Posts for June 16, 2025 (page 4)

I am tired. 
Not the tired of muscles or minds
but of marrow,
the kind that comes
when the world forgets how to be gentle.

These storms don’t knock anymore.
They split the sky
like something breaking loose
from deep beneath remorse, and
the air hangs heavy with things
we won’t name.

I remember
the creek curling like a secret
past trees thick with birdsong,
light skipping across water
like laughter I could see.

I want that again—
the frogs, the ferns,
the quiet language of dew
on the shoulders of dawn.
I want the hills to hum
the way they did before
we asked too much
and gave too little.

I need rest
not just sleep,
but the peace I imagine
exists when the land
is whole,
when wind is just wind
and not warning,
when rain doesn’t raise the creeks in minutes
causing them to engulf everything in their path,
when heat and drought don’t crack
open soil and parch plants.

Let the world soften.
Let the wild things flourish.
Let us find a way
back.

How can we float along in the coal dust
ground into the streams that branch
like feathers across your palms and run
through the caverns set below your eyes
and the valleys of your brow as if it were
a speeding train heading toward the river
barges, behemoths bound for green pastures
and rolling golden fields—their wheat
heads bowed in a majestic breeze, praying
they grow tall and strong, and that the harvest
blade is quick, sharp as a snap of light
caught on a filament—a bright canary yellow
burning away the eons with a song 
as it sheds the hell from which it sprang
like a skin.

I joyfully gulp my mood stabilizers, antipsychotics,
and beta blockers.

But my cholesterol pills,
those are hard to swallow.

The letter “E” lives at the crux of it all,
the confluence of all those words
& phrases that swirl like dervish
between meaning and chaos,
Bert & Ernie.
There are two types of “E”.

Encoded, Enciphered, Escaping
from the prying eyes of meaning.
This “E” is the high-frequency keyed
lock, the secret keeper & rubber duck
of the whispering void.

Enfold, Engulf, Exhale, Explain
the code breakers, betrayers
of the hidden, dragging bits and fragments
of images to the side of meaning where
Bert sorts & paper-clips them by topic.

Once they speak their truth
it will become something else
that grows in every other reader,
eternally.

It is the summerest of nights and I walk onto the dance floor sward; I’ve been waiting for this all day. Kentucky-June humidity traces the line of my legs, the curve of my throat. Touches everything with sweetness. The band is assembled- fox, rabbit, bat and bird. Moonrise keeps the time, deer pour the punch. I smooth out the folds of my dress, ready.

Lightening bugs show up and out and off. I am admired and admire in return, accepting an invitation to join the sway. One little gentleman alights my hand, tasting sun-salted skin. Flashing and flushing and fluttering we bow to each other. I blush peach as his kiss buzzes my lips with light.

I kiss back                                              
and smile
we shimmer

Adventure awaits!
The tree beckons to conquer and wave at the sun.
The neighborhood knights ride in their trusty steely steed
in quest to slay the dandelions.
Onward, into the yellow beastly toad! Its tongue slides onto the ground
to meet the monkeys behind bars, screeching to be saved.

Night falls. We must depart and rest.

A blue rectangle beckons to conquer and befriend the digital moon.
Adventure awaits!

On my hands and knees
I’m scouring in the dirt
searching for the root 
of who we are

Is the answer 
a code to be unlocked
in our blood, our genetic
makeup, a fate waiting to unfold?

Is it a weaving 
of every food we’ve consumed, every pesticide
exposure, every drunk cigarette, every one night stand,
of blind actions and inactions?

I’m stuck — face deep in the soil;
towering above, our family oak 
grows a new branch and 
a robin begins to build her nest

It’s hard to look at your childhood photos

and know that you didn’t have

what you needed and deserved.

I ache for that little girl.

I want to protect her.

Sometimes I wonder if I would sacrifice

what we have now

if I could go back in time

and be an adult in your life

who loved you through all the hard things

you experienced,

stuff no child should have to endure.

I don’t just want to love you

in the present

and the future.

I want to love you in the past as well,

all the versions of you

that could have used some help.

Sometimes I wish

I could rewrite history

even if it means unwriting us.

I wish I could give you

the safety and security and happiness

you always should have had.

Welcome to Earth, or whatever. I never wanted to say that
and I didn’t think I would and I still don’t think I need to. 
You said it to me, I’m sure. You must’ve said to me before
and I just don’t remember. You’ve always said that kind of
stuff to me, that kind of sappy shit. Sweetheart, you said, 
you say, honey, in that kind-of-but-not-quite disappointed 
voice, where you still love me, of course you still love me, but
you’re confused and you think I’m pitiful and maybe also a 
little bit dumb. But you still love me, of course you still love me,
and of course I love you, too. Sweetie, you say, sighing, but 
you don’t ignore me even if you don’t listen to what I’m saying.
I told you I’ve been really into “My Little Town” lately, and when
I mentioned it again I stopped myself and you wanted to know
what I was going to say. Oh, you said, well of course I remember
you saying that, because I listen to everything you say all the time. 
It’s not like I carve every word you say into stone to remember and
keep and hold onto forever, either. You have to tell me things once or
twice or thrice or whatever the -ice word for a fourth time is.
Sometimes a fifth. Not all that often a fifth time, but sometimes. 
I was the second, and you were the fourth, but you were the first
to me, and the only, and always you’ll be my first and best,  
even when you get bitchy and snappy and short and I have to say,
Hey, if you can’t say anything nice at all then don’t talk to me. 
I was the second, your second, but it doesn’t make me feel any less
like the winner I am. I’m so lucky, but so are you. Do you feel 
lucky? I could be a worse daughter and you could be a worse father.
Neither of us want that, though. Of course not. Is this where
I’m supposed to say, oh, but also you could be a better father?
I’ve never once thought that. I’m serious. I would sometimes
want you to love me a little differently, to be a little gentler
or pay a little more attention, but I have never thought that
you didn’t and don’t love me enough. In all the things and all the
times in this world I have not trusted, your love has not
failed me even once. I wonder if you feel the same. Maybe
I’ll ask you tomorrow, and you’ll laugh, and you’ll tell me
how I ask the weirdest, silliest questions. I don’t think you’ll
answer me, and I don’t think I need you to. We both know. 

you think