DIY
Cool quiet morning….
Waking up the neighborhood
Replacing deck boards
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Step One of the Twelve Steps of programs such as A.R.T.S. Anonymous is, “We admitted we were powerless over our creativity—that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Too many people have told me they are not powerless
and their lives are not unmanageable.
It works for you,
but I’ll never give up my power.
I hear you.
But do any of us have power?
I could not stop
landing in a walker
and a wheelchair
despite losing 190 pounds.
I could not stop
so many beloved
people and pets
from dying.
I could not stop
AI from destroying
most of my
writing and editing business.
I can ask for help.
I can meditate.
I can serve others.
I can change directions.
Only by surrendering
the inevitable
can I embrace change
and, yes, power.
I rush inside the house
to get out of the rain
only to run upstairs
to shower.
Why is one wetness
more preferable than the other?
Maybe because I choose it,
control it.
I hate the rain.
I forget that
it has often been
a sign of God’s
love for me.
I was 13
and about to take
my first
(and only)
Akido test.
The drops began to
hit the tin roof
of the dojo
just before my turn
like a soothing promise
that everything
would be okay.
I was in college
and on a road trip
with friends,
feeling alone,
having a panic attack.
I lowered the car window
to feel
the gentle touch of God.
Countless are the times
that soft rains
have kissed my skin
just when I needed it.
And yet,
when I look outside
and see gray skies
and have forgotten
my umbrella
and my coat,
I do not feel
safe and comforted,
held in the arms of something greater
than myself
and my problems.
Instead, I feel frustration.
Many are God’s gifts
and many I ignore.
Imagine you are God.
You organize
not one,
but two
parades
on
a
planetary
scale
in your
pet solar system
during Pride month, and
still
yet
your professed believers choose to
shame some of your children
for
who
they
love
as a badge of
loyalty to you.
You can raise ’em right and
still
yet
they will act like they ain’t
never been nowhere.
Winged Iris
messenger of the gods
stands with one foot upon the earth
and one in a pool of water
straddling the rainbow bridge
between two worlds.
She pours water from one cup into another
tempering the essences of life.
Behind her
the path of Temperance
leads to a mountain top
a higher state of consciousness
aglow with the light of Spirit.
In this life
we experience the world
through a veil of perception
created by the ego
and our Higher Self.
But through the union
of intuition and reality
we lift the veil of illusion
revealing all around us
hidden messages
from the Divine.
You taught me how when you bundled me in your embrace
knowing I arrived a day late sorting out a former entanglement.
No judgement rendered just love bursting from your wide blue grays.
Today without you, betrayal comes, building walls
as high as my boundaries, blocking the jagged,
twisted barbs. Trust is lost.
Accused of a myriad of falsehoods via pages of texts in lieu
of a face-to-face exchange, I chose to block her out
building walls cutting the ties that bind. Trust is lost.
You were my Rock, I flounder trying to gain footing in this world
without you, dodging bullets of pain. Trust is lost.
I line up the equipment: a red flimsy fly swatter, more fan than flame. A plastic quart container, no lid. & a terry cloth towel, recently laundered.
I set them outside the shut bedroom door in a darkened hallway. I’m still drowsy with sleep, woken from a dream about a Chinese restaurant & rats to the early morning clink of a stinger against single pane glass. Third time this week but first time it has roused me. I roll over
& out of bed, putting on my glasses to ensure I don’t stumble straight into damage. On my way out the door, I close it—better to contain the chaos, better to wake up the rest of the way on the couch as I consider my comprehensive strategy to defend my shelter.
Hours later, after coffee & waffles, after the car & the gym, I return to the scene, to the equipment already placed by the shut bedroom door. I open it a crack,
the mud dauber wasp sits, legs splayed, high on the wall. I can’t reach him there &, even if I did, he’d get lost in the furniture during his plummeting spiral. I shut the door, retreat again to the couch, bide my time.
Hours later, after toast & a smoothie, after emails & a poem, I return, again, to the scene. Same equipment. Only two hands so I choose the swatter & the container. The towel is back-up if something else fails.
The wasp’s finally at the window in an enviable position. A friend calls. I put him on speaker. He is instructed to offer encouraging words. The dauber inches down the window well toward the bottom sill as I steady the swatter. I swing
& make contact. Requisite squealing commences. I can’t catch a wasp without making a big deal of it. The friend on the phone asks for a play-by-play. I maneuver the flaccid swatter around the stunned body & paintbrush him into the container. Easy
but my heart still races. I wish there was another way for us both. But, instead it’s this, all summer long: to the hallway, the living room, the kitchen, the back deck. Over the railing, release.
—————
Night pinks the sky of another June without you. On this shelf, things decay slowly.
Under the awning of our too-active imaginations, we once painted a world where we could endlessly shelter. I want to return there but I can’t dream it without you.
Inside the alcove of our two gentle hearts, we softened the urgency to have all the answers. I want to ask more of you but you’ve left me, alone.
Nothing breaks down without giving itself back to the earth, decomposing into dirt rich with the selves who were lost in the letting.
What can grow in the soil of a futured heart? Shell-rich & sewn with fragments of another life. We can’t have each other so it must be another blooming.
to be fair, they were
for both my roommate and me.
finger lickin’ good.
