Links to articles that inspired this piece listed at the end.
Time reaches across
cold decades of Decembers,
whispering of you
in me,
of me
in her,
of me
entwined
between
you and her
within those eight days
of December
containing
ghosts of ghost
cells
there dwells
somewhere
inside Time’s touch,
understanding.
The swallowtail paid a visit this morning,
a flutter of striped wings,
tipped itself in hello
as we sipped coffee
and looked up from our morning paper.
We smiled at the swallowtail then each other.
You swear it is the transformed caterpillar
we rescued from certain death
as it hung from the dog’s lip
and then tenderly placed
in safety on the gourd vine leaves
growing by the wood pile.
I do not know. It could very well be.
It is beautiful in its flight.
Its morning joyful greeting of belonging,
of having found its place.
These mornings are life here with you.
Forgive me, I ramble,
telling you of life at sea level--
where a steady pour of hours stream,
and minutes bead against the windowpanes
as the seconds mist into fog--
decades of earth and rock liquify--
A mottled mix of flowing colors and viscosities
defiant and devoid of any beauty
to ease a slippery sharp-edged flow
carving out an emptiness
within this near ghost of a soul
waiting in unacknowledged darkness,
while asking for a way to the light—
before waking in the softness
of morning at altitude.
Inside a sarcophagus of stone, I have dwelled, a hard place in which to learn to live, no breath taken, heart stilled, where all living shrinks down, behind skin and soul, to be bound in hieroglyphic wrappings designed by others. Onlookers believing the pretense they wish to see-- as I stopped struggling for air, a mimic of the beating rhythms of life, accepting the coldness of the stone. Any warmth transitory as the sun in its travels from season to season from rise to set, in these years I have known only coldness after any fleeting glimpse of warmth. Such a bitter coldness-- though none would think I lived encased within stone, so life-like my hieroglyphic mask, a masterful mimic I had become. Until stone cracked, by mountain winds and sun, falling in splintered shards, crumbling to dust ‘round me. My tattered, faded wrappings torn, hanging loosely. Until a hand, as if in possession of long forgotten, ancient magic, should touch long dead embers, and in touching rekindle flame, swirling within, spiraling outward warmth that does not die upon the withdrawal of touch. A heat lingering, warming still, stirs hunger once thought dead to life. Sweetness pounds a rhythm out— starting a heart to beat again, blessed breath returns to deflated lungs, the shallow breath, the weak pulse hold ancient power, leaving flesh and blood and bone to move in life again, a life reclaimed from the stone of gray filled years. Cautiously, hesitantly, I step over the dust of shattered stone, making my way toward the touch that carefully, tenderly removed my tattered hieroglyphic bindings, allowing me to move freely within my own skin. There trembles within, a longing I never sought to find. Hope rises and takes Fear within its embrace, transforming it to joy, as I extend my hand to the warmth of you.
Here, beneath the trees, we sit in the peace of a sunlit afternoon. My words, my pale pathetic words, fade in the light of you. As the words I grasp at as possibilities to say all I mean evaporate from my hands and mind like the water in this drying arroyo shrinks away from its banks before us, I am left wordless. For no words can stand in the light of you and the gifts you bring to places where I discovered pieces missing in light of you.
I would sing melodies
of healing to fade the scars of yesterday’s pain.
I would sing tales
of velvet nights to cushion any regrets.
I would sing the notes
of the forests and mountains for the joys of today.
I would sing songs
of promises made and kept in the morrows to come.
I would sing hymns
of praise and gratitude for you.
I could rake these stones. Free these tiny weeds which my feeble fingers fumble to grab and tweeze out. Yes, with a rake, I could disturb the harmony of stones, free the weeds— But no. I have had enough of stones. I’ve enough of their weight placed upon me. I’ve carried the tonnage of stone from place to place, lived under it, barely breathing through years, lived decades encased within a sarcophagus of other’s demands and expectations, all shattered now in lovely shards left in the distance behind me. No, I will leave these stones undisturbed. They will not take up my time. There are other ways to weed, and should the weeds take the stones, there is beauty to be found in the wildness of weeds.
Winter exists in this quiet realm: The place of spring dreams where from rich loam colors emerge vibrant, as if hope, become a virgin, offered her hand to lessen Winter’s ache enough the wounded reach to touch without wounding in the trying.
Strong, the breeze this evening
bringing the scent of grilling burgers
from a distant neighbor’s yard.
The sounds of soft sighs issue
from the dogs at my side.
The hummingbirds perform
an elegant ballet concerning
territorial claims as the symphony
of their brilliant buzzing
makes us all look up.
Stillness—
Then—
A rumble in the distance.
The scent of rain at war
with the scent of grilling burgers
from the neighbor’s yard.
The drops of rain pelt,
driving away
the smell of grilled meat.
Now, only the scent of rain remains.
The battle won.
Protected under the patio cover,
The dogs and I sigh.
I fled from days
of standing under your patchwork roof
offering no protection from the rain,
least of all my own rain pouring out of me,
threatening always to drown in its leave taking.
So I learned to float, flowing along the curves
others presented in my efforts to find
time, love, home,
the back roads where berry bushes
grow in abundance.
Yet I never tasted,
never picked any berries,
fresh off the branches.
Instead, I always found
the snakes hidden, lying in wait
beneath the berry bushes,
for the seeking,
and I, always bitten,
never learned my lessons
of serpents who lay in wait,
or the lessons of Eve,
I still sought,
in spite of the venom,
in spite of the bites—
I found the rains pouring out of me
once again
to travel on
seeking
undone in spectacle
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