---

∴

it amazes me, sometimes –

when i inhale
broadly enough
to hurt
the low, insides of my ribs,

like one who has clearly had too much
thanksgiving dinner,
and still went back for pie,

and the painful intake
of air
and rush of oxygen to the brain
shocks me
into observing
the real life
that in fact,
always
exists around me –

when i realize
how magnificent a thing
like “family” is.

 

how do so many
different
and opposing
faces
and forces
stem from similar sources?

like magnets,
repelling and bonding
again and again,
riding the same
wild and tame beast
that is our family name.

 

that journey –
precariously traveled
on the backs of our elders,
leaving soul-crumb trails for the young –
though riddled with clumsy footing
and proud swagger,
is my greatest comfort now,

and i am glad
to share the joyful and the sad
with you,
who love me still.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

maybe one day,
through some magical time machine
or quantum object projectifier
we’ll be able to see the outcomes
of a myriad of life choices
and be able to choose
the one that suits us best.

maybe we have a strong enough character
to be trusted with such a task.

 

maybe.

 

but i’m pretty sure
that if given all my options again,
and the options i’ll be given to come,
i may stay the course.

 

it’s quite hard,
this road,
and not very glamorous,
in it’s daily grind,
replete with obligatory
kid-fights
and time shortages;

and the man with enough money
is a saint;
who has none,
and everything else.

 

but we are not saints.

nor sometimes even tolerable humans,
but occasionally we rise to the heroic
when we face the morning
with cheer.

and if kindness arrives in our discourse,
with perhaps a touch
for no reason at all
other than to say,

‘you’re worth touching’

or

‘i am – still – on your side,’

the day becomes a decade
of a choice
we continue to make.

for good.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

i have come to know

that it is not just

the passage of time

that heals all wounds.

 

for indeed,

even broken bones

can stay

ensconced in the flesh,

fragmented and useless,

though seemingly smooth.

 

so it is

with the un-splintered

spiritual fractures

we endure,

 

but treat only

with silence,

and poultice

with neglect.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

you hurt me, and i hurt you.

we both betrayed
the love we knew.

 

but all this pain
is evidence
of fighting for
love’s recompense.

 

we lost.
we strove
to start anew.

but i want my “new”
to be with you.

 

you,
who slowly
broke my spirit,
who i quickly taught
to loathe and fear it.

 

you,
whose life and home i shared.

you and i,
divinely paired,

and aching
over time;

these old laugh lines,
more refined.

 

you,
from whom i’ve hid my face;

you,
who standing,
spurned embrace,

 

i choose
and choose
and choose again,

you,
my start,
my road,
and end.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

it has finally occurred to me –

after far too much time

spent

doing

far too many things

that neither brought joy,

nor rest,

nor satisfaction –

that the only thing

i have ever really aspired

to have,

or

be,

or

build
and not break,

or be broken by,

is

 

love.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

loneliness can incite religiousness
in a person for all the wrong reasons.

so too,
fear is a zealot
by trade.

 

but this god was not
the God i knew –
he’s the god i got
when i blindly grew

into my age
and “good” identity.
i left the sage
when safety sent for me.

when god became a man
to whom i could obey,
i left that Blessed Woman
in all her starry spray

i traded her for caution
and comfort under roofs
and inoculate protection
became my divine proofs –

 

hell –
i must be doing
something right…

…right?

 

but i am seeing clearer now.

 

return to me
my holy words,
unholy as i’ve been,

and render me
with new sight made
as only heaven sends.

 

∴

 

---

∴

 

what is lost in hope

gains in apathy.

 

’tis a slippery slope;

to give up, affably.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

there are bubbles in view.

 

i’m reclining in dark, indoor rooms
and my children are out –
i can hear them through the screens –
blowing the clear spheres
up into view,
above the gridded panes of my study,
so they should dance in the somber pre-storm breeze.

 

Grandma naps in the nooks of the home.

 

dinner will need to be made soon.

 

i remember this more than anything, as a child:
just peeling out of midday slumbers
and hearing the tin snap and slide of knives
being stacked upon themselves,
and a smell of onions sizzling –

as that’s the base of,
well,
everything –

it makes you cry
to cut,
but everything tastes better for it.

 

this, i think,
is freedom,
as we humans have fought for it
for eons:

to cook onions
and watch children make bubbles,
and listen from solemn, secret places
while the corn grows tall into summer.

it is not an ambitious goal,
when you think of it,
but nearly incapable of keeping
through the years.

it’s as if freedom calls upon strife,
not knowing its simple miracle
and forgetting
that it was earned
in harder times
and by a hurting-er people.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

i have no poetry for this gladness.

only the telling of the day
as it is:

i am half-lucid from pain
and the meds that take it away.
i am elevated from the waist up
and buried above the neck in sleep.

i rise for 30 minutes at a time
to water flowers
and make sure the growing things
are fed,

then fall back into hazes on the couch,
like lovers’ embraces that stop time.

i imagine being a pearl,
held
by one who is glad
to hold me –
who was made to hold me –
and in whose arms
i truly rest.

i can overhear
the best sounds;
the ones that are more healing to the soul
than any pill could be:

the kitchen table,
moving legs,
clacking wood to wood,
and the clink of coffee cups,
that rest and launch from the counter,
until cooled or empty.

i hear my parents –
the ones who i came through –
talking about the times
that Were

interrupted by my children –
the ones who came through me –
who can’t stop erupting
over the times that Will be.

possibility,
as seen by the young,
is loud…

 

it wakes me up,

sometimes.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

the well is sand and echo.

i pull and heave on these chains
that were said to be endless quenching;

but only the creek
of pulleys
and the strain of wood
that holds them,

comes up

and up

and up.

 

i beat on the chest of stone statues
to get water from that rock;

but they are dry

dry

dry.

 

i stare at brown leaves
that i picked up
when falling in love.

and i pinned them to my wall
like fallen monarchs,

migrating home
and lost along the way.

 

give me a smile,
give me a saint,
give me a laugh
i can’t keep in constraints.

 

give me a deluge,
give me a drop,
give me a sign
that this drought will stop.

 

but nothing is promised, really.

and nothing is ever deserved.

 

i know this now.

 

it’s time i cut my own divining rod,
and build a sturdier bucket.

∴

 

 

---