"I curse [and love] my curse
which is to love the curse;
to love unconditionally;
which is to love the lovers back to love;
to love the lost back to life;
to love when loving means losing;
to love when loving means losing myself;
to love when loving means losing
what I thought was wrong and right
[what I thought was black and white];
to love to love to love;
and to love to love to feel
all that comes with love."
(from before. 3/16/14)
Showing posts with label my poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my poetry. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2014
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Voices on love, particularity, integrity, gravity, and staying with.
"Sometimes the most radical act is to stay home."
"To bear witness [to know] is not a passive act."
"It all comes down to relationships" [and having] "a heightened curiosity of other."
"If we don't know who we live among, then when they vanish, there's no one to mourn that loss."
"The challenge is to stay. The challenge is to be present with that pain.
and "making commitments to do the real work, the hard work" [of being in relationship.]
--Terry Tempest Williams
"To love means to stay with.
[...]
to love means to stay with when every cell says 'Run!'"
--Clarissa Pinkola Estes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Staying home.
Coming home.
Knowing who we live with.
Knowing them so we can love them, honor them, protect them in their own integrity.
Then we can be in ours.
Standing ground.
Standing tall, in place.
Rising rooted like trees.
Rooted to the earth.
Rooted to each other.
[Tethered in the heart.]
The challenge is to stay.
The challenge is particularity.
To know and be known
truly and fully, and to stand in our own truth with integrity.
To be accountable to ourselves, and each other.
To hold to what is difficult.
To hold to the difficult in relationship
and see it through, to understanding,
acceptance, and love.
To hold to the difficult.
To not abandon each other.
To never abandon each other.
To never abandon the crying scared child in each other's deepest hearts.
To love each other back to life,
back to truth,
back to wholeness,
and the knowingness that we belong
here,
together.
"to gather the things within my reach and to protect them." -Will Falk (from his essay To Be a Warrior Poet)
To protect them. The things we are in relationship to. The particularities of our lives.
To not enact the violence of indifference and uncaring, that is perpetuated by cultural mindsets of separation, individualism, and interchangeability, hardness, distance, and cold reason.
To feel each other's pain.
Peggy O'Mara:
"Don't stand unmoving outside the door of a crying baby whose only desire is to touch you. Go to your baby. Go to your baby a million times."
Alison Rose Levy:
"Hearing the cries of the world means hearing the cries of a baby whether that baby is one month old or 100 years old and whether that baby is a human, a kitty, or an elephant cub.
This is offered to the people who know what to do, and the people who know but have forgotten. It is offered especially to those who were left crying because someone stood outside the door... either through hesitation, fear, numbness, hardness, or any other agenda or 'reason.'
May those who remember reach out for the millionth time.
May those who know but forget, remember.
For those who hesitate, doubt or fear, listen to the cry and allow it to move you to courageous action, more courageous than what any warrior pose can teach you.
And for those with numbness, hardness, and other agendas and reasons, only by allowing the cry to reach your heart and melt your plans, your agendas, and your reasons into a puddle that runs out the door, down the gutter and into the river, only then will you yourself heal, only then will you become capable of serving as an agent of healing, and only then will the empty space within the many words spoken be filled with the tears of truth.
And for those who cry out for any wrong or grief, any loss, betrayal or hurt, may you find consolation, may you find your natural community of protectors, may you draw to you those capable of deep caring-- and may your consolation become the consolation of the earth. Because as your soul swims softly outward on its outflowing tears and your heart speaks its truth and finds gentle listeners, so you become the bearer of the truth that lives in the heart of all and the one who always listens and answers.
Do you hear the call?"Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
"A tear, heard by anyone of heart, is understood as a cry to come closer."
Alison Rose Levy:
"It's not merely about the newborn either. We all carry that cry and when the duress becomes too great, it emerges. There are those who listen when the sound is no more than a whisper. And there are those who are deaf when a loved one or child is screaming-- or they blame that child. And that is the inhumanity that is upon the land and within many of us in these times."
