Posts for June 8, 2023 (page 12)

Why must I 
                       b
                          r
                             e
                                 a
                                    k
my own heart
Preventing
the possiblity
of you
keeping it safe?

we are so sorry for your loss. we did everything we could.

her screams bellowed out,
like a wounded animal.
tearing out of her throat,
guttural and wild.
what’s a mother to do
without her child?
in the end,
grief
turns all of us
feral.

Query the cells of your body–
Darling, what’s wrong?
What’s miraculous?
What do you long for?

Listen

God with your own Universe–
they, your cells
forgiving,
listen in return.

Part 2

Beginnings end Endings end Beginnings
She joked that you tried to kill her at your birth,
You learned to laugh at the things most painful.
Your youthful hands brought her from beneath,
Reborn to light and life,
She learned proof of the persistent Power of Pure Love.
Today you brushed her hair and held her mottled hand, giving her away to the everlasting.
Your helix Beginnings and Endings on pause
Until you end and begin again.

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man

Billy Joel crooned that tune
from the tiny tinny radio
in my high school bedroom, 
with its white provincial
furniture and gold shag 
carpet. I listened as I did
my French homework
and dreamed of a life larger 
than could be lived 
in Skaneateles, New York. 

Fifty years ago 
that album came out.
Fifty years ago. 

the rocks are jagged- they jut from the water like ancient pillars that once held up the sky above. one with a round hole in the middle, like a window made by the hand of god himself. another dotted with trees as waves break at the base. it is loud here; in that way that only the sea can be loud and soothing in equal measure. i find peace in the cold water against my feet, stepping over smooth stones to reach sand. i pick one up, turn it on my palm, trace it with my finger. it is warm. so am i. i can’t believe that i am here in this place, so far from home. the pacific has always seemed so impossible to this mountain girl.  

i belong back east
to old appalachia
but my heart is full

The world is not what it seems
        it is more
Man believes he can stop it
       he cannot
He believes the sky obeys
        his command
Man believes he can stop the ocean
        still the waves
All he needs to do is depopulate
        pick and choose who lives
Bury the lessons of the past
        rewrite history
Beneath the ashes of our founding
        we silence reality
Not realizing that all the voices calling out
        help us remain
The tyrants consider themselves our saviors
        (all hail the gods of science)
They get drunk on the tears of heroes
         while we suffer
The world is not what it seems
        it is more 

More beautiful
More full
More resilient
More ours than theirs