Embryonic Deliverance

I have seen your face
blended into mine
reflected in the eyes
of every woman
in love.

Every woman who desires
nothing more than
timeless and continuous
connections,
who imagines
thick-lashed Eskimo kisses
from behind closed lids,
nuanced touch
to keep her from
the anguished tumbling
into the alice-hole
of not knowing.

You and I were never allowed such
somatic bliss,
instead were charged with
filling psychic apertures
and neuroblastomic
perforations.

Perhaps, as I, you questioned their origins --
these openings without completion --
wondered, as I, about your role;
perhaps you also tried
to embody your exceptional mind,

use definitions and classifications, to staunch these fragmentations of your wounded children.

I have seen from behind half-opened eyes
how at night
you held these fragile ones close,
brushed their hair from their foreheads,
how you sang to them,
how you gave everything you could
without falling away yourself,
desperate to make them once again whole.

Now, in these sunrise days of post-passing,
I imagine your release
into the fullness of a more welcoming
mysterious and unknowable world.
I carry your unburdened spirit
hidden in my pocket,
wrapped within this stolen gem
         (a small slice of Pribiloff peridot)
tucked away where I
can touch it
always.



 

Call and Response

In my dream you were lost
strange songbirds serenading
your stumbling attempts
to make your way through
a dense cobweb maze.

Your name burned in my chest,
erupted from my throat
like the sharp explosive chink 
of the white-throated sparrow.


I woke into the echo
of that loud, foreign cry
trembling with the unfinished scene
breezes riffling the curtains,
shadows spinning
across the white bedroom wall.

Mothers

We hold, caress
nurture, launch,
embrace, let go
open to with love.

Whether having
borne human children
of our own, sustained
those of others
or conceived, carried
and released with
rhythmic intensity
progeny not fully
of our own making,
through the ages
we are known as
those who give birth
to the unexpected
and not fully knowable.

Those two trees

You planted them
years ago
yards apart
along the trail
that runs next to our home,
hoping to make us
more secure, 
to fill in the holes
where -- without the
lush foliage -- 
scanning eyes of others
could undress us.

How they faltered
those first few seasons,
almost didn't make it
through the transplanting,
barely budding out
leaves consumed by hungry parasites;
the way we pruned and weeded
watered and cajoled them
into fruition
where they now shimmer
with full life:
enough protection to
keep unwanted gazes from us
yet permeable enough for
the grace of sunlight.

Those two trees
so like the two of us
stop and starting over the years
needing pruning and space,
nourishment and care,
battling for deeper sustenance,
waiting for transplanted roots
to spread more fully
into sacred ground.

For the love of Death

As with all things

meaningful,

death will arrive

to claim us;

is already here

as the potential
energy within which
we exist.

Waiting for us

at every inhale

and exhale;

in every desert,

mountaintop,

flowing stream,

and lush

wild-flowered valley,

She is with us

breathing her open

and closing heart

into our pores. 

Try though we might,

we cannot push

Her from our house,

cannot force Her 

from our lungs.

We are useless against Her.

For death visits

when She will.

Beckoned 

or resisted

by the hinges on

our hallowed doors

she makes entrance,

entwines her arms around us

carries us on her back

into the unknown

without burden or regret.

Resurrection

This morning
across the river
descending over the mountains
the orange laugh lines
streaming from the clouded sun
reminded my empty heart
of possibility

Praying

We don't have to
get down on our knees
in subjugation
to The Father
need not plant
carrot seeds
exactly
three fourths of an inch
apart
and then wait

For enough rain
enough sunshine,
enough absence of
evil predators,
believing the answer
lies in the emergence
          or not
of feathered green crowns
whose nutrients lie
buried beneath the surface.

It is enough to
     leave the garden
fallow and free 
to stand by the
forest's full river
drop small smooth stones
   with abandon and gratitude
into the flowing water.

Enough to watch ripples
merge with rapids  
tumbling beyond our
truncated vision
     leaping and dancing
beneath overcast skies
toward the endless
and faraway seas.