Alison Rose Levy:
"From the right to know and the duty to inquire flows the obligation to act." You know people say, 'Don't get too involved in this, it's not your problem.' Like we all live in little boxes and what goes on beyond that wall doesn't exist. With enough acreage you can live like an ostrich and feel free while enjoying the view. This is exactly the fragmentation of community that is turning the earth into a hell zone."
Sarah Alexander:
"We are strongly being pulled now to face our shadows squarely, honestly, without shame, in order to understand what is still holding us back and to let it go. It is hard enough to be honest with ourselves; much less with others. But every. single. time. we. take. a. breath. and. speak. truth. we become freer to act in integrity, and thus liberate humanity a little more from bondage."
Integrity. From Integritas, meaning Intact. Whole. Undivided. Sound.
Alison Rose Levy:
"For me, there is just no way of integrity in standing by while harm is happening and being tolerated. And to act far away and not be righteous up close doesn't count for much. Nor does being a warrior for yourself but not on behalf of those you love."
Sandra Steingraber:
"We are not beautiful by how we look but by how we love, not attractive by what we wear but by what we give and not smart in how we talk but in how we act."
Aloofness might just be the worst thing for this world.
It is like floating above, imaginally,
pretending to not be subject to the gravity
of the situation;
pretending that you are not connected to all everything.
It is in relationship that we feel the heavy weight of our connection. It is meant to be heavy. It is meant to be hard. That is how we know what is real. We can't turn away from that.
Gravity is here to hold us to what we belong to.
We can pretend to cast it off with carelessness, coolness, lightness. We can pretend that there is distance, that these particularities don't matter, aren't real. We can pretend that we can fly off easy into other spaces, novel, new, simple. We can try.
But here, now, we are subject to gravity, in all that we do.
We will be held to it. This is true accountability.
This is not something meaninglessly draped over us, weighting us down unnecessarily, keeping us from moving fast enough toward our dreams, or something we can cast off. Our dreams are bound in it, by it. Our dreams of freedom are bound in and by our relationships to each other. We cannot be free without them. We are bound to them, and our freedom is in how we embrace this.
That is gravity's law.
That is the weight, the heaviness, the difficulty of relationship.
And this is to be honored with our attention, with open, feeling hearts. Hearts that are willing to be heavy, willing to be bound, willing to be hurt.
Hurting. Bleeding.
That is love.
Not easy. Not floating. Not painless. Not free. But bound in one another's lives and love and pain.
Bound in promise.
Promise being the root of "response"
as in responsibility.
as in response-ability.
as in being present.
as in active relating.
as in spontaneous co-arising.
as in true relationship.
Ben Garrison:
"A choice to live sacred And because love would lead us to believe that we all belong to the earth and to each other.with hope and desire. bound to a future." [together.]
If we act as though everything is passing, and can pass without impact or float by without pain; if we act as thought we can float, unscathed, in a world of sharp edges trying to meet and fit in a better way; if we do not love particularly; if our love isn't heavy and doesn't hurt to hold some times...
then we are just kidding ourselves. What is any of that worth?
No. Gravity, heaviness, being bound together, that is what makes us creatures worthy and capable of love.
That we can hurt and love.
That we can love and hurt.
That we can love in spite of hurt
not in lieu of it.
Yes.
That we can love in spite of hurt, not in lieu of it.
And that we are bound to do so.
And that we then bind to each other.
And that we then, inevitably, hurt.
And that we then, still, again, hold to love, and hold to each other, despite.
And that we then understand and remember our responsibility to honor that love with our actions.
That is embracing gravity.
That is integrity.
"To bear witness [to know] is not a passive act."
"It all comes down to relationships" [and having] "a heightened curiosity of other."
"If we don't know who we live among, then when they vanish, there's no one to mourn that loss."
"The challenge is to stay. The challenge is to be present with that pain.
and "making commitments to do the real work, the hard work" [of being in relationship.]
--Terry Tempest Williams
"To love means to stay with.
