Posts for June 3, 2022 (page 12)

it is amazing they

never exhaust

pen-to-paper-call-and-response

fresh again

come together again

lines on a page again

birds on a wire

morning song

Everything is temporary and you should treat it as so,
a perspective you introduced to me that I didn’t already know

it imprints me in a way that now shows…

I dirty, forego a rinse, and then dispose..

I hate looking at a rose in a past tense before it goes 

You bring us so much joy.
I can’t get enough of your early morning snuggles and late night zoomies.

Your quirks keep us laughing,
And your sweet little eyes have us bringing home just one more.

But.

If you run out of that door one more time,
I am going to give you the street life you clearly yearn for. 

The desert:
A place of truth
A place of consequences
No game but survival
A space for beauty
A space for the silence
No game, but the test—
A space to quench
A space to bloom
No game but the path
A space for pilgrims
A space for their stories
No game
Just a name

This long road
Scented with pine
And dazzling oak
Narrated by starling sound
And raven’s crow
Sizzling static plunks in deep wells of cold stone.

High brick walls from centuries ago compete with massive limbs,
the sky scrunched in small containment on this long and mostly shaded road.

Shimmery with snake silver
And sycamore filigree,
Great hollow mansions
Resting in shady dapple,
Their seats pushed back from the wide road
Like sated guests of enchanted feasts
Filed away for an eon of sleep

Passersby are walking and talking and drinking and singing and screaming and decidedly trying not to see. Their costumes range through every possible degree.

A great magic clock is whirring here, I feel the spring wound tight, the decisive fall of each cog meeting cog, a sliding and falling which is endless.

The second hand is a great black vulture whirling above the italianate villa. It’s sudden presence with such outwardly flung momentum,
causes all else to momentarily blur.
Such confidence transcends a creature. And still…

The huge orange cat and the small brown cat with the two young raccoons are patrolling, above and beneath the streets They have them both covered and lowered

And always the glimmering greenery
The pellucid, perspicacious, trembling lush. That grand orchestra of a leafy palace
A Hagia Sofia of poplars
And roosting Totoros
An illustrious stage for the hour sun and minute moon to brighten and dim the searing bake and compassionate cool, the rise and fall of temper
a trumpeting, tympanic tempo of drama that we choose.

And there a friendly dog or two.
A squirrel or four to be precise
A spider maybe a firefly
And thricely possums on a waning
When the white turns to rosy gold or deepest blue
And I try to sleep before it’s new and white again.

A crackling cacophonous starling song parade breaks just before the dawn, occasionally cloaked in a saccharine sapphire cool. And somehow it’s also lightly raining.

What happens if I break all the rules
I ask a particular planet that dazzles in the morning dew
Every time is created new
He says
And slurps his milky stew

Slipping silently from her clothes,  
our bride-to-be lowers herself into the wide river.   

She prays with her bridesmaids: Baruch Atah Adonai
Three immersions and three blessings.    

As dawn breaks, she launches   
a nimble swim across the water and back.   

Low slanting light flashes through trees
illuminates her arms and shoulders,  

with each kick of her slim feet, golden explosions.    
Purified, she scales the bank, rejoins her friends.  

They talk of love, of autonomy and interdependence.  
The river glows, quiets, follows its own path.

The vibrations of the organ music mixed
with the overpowering floral scent
is more than I can tolerate.
I want to run out of the chapel
and scream!  I want to slap someone!
But who?  The shooter is dead.
Maybe his parents?  He had full access
to the guns in their home.  So,
who is to blame?

Is this true?
Would she feel safe with me?
Would she fear for me?

I wish I could hold my child-self
I wish I could make her feel safe
and loved
and enough. 

I wish I could tell her that she
doesn’t need to diffuse every argument,
that she is not responsible for 
ensuring everyone’s happiness. 

But if not that,
then I wish I could look her in the eyes, 
cradle her cheek lovingly,
and tell her to burn the world to the ground. 

I try to push through.
Your body catches my clothing 
and the skin.  
I do not know
whether this is the end, 
or whether it ended before it began, 
red rover.

Caught in your bony, stark limbs,
suddenly comes my sentence;
I’m so happy to lose.
I do not know 
if this is a kiss, 
or a bruise, 
red rover.

Red rover,
with you
I wonder at who I am;
I change with everyone.
It is like dishonesty,
but tonight I swear 
I’m doing alright.

I would have only held you 
if that was your way,
or your religion.
I would have held you:
tight, bony, and stark,
a couple of bookends
holding racy magazines.

Red rover,
red rover,
you trembled, 
and shook the mountains
like the good lord 
calling us 
away.

She did not know my name,
Hugged me all the same.
Looked to my mother for validation,
Is this one mine?
I accept whatever she offers,
Resist the impulse to hold too tightly,
Crush her to my chest,
Weep for the woman she used to be.
It may be late 
And from now on
She always gets to choose
When she is held
When she is freed.