What shall we hear tonight?
What shall we see?
There is a silence now, in the place we used to be.

What shall we wonder?
What shall we write?
What vows shall we whisper in the veiled moon light?

What dances shall we dance
in remembrance of the steps,
the steps we placed in rhythm and in the spirit kept?

What light shall we read by?
What song shall we sing?
What hopes shall we hope our tomorrows might bring?

What voice carries ‘cross this void?
What eye can see so far?
What journeyer can sustain his walk when journey’s end is just a star?

O love, I do not know
I do not know
but my feet still waltz
in circles
toward stars,

sometimes.

I take a daily walk as many days as I’m home.

Over gravel,
along solid white lines,
on the edge of clovered ditches,
under lines and lines and lines
of electricity –
wire and wood –
making our world go ‘round?
or making us go ‘round in it?

I see the same signs all the time.

There’s only so far a person can walk

                  away from home

in a straight line.

I came to a sign I’ve repeatedly read.

I know the steps it takes to arrive there.
I know it’s the place I turn

and go back.

But today I kept staring at it
and it stared back at me.

It was not the same sign I see all the time.

It said:

I read:

WILD
BEGINNING

I can be a quiet person. It’s not that I have nothing to say, but words often fail to articulate the truth and specificity of what I think.

What nonsense we occupy our tongues with: ego’s output (a belch), reaction to circumstance (which we’ll regret reacting to later), defense of a self (that either is true enough it should not need defending, or false enough that it should welcome the rebuke), speculation, gossip, ridicule, correction, the assertion of the want we think we want.

This is not the voice inside.

This is not the peace inside.

If it is the mind that’s made to wander,
and the spirit that’s made to soar,
I’m certain it is the thoughtless tongue
that binds them both to earth’s cold floor.

‘If a man cannot understand my silence,
he will never understand my words.’
~ saying of the Desert Fathers

I am not the mistakes I’ve made.
nor the plans I’ve laid.
I am not the victories past
nor good jobs done fast.
I am not the butter-brushed bread,
nor the challenge ahead,
I am not the pots I’ve thrown,
not the garments I’ve sewn.

I am not the achievements

-weights lifted over my head-

I am not the bereavements

-weights in the heart that embed-

I am not the owned nor the owner
of sweet lives surrounding.
Let us each make our sound,
the chorus abounding.

I am not the roles I play when the play unrolls.

I am not the judge nor weigher of souls.

and neither, my love, are you.

these things

– all this matter –

are simply evidence of a life
being lived

I am memory and hope

I am a never-ending rope

tying water to ashes and back again

and so, my love, are you.

in the same way my grandmother, now 20 years gone –
still asks me,
today
– just as clear as day –

“do you love him?”

and, “you’ll be okay.”

and paints toenails with me
on canopied California car aprons,

and washes the beach glass treasures and salty sand dollars

and watches geckos scurry on the rock road divides

the orange tree blooms

her laugh still fills the room.

these are the things we are

and always will be

no matter where

no matter with who

no matter without

no matter the matter that falls

an inventory of a day that passed;

some whole days are simply needful endurances

dental appointments and grocery runs
banks and haircuts and overdue books
heaps of dishes
and too many crumbs on the floor

the mail piled up at the door

the bedtimes that bring no rest
and the list
of tomorrow’s chores that loom like thunder in the not-so-far-off distance.
should I even go to sleep?

the storm is coming…

you’d think I’d be too busy to notice
but I notice.
don’t you?

the ache?
the wonder?
when will it break?

music conforms to the mundane
and song slips into silence

and poetry leaves me

quietly

(but there is something in me still).

thank you for the storms that cut out all the power
that make me lose track of the duty driving hour

and go slow

thank you for the upset to my days
that make me change my rhythm’d ways

and skip

a

beat.

thank you for the crises and the headaches
the debacles and the back breaks

that make me rest in you

again.

just a breath where glances hung
in my mind’s eye,
in my tightened lung,

an inhale at the collar bone
to catch again the scent of home

and my lips curl at the corner
and my fingertips grow warmer

in the storm
in the upset
and a little after too

in the wake of it all
i still recall

being caught by the cheek,
looked in the eye,
and loved.