the mist, heavy and grey
descends
quiet then hushed
even more silent than
the misted time before.

at the nape of my neck?

a fire

     < a place for fire >

the hearth at which you
can keep warm

and the dark one?
he lives on the shadow side
of the moon.

he never knew the sun.

he did not know.

he will live 100 hundred lives
and it will not be undone.

but now?

 c'est fini.

and what of us who love?

     "we are a bit undone."

yes and hush and . . .

in the deep.

swim the manatee.

and i whisper into her ear,

"people are disappointing"

    ~ even, when they do not mean to be ~

but still she trusts the sea.

and we swim, and we love one another,
we give birth then we die.

we are at peace, dreamless sleep.

you and i.

we are flesh and ash,
dirt and star dust.








but wait,
      (dear sweet, child)

where did she go?

who will eat the butter cream roses
on her birthday cake?


.......................................................................


she came in like a scorpion.
     fierce and ready to fight for what was hers.

birth right and being right, walking
the aisle dressed in white.

but she left, an archer.
     redeemed and afraid, fragile with love.

abandoning clarity for creativity.
relinquishing certainty for tenderness.

letting go the willfulness, to embrace the wide open
           spaces inside her sparking mind.

and though i was broken by her death-trap claw.

i had my own claws, daughter to her mother

     after all.


and even through my eleven thousand cracks,



           one hundred billion sparkles of light shine


                     they speak in deafening hum, the silence


                             quieting the haunted shreds of the angry temple.