercy
running burning everywhere
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14
And Mama…
We Happy 15
You are a Many-Moon now
Baby, deeply well
My Conjurer-Priestess
just like Me.
MAMA!!
IT HURTS!!
I HAVE DUG YOU OUT
My Conjurer-Priestess
just like Me!
My Consolation is Sweeter…and
I HAVE DUG YOU OUT!
You shall not run dry…for
My Consolation is Sweeter.
MAMA!!
IT HURTS!!
You shall not run dry…because
you are a Many-Moon now,
Baby…deeply well
‘Once I have endeared the deity, she will love me in her heart,
the offer I bring may wholly cover my sin,
bringing sesame oil may work on my behalf in awe may I’
I am Charissa Grace
and not your dumb head case
I’ll muss your hair, throw off your pace
and maybe even kiss your face
I overflow permitted banks
and needle apoplectic cranks
cus I unsettle everything
I am wild WILD WILD thus I sing
of mountains dancing, winds untamed
and my heart free in Mama’s Name
Dear Constance…this is not for you, as you are demonstrably here because you enjoy reading.
Reader…this is for you: I produce the content of Grace Notes for my own sanity and therapeutic mental health. I write what I want, when I want, and how much I want.
If it is too much for you, then fade away. Others have before you…and others will after.
For I burn on helium and hydrogen, I am a halogen torch and I am flame and flame…
I cannot not write. I cannot moderate for some expectation or desire.
So-called friends have given up, gone away. Well…you can go too…or just get in the boat and ride the rapids.
Besides…the ride will give you the smallest inkling of what it is like to have this flow come OUT of you!! If you think the navigating is sumfin…imagine the containing and releasing of it.
Hey…Ima keep following hard after Mama…in a dry and thirsty land.
Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa
it’s on the naked branches
stripped bare by winter lashings
frozen crushings and dim light
dark night and the howls and owls
and the lonesome silent music
of lost longings and long waiting…
it’s on the roof built solid
so snug against the cold
and cupping all the golden warmth
that glows inside the heart
and sings inside the soul
of Spring returning fast…
it’s on my face that Mama splashes
all Her Love, Her Grace and Peace
She beautifies my ashes
She oils my grieving heart
She clothes me in Her Raiment
and purifies my spirit
and I sing once again
reborn and free again.
Behold, the darkness thick and lurking, growing
like ennui in my soul, in my heart doomed and waiting
in this long moment, seemingly forever
it will remain, this painted grey, this second…
this minute is an hour is a decade
and I exist here…floating in the nothing, growing-shrinking…
it defines me as some-thing…no…as Some-one
whose breaking renders her unbreakable…
The growing darkness lurking, insubstantial,
The river Ennui flowing out to nowhere, to everywhere
The shocking joy and wonder also shining, in
This painted grey, and gold all underneath.
When you shattered my heart
delicate globe shot thru with
tunnels and annals
and columns and canals…
when you stormed at me
on me in me with your
stoney snow of bitter black
granite and jagged icy nuggets
of frozen flecks so broken
She reached with fingers eager
to bleed upon the bloodless drained
edges of my torn and shattered soul,
fingers white and tender to the slash
and picked each cutty-edgy razor piece
up off the quick-sand floor
and put them all together, jumbly
but Her pattern knowing, more
than what I was before
And then She made a hole thru which
the eye can see, the heart can hear
kaleidoscope music and dance
of Her and me and your futility
and so I spin now, caught in moments
stark, or velvet, or even gentle fuzzy
and simply refract light from the
million shattered pieces reassembled
in mosaic magic, kaleidoscopic and supreme.
Ohhh Love,
it longs with me for thee
even though we’ve forgotten
thy name’s shape and feel and sound
and the way it breathes in me,
the way it speaks to me
in whispers, like wind
whispering between the clouds
to speak to earth
in breaths from beyond
like the way
you touch my ankle
when we sit upon
the floor there,
by the fire
in the speckled-star-lit night
gathered close
outside the house
just like a mama bird who nestles
down so gentle on Her chicks…
I miss you terribly
and ache so,
ever in this moment.
Steeples and graves stand marked in memory,
by a crucifixion making way for the last to be first,
and the guilty pardoned, making way for
the creature and The Creator
(the Dying/Living One Living/Dying,
dying/living here, within me too,
I who lack in every grace
to just die already,
so full of Great
Grace to live
always)
it’s a sign so mysterious and standing
at the core of history the core of the world.
CORE:
suffering,
death, tragedy,
and sad sorrow He
(Supremely human He)
submitted willingly hanging
doggedly broken and bleeding
holding our infirmities in
His bloody Holey Hand
(He’s Got The Hole
World In His
Hand)
it’s a gift of forgiveness
and assurance, depiction
of the depth of divine mercy
and hope of God and us.
Is this querulous song enough
to quiet restless running thoughts
and ease unanswered questions’ ache,
that burn so cold in hearts laid low
in suffering, hearts whose hope is seized
and despair left laying in its wake
(suffering-wake)
But we must carry willingly
defeat and thirst and emptiness
through to the end of darkness, to
the end of self, and to the world’s long waited end
bringing meaning to suffering and peace to hearts in pain
in this symphony of blood
in this song of loss and gain.
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
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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