---

∴

fiddler, friend, my fiddler, free,
play your tune out
and i’ll dance with thee

for no such love in chords did ring
as those with kind, weight-sharing we sing.

 

fiddler, friend, my fiddler, free
there’s a note-by-note bridge
that few can see

it climbs up in half steps
and seems out-of-tune,
and though time drives it forward,
it leads back to our youth

when a hand was a hand
and it came with good will
and a hold made safe
the space our friends might fill

and fill it we did, with innocent love
not scandal nor fear nor shame from above

 

fiddler, friend, my fiddler, free
write me a song in a different key

play me the way
the music should be.
and freely, with gladness,

i’ll dance with thee.

∴

 

 

---

 

∴

o
my soul,
for what do you ache?
for whom do you seek
that the noise is so loud
in silence?

o
my heart
for what do you long?
for whom do you think
could quench
such thirst?

o
my skin
for what do you wait?
for whom do you burn
in smokey,
smoldered
pause?

o
wax

o
wick

o
sculpted
stick

 

ignite,
and light

and fill
every
o

with
restored
and
sating
sight.

∴

 

---

 

---

∴

tip.drip.step.drop.

come rain,
don’t stop,

fill me to the brim
with buoyant, bulging, ancient force,
loosen grafted limb.

 

the root

the root

is stretching,

‘twasn’t meant to be a tree.

forge me,
craft me,
cut me,
carve me,

set me on the sea.

 

o earth,
give way,
the ocean rises.

not
all barks
are grounded prizes.

divining rods
as saplings hide.

 

the moon

the moon,

governs swelling tides inside.

 

salt and spray,

no bath belay,

for i’ve been made of wood.

∴

 

∴

o that i could be forgot

o that i could finally not
capitulate the size
the form
the weight
the steady, abiding, rhythmic gate

of the shape

that life has adorned
and ornamented
buckled
and fastened –

so many jewels
so many barnacles
added to it’s surface –

as if
those things
were the thing

i am

they are not
they are not

o that i could be forgot

·

there is no skin
to hold us in
and light shines through
the pore

there is no break
no drowning wake
that love
cannot restore

fissures, hairlines, steam vents seeping
holding steady, deep strength keeping

let the firmament lean down
and lend us
all that we have sought
and all the hides we’ve heaped upon us

let them be forgot.

∴

 

---

 

---

∴

what magical door
could ope’ before me
and invite me back home
again?

do you remember, mama,
when sweet laughs came
from secret little chambers
therein?

is this such a tunnel-
this passage in middle years-
that narrows so tightly
you cannot turn?

are we robbed of
buried treasures,
shallow dug, in childhood’s yard,
in dented coffee tins
and twining yarn?

 

do you remember?

i cannot.

was there ever such a home?
was it all a fetal dream?

shadow puppets in empty rooms,
filling the imagination
to give them caring feature.

so too, the tunnel bends
and one cannot see ahead

where is the home
in our undetermined future?

·

she took my hand and said,

“there are no walls again.
there is no roof to hold you in.

there never was,

there never was,

home is what happens
and is never built.
for castles can crumble
and fortresses wilt
but the frame of your ethos
is ceaselessly stout.
and the only homeless
you’ll ever feel
is made
when keep your heart out.”

∴

---

∴

take my hand
rise up
my dear

enough
our days
forsook
to fear

there is no stake to burn you
there is no love to spurn you

·

take my back
lean down
i bear

and trust the traces
of the stripes i wear

·

there is no road untraveled
there is no braid unraveled

·

we are not lost indecency
we are not bound in secrecy

roads and braids
olds and maids

we travel them together
we tie them into knots
we adorn the trail with flowers
we recall what time forgot

bumps and wrinkles, own
for future, sagely sown

·

fill your height
stand in the clear

hand in hand
we rise
my dear

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

i do not have words tonight,
my love.

the wind took them from my mouth
when it opened
to utter
all that there was
to say.

could we stand instead
where the moon ascends
in paling pink and see-through blue
and usher out the day?

·

my heart needs rest tonight,
my love.

could you lend a lingering hand;
to brush across the shoulder blade
and wipe the weary away?

could you cage this aging frame
and hold it still again
that the minutes stop their spin?

 

o, look how halos rise in the delaying dim of day.

 

could we rest in halcyon witness
to the sound of no one speaking
and flesh out hollowed corners
of memory and hope?

·

stand with me now,
my love,

and watch as the world fills
with weight and wonder,
and swoon with me,
and sway with me,
in the volume of it all,

and land within reach of me
my love,

tonight.

in rising halos,
in pink and blue,

reach.

∴

 

 

---

 

∴

momma called the doctor,
and the doctor said,

“It’s a wide, wide world
with millions of millions of souls
and not one of them can give you approval, kid.

Anyone who says otherwise
is being generous only
in their affirmation of how closely
you meet their expectations
of a life lived right.

Good and light
and true and love
are planted in you
like marrow, like sinew,
like the rings inside a redwood tree –
like all the little stripes on a bumble bee.

It can be cultivated
or neglected –
it can be celebrated
or shamed –

but either way,

it’s in you,

and really real,

just the same.”

∴

 

 

 

---