---

 

∴

 

i’ve never been afraid of storms.

not in rain
nor in snow.

 

it’s the sticky bits that get me.

 

it’s the too-still thick
that disquiets
my soul.

 

when the cicada
warns, in the distance –

but not so far off –

like a tv
that won’t turn off –

‘i’ll sedate you with the silence
if you don’t move,’

it drones,

 

so i stare at the corn’s hair,
willing it to the breeze,

‘bend,’ i pray,
‘budge.’

it must.

 

but the windmill
groans not.

the heat has stilled it
and in stillness

it rusts.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

the question then, at last returns:

to what is it
we hope for?

 

to what shore
do we conceive
and pull our sacred ropes toward?

 

this soul
that freely sets its sail
upon the stirring green,

can buffeted spin
in current-less pools,
back and forth,
unto itself,
course-lessly careened.

 

o compass,
tightly held,
i cannot lean against you.

for how does one
who direction hails
give use to one
whose direction fails?

 

o visionary to the blind,
whose future lies in hidden minds
like all that wealth below –
in weightless, waving emerald strands
and iridescent gill –

look upon this sun-swabbed deck
and a sole performer
on the stage,
silent,
song-less,
skinless,
still,

 

and wobble therein patiently
as i factor what the wage is
to considering less latently,
needles in glass cages.

 

o confirmer of resolutions,
give me courage and sea’s ablutions;

for what captain am i
to stay transfixed
and tread not toward
the aim of ships?

∴

 

---

 

---

∴

i cannot remember when,
or from whom,
but i know
i was told in a deep
and quiet place
to love God,
first.

i understood
that if a person
could center themselves
in that source,
like a standing stamen
in the spray of color,
this cycle of life and death and regeneration
would ceaseless stand,

and no sorrow would be without solace,
and no joy would be without peace.

you cannot take
illicit honey
from your own hive.

it is there,
as your body is
for moving,

it is there,
a work of your labors,
a sweet for your toils,
and always still,
a gift.

 

but we
the people
could not agree
on what to call him
or her,
as if God needed that designation.

and we could not agree
on God’s rules,
so we minced his letters
and bent her meaning to ours
until at last,

it was easier to say:

 

you must love
yourself,
first.

 

am I God,
to be loved like that?!

how achingly often we’re told,
with conviction,
we are.

 

it is like calling
the bee’s wing
the nectar itself,
and stripping the soul
of its alchemy.

 

then do we anger,
or rage,
or cave in to nothing,
when things don’t go our way;

for what harsher proof,
that our wills are
twisted to our favor,
than that from the wants
which will not cater?

 

i am beginning to become less
confused –

still,
in all this confounding noise –

who i shall love,
first.

∴

---

---

∴

to be lost
and lead,
through the piercing brambles
of dark jungled life,

this is the bravest we can be.

 

to be hurt
and hold
when our grip keeps slipping
and even the odds seem against us.

 

to be blinded
by the flurry of choice
the world throws before us.

it is a blizzard,
and cold,
and deadly.

 

i choose.

i choose.

i choose to find us in all of this.

 

that the lost might be found,
that the hurt might be healed,
that the confusion might turn to peace –

this is the bravest i can be –

and we would find ourselves
in an aftermath
and glad.

∴

 

---

 

 

“It is not your love
that sustains the marriage,
but from now on,
the marriage that sustains your love.”

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Letters and Papers from Prison, 27-28

 

 

---

∴

such a vessel we could be
would you but come
and fill it with me.

you can taint the milk with bitters,
and sour the wine with spite,
you can waste the nourished tear,
and punish the vineyard with blight,

 

and the chalice
withstands such pains.

but such tests
do not prove it’s metal.

 

would you not rather a happier ale?
if from the well we both draw?

let us tincture it with kindness
and infuse our libations with awe.

 

please
my love,
i thirst,

and i think,
my love,
you must, too.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

stability
can be a crooked thing.

maybe we need
a lack of balance
before we
seek
the scales.

in comfortable corners
we erect safe borders.

we weight to one side
and eventually blind
the rare, rich places;
we bind the sacred spaces.

 

how could rigidity
win out over love?

how has that become
the preferred?

 

does she please you?
the structure of certainty?

 

for me,
she does not move
like a lover.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

it is a restless sleep
with elevated legs
and pills
that alter one’s dreaming.

 

i don’t like to sleep on my back.

i don’t like the closeness of ceilings.

 

so i went to a doctor in the night,
asked if she’d look at me –
told her my heart won’t keep from hurting
and my mind won’t keep from stirring.

 

she bandaged my bones
so they won’t move but straight
and said to keep everything
up.

point the pain to the heavens,
keep it higher than your heart,
and you’ll get better
again.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

the flightless go to the ground,
no matter the depth of down
‘neath the wing;

no matter the preening
that occupied spring.

 

but faith,

the rain is falling gently
that i might drink.

the clouds are coming,
deep grey in cover,
that i might sleep
and rest.

see,
even these somber things
are lovers, too.

there is no sun in my eye to blind me,
nor fever in my flight to keep me
from chasing the grave back to it’s gate,
in proofs and threats
and futile bets
to persuade death
he can’t come for me,
can he?

 

the benefit of injury
is to be rendered
a sedentary witness

to what has always been

yet in my

”wellness,”

rarely seen.

 

now,

the pain i wish i could ignore
reveals the helpers i too often do.

 

i am in and out of sleep
like a whale
moving in deep waters
and unaware of breath,

 

from dozing lids,
i hear laughter from the kitchen,
young voices and old.
i hear the same old stories told
but to new ears.

mine are not new,

but they still hear.
and hear better, i think,
with age.

those stories
have new meaning.

 

aren’t we all travelers
from Jerusalem to Jericho
and beaten upon the way?

i am so grateful for the gowns
that lay soft upon the skin.
and the doler of the coin.
and the keeper of the inn.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

 

i saw the passage of time
today

i actually witnessed it,
moving.

 

can a star see the milky way?
can a drop see the storm?

 

how can i
see my place
in this
all

but by the exactness
and consistency
of time?

 

we are compeers to the rock
that spins,
yet we do not feel it,

‘cause Facebook needs checking
and o-my-god-did-you-hear-what-she-just-did,

 

but peace.

 

and sit.

 

and time will reveal herself to you
like a fawn in the forest,
timid and moving
and always on watch;

a purposeful creature
that cares only
for delicate steps
and a cloak of foliage
so that you do not see her.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

 

marriages
come to crossroads
like monarch’s migrate.

they may not want to,
even,
but it’s the way of things.

 

and they’re not tidy crossroads,
either.

some are certainly more treacherous than others
and some hold more than two travelers
on the path.

 

the thing about coming
on crossroads
that is rarely discussed,
is that to get there,
you must have already traveled
a great distance.

 

meaning,

you could be exhausted,
and unable to rest.

you could be thirsty,
with no drink to be found.

you could be hurt,
and no bandage is bound.

but here you find yourself anyway,
ailed and thin,
and obliged
to make lasting decisions.

 

to the East –
a numbness in nothingness,
a partnership without words,
stepping in silence
as every rock on the sole
slices and reminds you of quiet pain.

 

to the West –
your own path.
a single, narrow lane,
and deadly free.

 

to the North –

to the North…

i cannot see it clearly.

but the wind is crisp and cool
and there is a star shining high in the heavens.

 

∴