If your knee to the pavement
meant more than your knee to the neck,
you’d have kneeled before now.
If the lives of the Black people in your community
meant more than the jobs of your police officers,
you’d have charged them with murder before now.
If the treaty at Appomatox Courthouse
meant more than lip service to the Union Army,
you’d have torn down your Confederate monuments before now.
If your words meant more,
you’d have said them before now.
i am a tree with no roots.
i bask in the sunshine,
but when strong winds blow,
i reach down deep for
a balance i cannot find.
i am no longer fixed
to the land where i was raised,
and though i’ve sought shelter
in another far too many times,
my own soft soul is
my only true home.
i am a rudderless boat,
my bearings lost long ago on a fickle sea.
i squint into salt spray for the shoreline,
wonder how i’ve come so far.
not aimlessness that brought me here,
just my spinning-compass heart.
is it too late now–
with my teetering babel tower
rising up, built with so much
care and hope–
to backtrack and pour
a foundation?
how to even start…
I will dig My toes in deep
to grip a loamy constancy.
I will grow roots, seek water,
and where I find it,
drink.
I will drop My anchor here
while time still stretches
out before Me in waves,
We old dogs can learn
new tricks. We lack only
the audacity.
Her veneration
Hand to hand the circles cast
On a swift cool breeze
All eastern spirits
Element of air, guiding
New beginnings gaze
All southern spirits
Element of fire, crafting
Transformation rites
All western spirits
Element of water, cleanse
The autumn of life
All northern spirits
Element of earth, winter
Covers frozen soil
Hail the waning crone
Wisdom kept in fragile bones
Slumber in cold crypts
Mourn the resting crone
Wisdom shared amongst
Maidens & mothers
Hail the waning crone
Memories etched within our
Hearts vast inferno
Autumn breeze carried
A waning crone, to winter
Crypts in frozen soil
Dirty hands staining the bathroom porcelain
I wonder if it makes a difference
Maybe God notices
Preferring cleanliness over desperateness
I notice the mans hands
Fingers intertwined and gripped tight
He prays in silence
His hands clean on the surface
Hiding whatever stain he’s tried to scrub away
My stomach is hollow
My eyes are red
My passion for my business is unimportant
And there’s a part of me that just wants to
Put the books back on the shelf
And try to teach the real history to the neighbor kids
Although,
A part of me wants to be the old lady who owns
A dusty antique store
It’s still a pandemic
I’ve been out
But know I need to quarantine again
The house is dirty
My mental health is strangling me
Things won’t go back to normal for me
I don’t know if I can continue to worry about clothes
Life is too never ending and this generation is amazing
I’ll never treat these kids like I was treated
“Damn millennial,”
I’ve heard over and over again
Yes, damn me
For doing the right thing and being upset about the things that mean something
I’m an old soul
But don’t care for old values
Soon I’ll be old
But I will continue to grow my values
“Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving you will come to a better place”
– Uncle Iroh, Avatar the Last Airbender.
Sometimes the words best said
do not stand on the edge of the diving board tongue
until after thinking
“I was too late in diving”
I should’ve jumped
I should’ve sang with all my lungs
about our curse-blessed fate
and all the selfish loves we lost
I would’ve howled obscene odes
to heist dead dreams of persephone
into the daylight
for the words that were never said
years that never came
Sometimes the words we ought’ve sang
sketched in our minds
inked in Autumn
sing to you still
there is time
to learn how to swim
-(Inspired by “The Crossroads of Destiny” Ep. 20 of Avatar the Last Airbender Book Two: Earth. Quotation in italics taken from: Ginsberg, Allen ” Howl “. Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl.)
rebellious
if only in my thoughts
I surrender today’s nuisances
longing for what’s beyond reach
I consider cutting a flower that’s technically not mine
but who can truly own nature
a day will come
I am reminded
or at least the possibility thereof eludes
I can waiver
fold or bend or preclude
I am free
although I rarely cash in
instead I ramble tentatively
wishing for an answer
recalling milestones and setbacks
days such as today are impossible to comprehend
