after the longest winter ever . . .





five, 5, small songs full of warmth and hope.

and just when the world turns green, all our dreams unfold into reality.

goodbye to the cold life, trees brown and bare.  our old bones laid lonely against the gray.

hello to the warm life, trees green and full.  our old bones laid in crosses against the blue.

when my hair was the color of dandelion wishes
i woke in the milky-way inspired night
the fire reflected in the back of my eye ~

someone has burned the fields,
we will have no harvest this year.

tears twined in the metal of the model t.

one breath ~ one second ~ one hundred years.

same to me.

whispering, these ghosts, this memorial
of copper spoons and iron locks.

satin cords, or leather, hold the keys.

your fingered keys, the ivory that is me.

a whippoorwill to weave us, heart to heart.

the heron, to tear us, limb from limb.

that silent, sacred flight.
only room for one,
a solitary trip.

the night falls upon the garden,
red smudge of light on the dead,
(hey, they are sleeping)
lilies.

a cardinal, drinking deep from
the iced water in the pond.

beneath the koi, the goldfish
float, transfixed by the cold.

they have not remembered
their summer, liquid swim.

but they will, dance again.

SaveSave

these are the paths we go down ~

this hummingbird highway, a rainbow
shadow, our Belizean blue dreams.

the ocean, the ocean waves (the hurricane)
the way we move and sway.

so stay, and stay and stay.

sunshine soaked bones.

you hold me, while I do the soft sink.
you hold me, while i forget the dark star.

you have sepia memories of the torn heart.

i thought i would die.

but i only grew cold and slow, tired and bewildered.
lost wonder.

rock a-bye,

~ sigh ~

tear in my eye.

the walls are rich
with your laughter.

my life is a
cathedral to
you.

i am a poor church,
i will not deny it.

and i fail you, i fail you  . . .  again.

i am more than i imagined,
because i have loved you.

you were imagined from hope
and love, tender things,
things that cannot be real
in this way of seeing.

but tilt your head, look
beyond the wind, behind
the light in the air, there and there ~
see the way the fish and the gentle
ripples make their own reality?

the universe in the water,
water in the universe.

here.

the babe holds to the magdalene.

the babe holds to the clay.

this law of nature.
this pardon of fate.

be and being, you are yours,
you are no other's.

not even mine,
i know, i did not make you.

the fire will burn,
i know it.

the earth will turn,
i know it.

time will quiet,
itself,
in the end.

i know it.

but when i first
held you.

the world
without you?

i will never
understand it.

ghosts in the water.

unsettled hearts, souls left to wonder.

i have planted and left
100 gardens, gullible flowers
left to wild beds.

the tolling bell and the wrens' song.
leaves me undone, lost to the undoing.

i am the lightening storm,
           this electric swarm.

promises and lies,
shouted truth and whispered story.

the killers come and they are not quiet,
in their gentleman's quest,
they are leather-bound and painted,
kissing steel and lead,
crosses and old bones.

you know them by the names they call themselves:

healer, lover, husband, priest, shaman, leader.
heedless and headless and ruled by slander.

but i am the great mitigator.

your protector from the sun, the insane light,
the surging radiation,
from the cold, deep reaching fingers
of oxygen(less) space.

i am the opposite of your medicine traditions.

i am the only god you truly know.

you see me everyday, you have grown use to me,
you do not know me for the wild thing i was born to be.

you abuse me in your desperation to be King.
to out run and over take your mortality.

and so, i crown you King,
       of nothing.

as you wish, so be it.

in your own extinction, you take from me
some shred of your own destiny.

and for this moment, i am marked by you.
this chapter in my story, defined by you.

but all in all.




you are a tattoo, painful
now when fresh but soon
to fade.

i cannot know what will be next,

i will lie fallow while
your bones become the

stardust haze of
my next beginning.

and my ears must be shells.

i can hear the ocean,
when i close my eyes.

my skin grows soft with
the salt and sand.

my skin grows dark
covered by the light.

we hold hands, we laugh.
walking with the moon's pull.

this crash and this ebb.

this sweet heart break.

this starry sky.

the sand pipers,
skitter and feed,
so busy, always just
in front of the wave.

you watch them and
wait for the catch.

catch. switch. sweep. see.

                you are the catch

so, dear one, you need
not wait.

you break your own heart.

my cool girl.
the beat inside my heart.

do not be defined
by the world on the
other side of this bridge.

be defined by the universe
inside your soul, the
way the words make you.
the way you make worlds.

shaped by you.
shaping you.

you know,

     spin. sing. soar. spring.
     wave. weave. wing.
     cry. pray. say. fly.

you make yourself.