days when i do nothing
but listen
moving my body in the rhythm
of nurture
i care for you and
together we grow
remembering the mirror
i’ve forgotten
wisdom matters less
than sun on skin
i break a bloom off
with one brown shoulder
a mistake to remind me
of gentle
and whisper my apology
to wind
.
.
.
i stood in the sun for three days once
singular and proud of my peacock pretty ordinance
and refused to marry the sky
growth was always my pattern
and bending
my habit
coy and shy
cut and displayed
thirsty and forgotten
i was always
about color
and you
stole my green
stripped my purple
and stomped my chartreuse back
into black and white
grey-lipped
soil
until i became
an abstract painting of perhaps
washed proud and stood clean
in the summer
of the river
of change
.
.
.
.
.
.
because shedding your skin
is just as necessary
as gathering hips
for the tea
you sip
from the cup
of yesterday’s
parody
.
.
.
and let the rain wash down
to the valley of drown
in an avalanche of
forgiveness
.
.
.
.
of course she had no regrets
she’d wear that red dress again
if she could find it
rubbing ankles in the dark
and smiling smugly at the waiter
with his tray of sweets for the sweet
thinking he knew
the definition
of divine
and the whispers she couldn’t quite catch
shuffling by from two tables over
grief and apology
perhaps
or something smaller
.
.
.
.
somewhere in a garden in spain
your long lost great-great-grandmother
buried a key on a gold-plated chain
no one knows this but you
and the ghost she still sends
to tease your serpentine dreams
with the scent of yesterday’s roses
one day
as you walk to your car in a hurry somewhere
you’ll notice the nod of a purple veiled flower
and catch a barely-there whisper
spoken
in a language you can’t understand
and that’s when you’ll begin
to listen
.
.
.
.
i remember the day you died or
to be more accurate, chose to leave,
or to be more accurate still, i remember
when i found out what you’d done
i wasn’t there
but i’ve never stopped seeing
the violence of your last moment
and the lifetime left
wondering
what more we could have done
the first time i understood
that life is precious
was also the first time
i understood
the hole that grows with living
one shovelful each day
until we’ve formed the mountain
we must climb
to jump back in
and i wonder if
on the way down
we think of
flying
.
.
.
.
i want to tell you a secret:
silence is a charlatan and answers are for birds
the sparrow scrapes through a litter of leaves
looking for worm or the snail that will save him
today
but he keeps one eye on the sky for a martyrdom of hawk
and his beak has begun to grow crooked
he knows the dangers of complacency
life or death, work or hunger
boredom is never an option
fight or flight remains a literal refrain
the sky is a cage of infinity
posing as the song of room to soar
the sparrow knows the gravity
of thinking
he’s a miracle in the melt of mirage
he sings so the morning won’t be lonely
he lives to defy his mother’s odds
he sings
he sings
he sings
to tell the nature
of his story
.
.
.
.
.
i am bent but never broken
hollow but never empty
spent but never lacking
.
my song is a march
and my step is a rhyme
my heart is a lark
and my hands are sublime
.
pain curls inside my pocket
a worry stone of wait
busy fingers
burnished hope
polished imperfection
.
i am magic without chant
gypsy without wandering
woman without definition
.
i am bent but never broken
hollow but never empty
spent but never lacking
.
.
.
.
.