[...]
to love means to stay with when every cell says 'Run!'"
--Clarissa Pinkola Estes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Staying home.
Coming home.
Knowing who we live with.
Knowing them so we can love them, honor them, protect them in their own integrity.
Then we can be in ours.
Standing ground.
Standing tall, in place.
Rising rooted like trees.
Rooted to the earth.
Rooted to each other.
[Tethered in the heart.]
The challenge is to stay.
The challenge is particularity.
To know and be known
truly and fully, and to stand in our own truth with integrity.
To be accountable to ourselves, and each other.
To hold to what is difficult.
To hold to the difficult in relationship
and see it through, to understanding,
acceptance, and love.
To hold to the difficult.
To not abandon each other.
To never abandon each other.
To never abandon the crying scared child in each other's deepest hearts.
To love each other back to life,
back to truth,
back to wholeness,
and the knowingness that we belong
here,
together.
"to gather the things within my reach and to protect them." -Will Falk (from his essay To Be a Warrior Poet)
To protect them. The things we are in relationship to. The particularities of our lives.
To not enact the violence of indifference and uncaring, that is perpetuated by cultural mindsets of separation, individualism, and interchangeability, hardness, distance, and cold reason.
To feel each other's pain.
Peggy O'Mara:
"Don't stand unmoving outside the door of a crying baby whose only desire is to touch you. Go to your baby. Go to your baby a million times."
Alison Rose Levy:
"Hearing the cries of the world means hearing the cries of a baby whether that baby is one month old or 100 years old and whether that baby is a human, a kitty, or an elephant cub.
This is offered to the people who know what to do, and the people who know but have forgotten. It is offered especially to those who were left crying because someone stood outside the door... either through hesitation, fear, numbness, hardness, or any other agenda or 'reason.'
May those who remember reach out for the millionth time.
May those who know but forget, remember.
For those who hesitate, doubt or fear, listen to the cry and allow it to move you to courageous action, more courageous than what any warrior pose can teach you.
And for those with numbness, hardness, and other agendas and reasons, only by allowing the cry to reach your heart and melt your plans, your agendas, and your reasons into a puddle that runs out the door, down the gutter and into the river, only then will you yourself heal, only then will you become capable of serving as an agent of healing, and only then will the empty space within the many words spoken be filled with the tears of truth.
And for those who cry out for any wrong or grief, any loss, betrayal or hurt, may you find consolation, may you find your natural community of protectors, may you draw to you those capable of deep caring-- and may your consolation become the consolation of the earth. Because as your soul swims softly outward on its outflowing tears and your heart speaks its truth and finds gentle listeners, so you become the bearer of the truth that lives in the heart of all and the one who always listens and answers.
Do you hear the call?"Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
"A tear, heard by anyone of heart, is understood as a cry to come closer."
Alison Rose Levy:
"It's not merely about the newborn either. We all carry that cry and when the duress becomes too great, it emerges. There are those who listen when the sound is no more than a whisper. And there are those who are deaf when a loved one or child is screaming-- or they blame that child. And that is the inhumanity that is upon the land and within many of us in these times."
Alison Rose Levy:
"From the right to know and the duty to inquire flows the obligation to act." You know people say, 'Don't get too involved in this, it's not your problem.' Like we all live in little boxes and what goes on beyond that wall doesn't exist. With enough acreage you can live like an ostrich and feel free while enjoying the view. This is exactly the fragmentation of community that is turning the earth into a hell zone."
Sarah Alexander:
"We are strongly being pulled now to face our shadows squarely, honestly, without shame, in order to understand what is still holding us back and to let it go. It is hard enough to be honest with ourselves; much less with others. But every. single. time. we. take. a. breath. and. speak. truth. we become freer to act in integrity, and thus liberate humanity a little more from bondage."
Integrity. From Integritas, meaning Intact. Whole. Undivided. Sound.
Alison Rose Levy:
"For me, there is just no way of integrity in standing by while harm is happening and being tolerated. And to act far away and not be righteous up close doesn't count for much. Nor does being a warrior for yourself but not on behalf of those you love."
