Crossing Big Black Mountain
Early on Sunday morn,
A young black bear beside the road
Looking a bit forlorn.
The sky was very cloudy,
The rain was setting in,
The bear in search of food,
Looking kind of thin.
Near the Kentucky-Virginia border,
The bear crossed the road,
Seeing this miracle of Mother Nature
Was a sight for young and old.
The bear looked and posed,
Before heading over the hill,
Experiencing God’s creation
Was certainly surreal.
Everything is about loss
and suddenly, I was swimming
circling a void of absences and presences
tethered to what I loved
Grief settles in the root of the stomach
If only I could step through
this place, this room of shadows
glimpse what lies beneath, behind, beyond
Unstitch the secret sewn
to the underside of your tongue
a constellation of absences
like unclasped necklaces
Embody opposites
A heart must believe
in the announcement of names
believe in lament and exaltation
Peel back the hinges
of patience, draw a map
that starts in connection points
a scaffold living inside us
Love permeability
learn to glow
the way pink petals open
unhinging, filling with bodies of stars
~ Cento composed of lines from Shannon K. Winston’s poetry collection The Girl Who Talked to Paintings, Felicia Zamora’s I Always Carry My Bones, and Emily Rose Cole’s Thunderhead
Touching the bark of
An ancient redwood
I feel its skin
warm, alive, rough
Placing my head against it
I smell its essence
Musky, damp, delightful
Reaching my arms around it
I realize how small I am
How great it is
Hugging it tightly
I hear its breath and
The breath of other trees
Leaning my whole body in
My lungs fill and empty
Breathing with the forest
Invisible, indecipherable standards.
Not worth it until you achieve.
It’s funny to fall.
You’re a problem now.
An issue.
A point of stress for people you love.
All you can do is blame yourself.
No one really cares about how you feel,
It’s always about how you make them feel.
And we wonder why people choose to leave.
I wasn’t made for how fickle and transparent our tendencies can be.
I’ve said numerous times that I feel like a ghost.
However, I’m beginning to suspect this world is an empty house, and maybe it’s haunted
By all the jaded and tired souls passively imposing their will, just clinging to one small thread of hope,
That they’re seen despite the invisible and indecipherable standards we rest our comforts in.
Inadvertently casting their bitterness and scorn off to the water, to see if anyone would bite that sharp hook hidden by the lure they curate.
I suppose anything is a prison as long as it limits you.
Even if you don’t realize it.
You stopped believing a long time ago.
I still do, and always will.
I refuse to shatter.
In the midst of a drunken slur,
he managed to say “I Love You”.
Desperately wanting to believe him,
I couldn’t remember him saying this to me before.
I stuck by his side both as friend and lover,
through all of his madness: cocaine, vodka, marijuana and tequila,
and never once did this man say those three words to me.
It’s been 6 years, I promise, never have I ever heard him speak those words.
I on the other hand managed to not get caught up in his habits.
I wanted to stay alert at every moment.
There were days when he felt so good
and others days, he was so high he was sloppy.
Why did I stick around?
That’s a good question to ask.
I stayed because he never hit me, he never cursed me,
and he never forced me. Unlike others before him.
We were friends above all else,
I thought I could help him, not change him.
I believe if I had threatened to leave
two things would have happened.
He would have sunk further in the ground of addiction,
or he would not be around for me to say there is still hope.
I didn’t see him sobering up.
I don’t think he wants to.
I sit here now wondering:
How could I let this go on for so long?
The truth: I am lonely.
No spouse, no children, no family.
I needed him to need me.
I wanted him to need me.
I loved him,
I wanted his love in return.
I didn’t do him any good.
I sat back and fulfilled my needs;
while watching him destroy himself.
No good was I.
His drunken words,
were what I always wanted to hear.
I just wish I knew he meant it.
And they were not spoken out of delusion.
What must I do to redeem my soul?
What must I do to save his soul?
Get honest!
That’s the answer that always comes to me.
But to who? I’ve tolerated his life,
in some ways encouraged it.
Lord, please help me!
I want to hear those words again.
I need to take him to a rehab
and see to it he gets clean and sober,
I need to put my needs aside,
and start thinking about his needs.
Will he hate me;
if I strongly suggest him getting clean.
Will he be thankful,
because he always wanted this.
Will those words ever be spoken,
with a clean and clear mind.
Will I stick by him, if he decides not to go
I’m at a lost. What are my motives?
you know me inside out through 40 years
and more. Births welcomed with tender
ripples of surprise. And deaths in giant waves
that tried to drown us.
New jobs and old bound us together—we navigated
with fresh hunger long hours we chose,
then loved to leave
What do you see today as we sit across
from one another? Nibble salads.
Less hungry than we once were for the next
prize, a new passion. More patient.
We wait for layers of chocolate dessert
and pain-free knees.
You probably, no you definitely–see
worry and fatigue (my love’s decline)
my trust that you will answer my midnight call.
With my emotions varying like tremelo this morning,
I reach for my life companion
that has been with me since I was eight years old
while not physically the same one,
it is the one that serves me currently
Preparation doesn’t take long
Opening the case, I breathe in the
familar scent of the instrument that I love,
Wiping away the specks of rosin that cling
and applying new rosin to the bow hair
Where shall I go today?
Into the pages of the hymnal where
people for centuries have displayed
their love and awe of God?
Or into the complicated melodies and rhythms of
composers who are still revered today
because they left behind so many masterpieces
perhaps into the catchy tune of a new song I heard recently?
I have many choices, yet today the ache in my being
requires that I dig deep into comfort
to soothe my emotions and soul
so I leap toward an old favorite that is ingrained
so deep that actual music is not necessary
because it is engraved deep in my heart and brain
My whole body sighs when I play
and that part of me that only music
can touch leaps to life and sparks
the parts of me that need to be fed regularly
faith, optimism, root of all being, kindness
so many things in my life have their root in music
Moving on to the piece that I first conquered as a teen,
it is so different playing it at my current age
my fingers aren’t as nimble,
my hearing has deteriorated with passing years and bad genes
but my mind remembers which notes to play
until the difficulty of the piece requires that I stop and
work out the complicated pattern of notes
that doesn’t feel right, so I try again
Ah yes, that is it. Oops, wrong dynamics
I try again. Better but not there yet
I realize that I am tired and look at the clock
more time has passed than I realize
and the fatigue that comes with exertion finally
registers as I put my old friend away
until another time
smiling, I know we will meet again
soon, because I have a need
that can only be met
with the magic touch of music
I presume
it twas you,
my house hobgoblin,
who borrowed my new earrings
fashioned from quartz crystals
to enhance enlightenment
wrapped in gold wire
by artisan hands
placed on my dresser
Renaissance faire ready
I plead
please return them
before weekend next
for they complete my costume
I propose
making a trade
on the mantle,
I’ll leave a comparable treasure
a farmer’s market strawberry
ripe and red
an unmated velvet glove
with pearl buttons
an antique silver thimble
engraved with poppies
I pledge
taking more care
of my baubles,
so as not to tempt thee.
syllables of stupidity
roll
off
my
tongue
eaten
back
up
like
drool
sucked off my limp lips.
I bab
ble like
a cracked out
chimpanzee
and cry like
a commutative canary.
don’t act like these rants
eat you up inside,
like my words
impact your hippocampus.
i’m no smart cookie,
i’m a
crumb
of mass production.
i think myself as intelligent
as the shit scraped under your
dog’s left paw.
i dream of anything carrying me that far,
keeping me around even if
it’s
to be clotted
under fur.
I am nothing profound.
i like my value shocking and
my kisses full of contempt.
i say a whole lot of nothing and
think about the same.
