Dreams
fulfilled and abandoned,
the wistful whimsical ones of fantasy--
Tears
fallen,
dried long ago, leaving salt crusts behind,
and those never allowed to fall--
The skins of selves I used to be
the wounded and scarred
the shrunken down inside her skin
the sacrificial to survival--
Take these things
I freely give,
adding all
my wishes
my dreams
my hopes
for you.
Next,
Add all you want,
all you dream,
all you desire,
wish for and hope for
in your life
Then weave of them a chrysalis
bout yourself to cushion and protect
as you grow into your own skin.
Leave your chains of fear,
your yoke of worries
with me.
I will bury them
deep inside my chest.
When you emerge,
your wings wet and beautiful,
you may perch upon
the branch of pride
growing from my soul
to flex and flutter your wings
until dry enough to fly,
beautiful as you have always been,
never to shrink
or curl away
your wings again.
video is my own (this little one ventures closer every morning)
the coolness of morning enters
it drifts into the veins
chills feeling for a time—
when the hummingbird perches
to drink the fresh sugar water
I made for her that morning,
I smile.
Women, we are tortured by our hair.
It is never what we want.
It never obeys our desires.
A mischievous heathen,
it laughs at our attempts
to bend it to our will.
We grow it, cut it, dye it,
curl it, straighten it,
treat it with carcinogenic chemicals
to beat the mischief making
blasphemer into submission.
All the while, it laughs at us
as our enemies, humidity and wind,
destroy in seconds the cooperation
we thought we’d earned
with our torturous machinations.
Hair:
Too thin,
Too thick,
Too curly,
Too unruly,
Too straight,
Too limp,
Too frizzy,
And the color—
Too…too…too…too-too little
and too-too much of everything—
Never exactly as it should be.
It will not follow our will.
Pull it into a ponytail.
Shove it under a baseball cap or a sun hat.
Why don’t we just shave our heads
And let it be done?
This woman’s crowning glory,
a temptation enough to make angels fall
from the heights of heaven at the sight it,
necessitates head coverings and wigs for women,
according to some.
After all, who wants it to rain angels
into the streets of the world?
That’s a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing
since I’ve got questions for those angels.
For one, why do women have to help angels
control such lusty impulses?
But I digress as I begin my morning battle
with my own head of hair.
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
As a child,
I survived the explosion of dreams
that left hot greasy remnants
dripping down the four-inch squares
of avocado green ceramic tiles,
marring their mirror like shine.
As a grown woman,
I survived the eruption of dreams
that poured down an encasement of hot ash
over all of life’s plans in the moment of diagnosis,
leaving monumental statues of grief.
Thus, I chose to live
where silence drones,
a rumble in the ears.
Nothing left--
a hole, a void
made by echoes
of desires held long ago.
So, I have taken a corn broom
to dance with me
in time to music
only I can hear
to sweep away the dust, the cobwebs,
the fuss of other’s opinions and ideas
of me, my doings, my words.
Yes, from my words,
I shake loose all the years of dust,
the years of ash, the years of grease.
All words, oh, so many words
I never loosed upon the air
to float free upon the winds,
tumbling away, up, around,
then returning once more
to spring up as wildflowers
when things turn to green.
I begin to loose them now,
freed to scatter where they will,
root, spring up where they
find a place to rest.
It is the time
of grey skies
and dead brown grass
along the roadsides.
The time when the trees
are seen shivering,
their limbs quivering in their nakedness.
When even many of the evergreens drip down
brown, bloodied from the lethal knife wounds
of a sharpened frenzied freeze
as they sag into their deaths.
Yes, it is that time of year
when I yearn
for the green of spring,
for limbs to wrap myself within,
for a renewal of promises
I once longed to make.
The time of year
when I empty forty years
of myself.
As if you erupted from an eternal spring, an immortal thing, I gave you away when last I prayed here at Chimayo. When kneeling I scooped the healing dirt as I spoke silent prayers of thanks for my heart bravely facing shocks of resuscitation after years spent barely beating in stuttering grief.
Upon return today, I kneel to scoop the healing dirt, asking in silent prayer a blessing of forgiveness for giving you away too easily— thus, killing you, bleeding you of all hope, beyond resurrection, beyond resuscitation.
In the dirt of Chimayo, this healing earth, from this place of faith, sifted through my hands, I bury you, a mortal thing, I gave away too easily to an undeserving faith, in this dirt of Chimayo.
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