Sandra Steingraber:
"We are not beautiful by how we look but by how we love, not attractive by what we wear but by what we give and not smart in how we talk but in how we act."
Aloofness might just be the worst thing for this world.
It is like floating above, imaginally,
pretending to not be subject to the gravity
of the situation;
pretending that you are not connected to all everything.
It is in relationship that we feel the heavy weight of our connection. It is meant to be heavy. It is meant to be hard. That is how we know what is real. We can't turn away from that.
Gravity is here to hold us to what we belong to.
We can pretend to cast it off with carelessness, coolness, lightness. We can pretend that there is distance, that these particularities don't matter, aren't real. We can pretend that we can fly off easy into other spaces, novel, new, simple. We can try.
But here, now, we are subject to gravity, in all that we do.
We will be held to it. This is true accountability.
This is not something meaninglessly draped over us, weighting us down unnecessarily, keeping us from moving fast enough toward our dreams, or something we can cast off. Our dreams are bound in it, by it. Our dreams of freedom are bound in and by our relationships to each other. We cannot be free without them. We are bound to them, and our freedom is in how we embrace this.
That is gravity's law.
That is the weight, the heaviness, the difficulty of relationship.
And this is to be honored with our attention, with open, feeling hearts. Hearts that are willing to be heavy, willing to be bound, willing to be hurt.
Hurting. Bleeding.
That is love.
Not easy. Not floating. Not painless. Not free. But bound in one another's lives and love and pain.
Bound in promise.
Promise being the root of "response"
as in responsibility.
as in response-ability.
as in being present.
as in active relating.
as in spontaneous co-arising.
as in true relationship.
Ben Garrison:
"A choice to live sacred And because love would lead us to believe that we all belong to the earth and to each other.with hope and desire. bound to a future." [together.]
If we act as though everything is passing, and can pass without impact or float by without pain; if we act as thought we can float, unscathed, in a world of sharp edges trying to meet and fit in a better way; if we do not love particularly; if our love isn't heavy and doesn't hurt to hold some times...
then we are just kidding ourselves. What is any of that worth?
No. Gravity, heaviness, being bound together, that is what makes us creatures worthy and capable of love.
That we can hurt and love.
That we can love and hurt.
That we can love in spite of hurt
not in lieu of it.
Yes.
That we can love in spite of hurt, not in lieu of it.
And that we are bound to do so.
And that we then bind to each other.
And that we then, inevitably, hurt.
And that we then, still, again, hold to love, and hold to each other, despite.
And that we then understand and remember our responsibility to honor that love with our actions.
That is embracing gravity.
That is integrity.
That is love.
"The weight of the world
is love.
--Alan Ginsberg"The weight of the world
is love.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
The Pattern
This is the pattern:
Mothers
too-good
too-strict
just trying to protect us from
men
with broken glasses taped together by long
tales and compliments that steal
our sight.
This tale--
two girls
two men
two rooms
this is where the sheet rips
and the pattern is severed in
two paths,
the same truth.
(Why couldn't I save her?)
Ten years later
the gravity hits me hard
in the bathroom
brushing my teeth at my mirror-self
and feeling compassion
for the one staring back,
strong, unblinking, gaze
and wondering why I stopped
looking people in the eyes
and holding my head high
like I do
in the mirror.
And then I remembered
the exact moment
in the room
with the man
where that stopped
and all of this started.
Oh the legacy of a moment,
of a few words,
perhaps an offering,
but that robbed me of many things,
and not even close
to everything she lost
in the other room.
~~~
Our mothers are waiting.
When they find out their hands wring
(broken heart-strings)
they scream
that they will kill him.
My mom drives to his house
day after day
for a week
and sits in her car
waiting...
waiting...
too-good.
~~~
This is the pattern:
Men, taking what they want
and disappearing.
And women
waiting...
Waiting...
and in the meantime,
weaving back together
the tattered patterns of our lives
into some semblance of wholeness.
