as i swim through center
muddy toes, bony fingers, brittle bones
i will not drown and the sky keeps changing
clouds of starlings dance in pulse and parody
and i smile at the futility of standing
.
float and eddy
swirl and bend
let go let go let go
.
it’s all happening
.
.
.
.
even the stars
were off kilter
last night
orion laying low
on the horizon
the southern cross
trying to kiss
cassiopeia
.
my feet were on the ground
but my heart kept floating
.
ursa major
poised to capture
every tear
.
.
.
.
i search for beauty in the bones of every skeleton
architecture is the art of building frames
i thought i was a writer once, then i became human
the sky is a cage built for starlings
i am the ghost of my grandmother, re-contrived
.
all the leaves have fallen now and the wind has moved on
we stand naked in the weak winter sunshine,
refusing the invitation to bend
.
.
.
.
I stand on these acres of history, long fallow fields of tears forgotten and brittle reminders of years blown by, remembering how once we grew green shoots of conflict and the next spring plowed them under, making food for the forest of memory we drive through with broken blade, always turning earth, always searching for what we’ve buried. But the worm always works alone, adding air and rich casting to this hard-baked, clay-caked soil, choked with rock and seed and ancient bone. This is my home, this place where dinner is served at noon and the sky is always hungry. I pose on one foot in the shade of a tree that neither of us ever mentions, a scarecrow of deliverance for the red cardinal who lands on my shoulder and feeds me the coldest hour. Our nests have become identical, and you laugh as you toss broken frame and bent missive in a fit of tidy redemption. There are no berries here, no reward for existing. There is only wind and the silence of everything, whistle warning us through each night.
my skin crackles with
growth and tick tocking question
unanswered roots entwine
.
.
.
.
i just want to say that i see you
pouring love onto
the sidewalk
doing your best
every day
to fill in all the cracks
i see you standing there
alone and afraid
and giving
and giving
and giving
burning bright
not just at both ends
but in a circle you’ve drawn
all around us
keeping the darkness at bay
you’ve outrun the odds
and the lot of us
beaten strife down
with the soles of two feet
always moving
taking you places
you’d rather run through
valleys of burden
and pits
of responsibility
and i want
to carry your heart
to the top of the mountain
feed you sun and
silent breezes
wash your blisters and build you
a sky-high fire
to throw enough light
for you to find
your own reflection
i just want to say that i see you
.
for nana
.
.
.
yesterday i read old poems
and laughed at myself
all that anger
leather
tethered
to skinny arms and broken heart
made up armor for mixed up girl
tough skin to hide behind
all painted red and pretty
somewhere along the line
i let it go
all of it
released it into air
that cradled and promised
watched it float away
waved goodbye
shed no tear
now, now
i sit in this same old kitchen
hard chair
curved back
worn slightly by years
of useful
use
i know the scars and scratches
that run beneath my fingers
each one could have been a sentence
or at least
a perfect word
etched along the surface
of sanity
marking time
yesterday i read old poems
and laughed at myself
.
.
and the twisting vine
of time
offering no slack
no reprieve
no consolation
but these brief fleeting bits
of astonishing
beauty
.
.
.
A week of up before dawn,
asleep far too late,
and the merry-go-round
keeps on spinning.
.
A moment this morning
of quiet beauty,
an intake of breath,
both of us,
solitary,
reaching for
sky.
.
.
.
Prepared to run, poised for flight, yet standing my ground. The sky grows dark with words that flit by with the silence of bats, words used, expelled, offered in place of all I cannot give. The earth rumbles with those I’ve yet to speak.
I want to remember tomorrow before it happens and dream of yesterday’s chance. I want to be the bird that lands last. I want to sing with the abandon of loss.
Instead, I reach my arms high and offer sanctuary, spreading branches like wings and roots like scrabbling claw feet. I am sharp-edged and hollow-toed. I am filled with echoes.
I dreamt of you again last night, fooled myself into seeing you again, but even my dream felt the need to remind me that you are gone. And even in sleep I wondered if this is the way it will always be, and I spent the rest of the night wandering lost from room to room in a house built from memories of places I’ve never been.
We were there, together, just for a moment. Before I remembered.
Mostly, I’ve come to understand that the questions will never be answered. Mostly, I’ve come to embrace the lack of knowing. I am content to wander through this field of grass and bird and flailing branch. The wind is a challenge to stay upright, my map has sailed high into clouds of disdain.
.
And we laughed again
at free falling bottles and
broken stars. We laughed.
.
.
.
.
