“And…to pass and continue…I depart as air, I shake
my white locks at the runaway sun.”

Winding paths through roses
    fireflies on the greens
        walking meditation

*Betcha thought I wouldn’t come back! I almost didn’t. I wrote a poem every day at Sundress–and read 6 fabulous poetry collections. The experience definitely shifted my focus this month. I’ll at least try to read some of your poems!

Walking through this crowded fair 
Seeing people I went to elementary school with,
Wondering how we all got here,
Watching a kid throw a ball and win a fish,
And I think of little me who begged to play that 20 times,
Waiting to leave until after dark
So I can stare at all of the pretty lights
The sound of rides, laughter, and screams

I write about this year after year,
And no matter how old I get
I’ll look forward to the fair every year–
Greasy, deep fried food
Loud cars on the dirt track
Getting dizzy on the rides
Spending way too much money on games
The summer heat making everyone sticky
It’s a little escape
Back into my childhood,
My parents still together, walking but
Barely able to keep up with me
Me begging to come back tomorrow
A little piece of me I’ll never let go of

Pass around the giant Frisbee.

The flames from the metal fire pit
mesmerizing your eyes,
dragging you in like the witches spell.
The soot coming off as pieces
of ashen arithmetic homework.
The twenty o nine camera catching
this all like a fairy tail.

Pass it around. It’s your turn next—
What dirty hatred fills your heart tonight?
What things does your mind whisper
to the stars? What are you about to reveal?
Are your secrets kept in a cage?
Will your mind unlock it? Will the words
flow out like hot and heavy magma
into the ears of the friends who listen?

You twist your tongue, half baked lies
truth sprinkled like pollen.
Your hidden sneeze, a mind
searching for the black hooded
figures of revulsion.
Only to stumble upon those
fragments of conspired hell,
mutters of a death wish
you do not want to reveal.

Quickly pass the Frisbee,
let the tension seep away
like the smoke winding off the bonefire.
Then lock your heart again.
The hatred of a thousand pin needles
attacking your heart. With every cell
in your body fighting the truth.

     The same poeple who built
     your skin and mind, body and bones
     are the same ones who keep
     your rose blood boiling.

The frisbee is yours again
What will you reveal
The night darkens
Your lips part
and everything you are built of
everything that lies within you
hides

Spending time with you 
Any one of my daughters 
Is all my heart needs.

6/23/24
KE

A man told me today that his theory was
you can’t teach creativity
I said I disagreed
Then further explained that creativity is something
conditioned out of you
I have taught children art
I really enjoyed it
I teach them to trust their own heart…
That sounds like Philosophy! He announced.
Yes, it most definitely is! I replied
He said, how do you feel now that
a.i. can just do all this, instead of you?
I replied, a.i. can’t do this!

I had a different conversation this evening
As the soupy air finally began to cool
about what it is that makes art beautiful
and if the artist puts some quantifiable
Juju
I said yeah,
the juju is Love
you can absolutely feel the
the degree of tender
embedded emotion
the artist has.

The work, whether food or
comedy or opera
is charged with intention, 
with attention,
with appreciation 
with Love
Through that work, you can be the receiver
of a drenching in the artist’s intention.

Granted, your abilty to receive that experience
can be opened,
In the same way that creativity can,
very slowly wider
And in the same way your ability to hear it see it taste it touch it can open
it can be learned
like it was once forgotten

You just listen to your heart
Your heart knows
listen, listen for the moment
when you feel something 
It will (if it’s good work)
pop you open
it will carry you away
it may reach into your insides
and massage them uncomfortably 

Tonight beneath a full strawberry moon
Running the interstate ragged
a hot June edge of summer night
while we listen to The Wallflowers 
I can feel that longing coming for us 
Where we need to be on the open road 
Windows down, salt on our skin 
In another town, worlds away 
From jaw clenched schedules 
where time has no bounds and 
every song on the radio
another memory made 
a frequency only we know 

Behind the house was a cemetery,
tucked away in a lump of pines—
five, six graves, unmarked,
no names, no dates, each
headstone no bigger than a book page
slanted into the hill. I sat with them
every afternoon I could steal from summer,
picking amber needles from their beds,
and closed my eyes to write their stories,
giving life to the dead, until a voice
beckoned—my mother’s call beating
its wings against the porch light, frenzied
cicadas drowning in the evening heat,
watching as I crunched homeward, 
their ghosts clinging to the trees. 

You’re not crazy. The best
parting words I’ve heard
in a good long while so
I repeat this to myself at
the front edge of rain as
I’m running from weather
I can’t stay to make this
my whole afternoon.  

It’s not really about
the rain or the running
or the afternoon. It’s about
love and how hard we fall.
It’s about fear and how it
keeps us. From rain and
running and afternoons.  

And somehow, despite
these months of nowhere,
I’m still falling at the front
edge of storms that I’ll
never stop chasing because
I love wildly and hilltowns
and over the mountain pass
and downpour and cloud
break and almost hail. I’m
so certain I’m not crazy but
I damn well love like I am.

our garage door 
is raised open 
because a house wren
that we identified 
in our orange
Birds of Kentucky
has built her nest
at the motor
so we watch her
every evening 
take a few hops 
on the pavement 
before taking flight 
for a drink of water 
we don’t know how
she made it in

and I hope 
that these 
are the things 
I’m allowed 
to think on 
with you 
poised in our chairs 
for the remainder 
of this stay