Mending the tears,
tending to tears
flowing out like an endless river
of sorrow
while the violence rages on
and we wait.
~~~
(What are these silhouettes
that shape so much
of the landscape we live on
with their mining
and their walking away?)
Mothers
too-good
too-strict
just trying to protect us from
men
with broken glasses taped together by long
tales and compliments that steal
our sight.
This tale--
two girls
two men
two rooms
this is where the sheet rips
and the pattern is severed in
two paths,
the same truth.
(Why couldn't I save her?)
Ten years later
the gravity hits me hard
in the bathroom
brushing my teeth at my mirror-self
and feeling compassion
for the one staring back,
strong, unblinking, gaze
and wondering why I stopped
looking people in the eyes
and holding my head high
like I do
in the mirror.
And then I remembered
the exact moment
in the room
with the man
where that stopped
and all of this started.
Oh the legacy of a moment,
of a few words,
perhaps an offering,
but that robbed me of many things,
and not even close
to everything she lost
in the other room.
~~~
Our mothers are waiting.
When they find out their hands wring
(broken heart-strings)
they scream
that they will kill him.
My mom drives to his house
day after day
for a week
and sits in her car
waiting...
waiting...
too-good.
~~~
This is the pattern:
Men, taking what they want
and disappearing.
And women
waiting...
Waiting...
and in the meantime,
weaving back together
the tattered patterns of our lives
into some semblance of wholeness.
Mending the tears,
tending to tears
flowing out like an endless river
of sorrow
while the violence rages on
and we wait.
~~~
(What are these silhouettes
that shape so much
of the landscape we live on
with their mining
and their walking away?)
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Gravity
[Reflections on home and relationship, in interpretation of Alfonso Cuarón’s movie Gravity.]
That we are floating
That we are held down
That we are alone
That we are one
That we are lost
That we are in the right place.
That we have a home.
That we have love.
Soil.
Soul.
Mud.
That we are all
That we are none.
Gravity.
Can't stop crying
can't stop reaching
can't stop trying to grab hold
of everything that's floating away
from me.
Tethered in the heart.
We must hold on to love.
Gravity.
That we all belong to the earth.
Gravity.
That this is home.
That we are bound.
Gravity.
Binding.
Gravity. Weighting without crushing.
Gravity. Holding us to what is ours.
Holding us to what we belong to.
Gravity.
Love.
Same thing.
Love.
Same thing.
We can float in easy silence
or we can stand
feet pressed in
in the buzzing world
alive
together.
Gravity.
Howling into the abyss.
Gravity.
Howling our hearts into the silence.
Gravity.
Howling Howling.
Wailing. Howling. Screaming. Loving. Howling. Moaning. Loving. Barking. Barking. Howling.
Howling.
Wholing.
Wholing.
Homing.
Coming home
to the heavy gravity
of particularity,
relationship.
Gravity. Coming home.
Gravity.
Surrendering to the weight
of what we belong to.
written 3/10/14
all images from gravitymovie.warnerbros.com
Thursday, April 10, 2014
the conversation
I've been
shying away from writing because I have been standing at the edge of an
ocean, dug in, while waves of truth and love wash over me, over and over
and over, and I haven't had the time or words or perspective to
synthesize all of it, or any. But I am seeing now that it just may not be the time for
synthesis, but for living in the washing over and over, and expressing
purely whatever it is that washes through me.
Being vulnerable is probably the most important thing I've ever done.
These are the themes.
Being vulnerable is probably the most important thing I've ever done.
"As it happens, the wall between us is very thin.
Why couldn't a cry from one of us break it down?It would crumble easily, it would barely make a sound."
Rilke
~~~
Conversation is about finding understanding.
Breaking these walls
or discovering
that they were never there.
[Listen]
[Talk to me]
Everything is a conversation.
Everything is a puzzle.
How do these two,three, four things
people, pieces fit together?
A puzzle.
How does my hand fit the rock?
Perfectly. Just there.
Particularity.
My hand.
