there was a lady
i saw once,
a long time ago.

she stood on black boxes
and wore white clothes
and a white veil
and white stockings
and white shoes
and painted her face
in clay –

white, white, clay.

she would stand there, frozen
in time
in the square
and people would pass

and only a few would care.

but when they did,
care, that is,
and when they stopped moving –
pursued along the rail of more pursuit –
and looked in her eyes,
she would meet their gaze

and move.

from beneath her white robes
she’d produce a flower

bright

color

on

blank

white.

she’d bend to meet them:
their eyes
and their hands
and in them
she’d place
the stem
and look
without blinking
and she would see them.

i wondered, after a few of them walked away with smiles
and a few with tears
how often they’d been looked at
and seen

that day

or week

or year

or ever

and it made me want to start growing flowers.

When breath is weight
and music swells in your chest
with no where to go

When words are noise
and distract from everything
you’re really trying to say

When you hold against want
and lean into will
and press into promise
like it will take the ache away

the act of peeling an orange
can save you

it occupies the hand,
the smell bursts in pressured jets,
and stings invisible cuts you never knew you had –
bad enough to make you wince
but not so bad you’d stop.
it demands discernment –
how much should you peel away?
what is your balance of bitter and sweet?

it stills time too,
because no one interrupts a person
who’s peeling an orange.

(it’s bad taste.
even kids know that.)

And when the rind is gone
in clumps and chunks
you keep on peeling,

one slice

off another

the flesh
is sweet
and drips
in thin, translucent legs
down the chin
and fingers.

and in the time it takes
to eat an orange
you’ll be able to breath again
with less weight –

– less the weight of an orange.

Return. Re. Turn.

I could romanticize coming home, like the time away was some sort of breath of needed oxygen and now refreshed, I return with clear eyes and hearty stride into the “normal” that life will bring. But the truth is, I can’t stop crying. I don’t know why. It’s a silly, small, unreasonable cry that is quiet enough to hide with sunglasses and a strategic turn toward the driver’s side window when the drop is made. And if you asked me, “what’s wrong?” I honestly couldn’t say. The tears just keep coming, like I’ve sprung a silent leak. Damn that I’m not chopping onions…

It’s just that with every mile I drive toward home, I feel myself left farther behind.

I’m still out there, bobbing in the lake, studying the mallard bride who ceaselessly prunes herself atop rock islands. Singular little planets, both of us, floating in walleye chop and lily pads.

Why does she concern herself, so?

I want to post the “good thing”
– the lesson that I learned –
the main theme of the weekend,
poetically summarized like warm milk in my belly,
as I drift off into blogland.

instead, a strange unrest has settled in my gut.

I don’t know if it’s a “good” thing,
but if there is one prevailing thought on my mind, it is this:

the constructs we live within describe us to ourselves,
and this brings comfort,
identity,
a certain predictability,
until,
like too-tight shoes,
they split at the soul,
and you’re bare-footed again,
in the woods,
cautious of the paths you tread.

Sometimes courage is simply continuing along ALL the miles to your destination.

There is more freedom
in a road trip
than in any sort of vacation.

I did not need a plane ticket.
I did not need a plan.
I got in the car with my girl and off we went.

I drove until the sky looked like that:

and stopped, so she could look like this:

and think of all the things that water makes you think
as it laps and laughs
against dock moorings
and tin boat bottoms.

My fingers find such joy
in sun-soaked, still-warm, water.
They wash marshmallow goo off their tips
and frisk in the playful lake tide
that can never really decide which way to go,
and titters like a toddler
in a toy store,
bobbing on the rocks.

They ignite me, those fingers –
still wet and dancing –
despite their work,
despite their wear,
despite their age,

and their fire caused by water
flares up my arms and to the heart
and remembers me to youth
and the space no worry can fill.

there are places where petals lie
and sweetness lies beneath.

the wind may blow
and rains may carry
the mark and scar away

and grass may grow
to bind the earth
but hearts part pocked and frayed

i hold
i see
sweet life
too short
still made
still born
eternal

just like ghosts,
feelings don’t stay buried,
despite the mounds of world we heap upon them.

ground opens wide, receives, and closes,
and in the place i lay you down,
i trim with tears and roses.

you say you never knew her
that there was nothing special to her
but a storm was raging through her

and she just kept the peace.

biscuits in the morning
gravy in the day
gather wheat by evening
and obediently lay

seven kids by thirty-one
mama’s work ain’t never done
i hear the songs she left unsung

by keeping all that peace.

two went off to college
one got killed in Nam
three made sense of madness
one refused to call her, “Mom”

she wouldn’t let her words pass through
her vote was his, plus hers, makes two
and she did all that she could do

to keep on keeping peace.

bend the knee and plant the farm
knit and tie the worsted yarn
protect the children from all that harm

out there, where there’s no peace.

but children fly like cottonwood seed
away from lofty cradles
and rarely know who filled their need
just wrapped her up in labels

those songs she sang?
though not out loud?
do you know what they said?

they said,

“peace, to you
my different ones,
my lost and my neglected
peace in lives i hope for you
though life leaves you rejected
peace in endless, urgent craving
peace in thought and tongue
peace in hand and candlelight
peace, though you’re undone.”

but she rested,

unheard.

unsung.