That rock.
Fit.
And so I climb
there,
that wall
and suddenly
the wall is not a wall
it is my life.
We are one.
~~~
Particularity.
Love particularly,
though
love
is not
particularly
particular
about who, what, how it loves.
Or it is.
I'll say it again though:
Love particularly.
Love the particularity of
his face
her voice
that sunset
my own words
that day.
That day.
That moment
of heart-shattering breath.
But then
love all-everything,
everyone.
Because
how could you not?
Because
one
is all,
right?
[At last, I have to admit it. Because I stood at the edge of that ocean screaming in the night and I was screaming too, and the stars were there, and I was there, and there I was: one, all.]
But don't forget what you are bound to.
Don't forget the decay of time
and who you will rot with
and where you will rot.
And don't forget
that tree
that you've placed your hands on and sung to
songs of promise
a hundred times.
And don't forget
the particular slope of that land
that hand
that rock
the curve of that neck
of that lip
of that tooth
in his mouth.
Remember it like your tongue remembers the exact shape of the space inside your molars,
the exact edge of your incisors
overlapping
[over and over]
against each other.
~~~
The problem:
If you feel each particular thing
with this particular love
then you start to love
every
single
inch
of the world.
And then
I'm afraid the particularity will start dissolve
into the stale suburbs
and crowded streets
of generality.
Because
who doesn't want to be the person
someone's swift-swimming eyes settle upon
and rest
in the perfect peace of finally finding
what they'd been seeking
?
Who wants to be just one face in the crowd
in a sea of love?
But love is a sea
washing over and over
me.
I fall
and I fall
and I fall
in love
with everything.
~~~
So how do I know
who and what I belong to
except by
continuing the conversation
hard as it may be
and it will be
and it is.
But this is probably the most important thing that I can do.
But this is probably the most important thing that I can do.
Monday, March 17, 2014
a small part
full virgo moon
low starry-night tide
lifting-wings winds
blowing rain in
feet swim
shedding
walls cell-thin
between me
and all
everything
low starry-night tide
lifting-wings winds
blowing rain in
feet swim
shedding
walls cell-thin
between me
and all
everything
Thursday, August 22, 2013
bone poem
How long must I hold these words
before they become a poem--
before they creep out effortless to say
what in the idle settled bones of earth
is already known?
before they become a poem--
before they creep out effortless to say
what in the idle settled bones of earth
is already known?
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
[magnetic]
he said
but let the morning's eyes bloom
so full as they could
and almost still
beneath tree night moon
dropped every shell, like tears
after a wild stream
howling
Thursday, August 15, 2013
surface [above, beneath]
once again
this aching desire to feel
alive to feel
the whole shattering force
of the wave of the world
crashing into me
surrounding me and soaking
me through like a new tall stone on the shores
on the towering cliffs above, engulfed
surrounded
windswept sea-swept
lifted from this low.
lifted and submerged in the grasp
in the sweet arms
in the sweet suffocating breath
in the salt. oh the sea.
[why didn't I dive
in? and will I not
again?]
my lungs burn from drowning
in a scream
I swallow
salt and choke
I know will come back churning
burning to be released.
Will be released--
from my eyes or mouth or from my
incoherent erratic
violence.
[I am so tired of being silenced]
Oh aching lungs
lips
hips
heart and the tips of my fingers desperate
to find the words
the motion
the truth behind this urge.
once again.
[spinning
spinning
pink shape
circle slips off my reaching
reaching outstretched hand
and flies into the sea.]
this aching desire to feel
alive to feel
the whole shattering force
of the wave of the world
crashing into me
surrounding me and soaking
me through like a new tall stone on the shores
on the towering cliffs above, engulfed
surrounded
windswept sea-swept
lifted from this low.
lifted and submerged in the grasp
in the sweet arms
in the sweet suffocating breath
in the salt. oh the sea.
[why didn't I dive
in? and will I not
again?]
my lungs burn from drowning
in a scream
I swallow
salt and choke
I know will come back churning
burning to be released.
Will be released--
from my eyes or mouth or from my
incoherent erratic
violence.
[I am so tired of being silenced]
Oh aching lungs
lips
hips
heart and the tips of my fingers desperate
to find the words
the motion
the truth behind this urge.
once again.
[spinning
spinning
pink shape
circle slips off my reaching
reaching outstretched hand
and flies into the sea.]
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Intimacy
I spend my days
barefoot
walking spinning
weeding.
It's intimate
to pull up roots that lay
so lightly just beneath
the surface of mulch
O Horizon.
Oh horizon I watch
the mountains in the distance
dreaming of you
for almost two weeks
I am good.
And not just good--humble
noble--am I?
I walk outside
barefooted night
barefooted sky
baring my skin my soul
to the stars on high
to the trees whose roots lie
so solid beneath
the surface. And yet
for four days I crouch
crawl sit and think
I am good
for pulling up the roots of another thing
and calling it a weed--
diligent in digging
each piece and snatching up every heart-
shaped leaf of morning glory
[bindweed]
Morning Glory.
I am good.
I am good.
Revitalizing, renewing this place
but it's the destroying that follows
me into my dreams as obsession--
beetles
displaced, spiders
scattering.
I can hardly escape it
under the stars.
A possession.
An intimacy.
What am I?
Am I good?
The hearts follow me
into the forest and my eyes are frantic
for the row of green hearts
up, up, up,
like an embroidered pattern
on 90's preteen jeans
--something I want to erase. But these,
they follow me into the woods
and I only see things
to pluck and pull,
and tame
What is wild?
What am I?
Am I good?
The hearts follow me.
Be noble
Be noble
Be noble
each successive one tells me as it winds up
the precious trees I try to protect,
try to
control this wild virus.
It won't stop. Winding. Spinning.
Up. up. up.
And then I spin
and I spin and dance with other people
to the tune of explosions, and the black smoke
from the marina, rising, dances too.
What is good?
Watching those flames engulf and rise and spread and
die enlivens me, and I dance
and I spin and I fall.
And I fall and fall
from grace
for you, from you, with you,
with him.
What am I
but happy to see him in the morning's glory?
We start (and end) our day with embrace
and I don't know why
but my heart flutters
up, up, up
when I see his smile.
The clouds cover the mountains.
A storm brews around them
and I wonder
[where you are, what this is]
at the intimacy of standing
side-by-side silent
awkward as we learn
how to stand in place nobly,
humbly,
tall and strong, in self
in place,
together.
Our roots intertwine
and who am I
to pluck them from their place
these hearts
growing together
up, up, up
binding, spinning, winding
up
until...
my head spins
drunk//tilting
horizon cloud-
cover my eyes
blindness engulfing
I sit at the bar brain spinning
and the heart vines winding
climb the stool beneath
entangle my legs
my belly my
heart with hearts.
I stumble
spinning.
~~~
Just now
I remember that book.
It said to pluck the weeds
before they dig in deep.
I try
to extract, try
to control, but just one clip
and it will grow
again.
~~~
For almost two weeks I am good.
[What is good?]
For four days
I clear-cut a whole forest
of weeds. And now
they trail behind me in my dreams
leaving seeds; taking root in my
bare feet and string along
strewing hearts, stringing hearts
as I go on.
What is good? What am I? Why?
He drives me home,
not my own, but home
of one who held me on
before.
I wonder and the green hearts
bind in my stomach
in my chest, my arms,
in his green car as my head spins.
are lifted up to him
and pull him in.
He pulls me in
embrace. I collapse
safe.
It feels good. So good. What is good?
I don't care.
I rest, chest on chest
head on shoulder. Hand to neck.
Heart to heart.
I try to let go
but my tendrils have hold
and he is holding me
up
up
up
for now.
And then
I breath
I breath, and carefully
unfurl my arms uncurl my fingers
so carefully so not to drop
any leaves.
And I smile say goodbye
and--oh [my heart]
I leave [leaves].
~~~
Some call it bind weed
but I still prefer morning glory
and it will come back surely.
Do I pluck it
or let it grow?
~~~
I spend my days barefooted
walking
spinning
weeding.
It is intimate.
barefoot
walking spinning
weeding.
It's intimate
to pull up roots that lay
so lightly just beneath
the surface of mulch
O Horizon.
Oh horizon I watch
the mountains in the distance
dreaming of you
for almost two weeks
I am good.
And not just good--humble
noble--am I?
I walk outside
barefooted night
barefooted sky
baring my skin my soul
to the stars on high
to the trees whose roots lie
so solid beneath
the surface. And yet
for four days I crouch
crawl sit and think
I am good
for pulling up the roots of another thing
and calling it a weed--
diligent in digging
each piece and snatching up every heart-
shaped leaf of morning glory
[bindweed]
Morning Glory.
I am good.
I am good.
Revitalizing, renewing this place
but it's the destroying that follows
me into my dreams as obsession--
beetles
displaced, spiders
scattering.
I can hardly escape it
under the stars.
A possession.
An intimacy.
What am I?
Am I good?
The hearts follow me
into the forest and my eyes are frantic
for the row of green hearts
up, up, up,
like an embroidered pattern
on 90's preteen jeans
--something I want to erase. But these,
they follow me into the woods
and I only see things
to pluck and pull,
and tame
What is wild?
What am I?
Am I good?
The hearts follow me.
Be noble
Be noble
Be noble
each successive one tells me as it winds up
the precious trees I try to protect,
try to
control this wild virus.
It won't stop. Winding. Spinning.
Up. up. up.
And then I spin
and I spin and dance with other people
to the tune of explosions, and the black smoke
from the marina, rising, dances too.
What is good?
Watching those flames engulf and rise and spread and
die enlivens me, and I dance
and I spin and I fall.
And I fall and fall
from grace
for you, from you, with you,
with him.
What am I
but happy to see him in the morning's glory?
We start (and end) our day with embrace
and I don't know why
but my heart flutters
up, up, up
when I see his smile.
The clouds cover the mountains.
A storm brews around them
and I wonder
[where you are, what this is]
at the intimacy of standing
side-by-side silent
awkward as we learn
how to stand in place nobly,
humbly,
tall and strong, in self
in place,
together.
Our roots intertwine
and who am I
to pluck them from their place
these hearts
growing together
up, up, up
binding, spinning, winding
up
until...
my head spins
drunk//tilting
horizon cloud-
cover my eyes
blindness engulfing
I sit at the bar brain spinning
and the heart vines winding
climb the stool beneath
entangle my legs
my belly my
heart with hearts.
I stumble
spinning.
~~~
Just now
I remember that book.
It said to pluck the weeds
before they dig in deep.
I try
to extract, try
to control, but just one clip
and it will grow
again.
~~~
For almost two weeks I am good.
[What is good?]
For four days
I clear-cut a whole forest
of weeds. And now
they trail behind me in my dreams
leaving seeds; taking root in my
bare feet and string along
strewing hearts, stringing hearts
as I go on.
What is good? What am I? Why?
He drives me home,
not my own, but home
of one who held me on
before.
I wonder and the green hearts
bind in my stomach
in my chest, my arms,
in his green car as my head spins.
are lifted up to him
and pull him in.
He pulls me in
embrace. I collapse
safe.
It feels good. So good. What is good?
I don't care.
I rest, chest on chest
head on shoulder. Hand to neck.
Heart to heart.
I try to let go
but my tendrils have hold
and he is holding me
up
up
up
for now.
And then
I breath
I breath, and carefully
unfurl my arms uncurl my fingers
so carefully so not to drop
any leaves.
And I smile say goodbye
and--oh [my heart]
I leave [leaves].
~~~
Some call it bind weed
but I still prefer morning glory
and it will come back surely.
Do I pluck it
or let it grow?
~~~
I spend my days barefooted
walking
spinning
weeding.
It is intimate.
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