Flowers After Rain

Before the sun sets


Before the sky turns from light
into the impossible thickness
where stars hang sweetly
inside the shield of the night


Before I am aware of the moon
climbing strong and quickly
from the edge of the earth
into the wide open skies


I know she is there--
the tides insisting
the Moon make her way
as she has done
for as long as the ocean
has dared to love her.


And, in the afternoon
of this spring day
I breathed deeply,
stretched my body out
under the pink petals
of an apple tree
pretending I was the only woman
so alive,
and let the softness cover
my face
as the blossoms kissed me


these handmaidens
of the moon
disguised as flowers,
round and smiling,
after the rains.

The Little Things

Hand me a simple key,
old, antique
and I will read into it
all the lifetimes
of keys that I never held

but were dangled,
tangled
in and around me
like some mystery
I would never escape
or was never meant
to solve.

Unspoken, unopened,
the door
is mine
to test.

I am
without words
and with language
that needs no words.

Here,
in this kingdom
full of joy
that looks like
an opening 
to kindness,
is filled with
the little things.

Each door
an opening,
a thimble or a seed,
a thread or a single drop of liquid
melting on the skin of a cheek,
an entrance to dialogue
where the tumblers
of the lock
click and clatter
into place
making sense
of everything.

Making
sense
of
every
thing.

Talk About Everything

Did Eve bring it up?
The conversation about pears,
or apples (whatever they were),
and the way they crunched
between her teeth--
the way the sweetness
was almost too much.

Why do we have to talk about everything?
he said.

Silence.

The sound of birds.

The wind whispering
and sometimes singing.

The way
mistakes happen
when words
try to define things
like joy.
Like love.

Like the naming
of everything.

The Taste of Blood

Bite your tongue
hard and unexpected
and know the truth--

Blood and pennies
taste just the same.

Speak freely
and know
that copper
flows smooth
and shiny as cells
as it leaves your mouth.

Once a punishment,
there is now peace
in so much
fluid
and in the growing
vocabulary
of new language.

The heat
of spirit
is comforted
in the color
red.

Love, as everyone knows,
only hurts
when you break
the skin.

The Talk

When your son
turns 13 and the clock
tells you it is time
for "The Talk"
before it is too late
to go back to innocence, 

life becomes a complex
set of rules and words
that do all they can
to circle in a dance
of something close
to understanding

the body
and the ways
this boy is launching taller
than his mother
toward other women
who do not
marvel at the change
of his voice from child
to man
but in other ways
that involve
a language
that demands the
naming of body parts
and the way they fit
and move.

We shift,
my boy and I,
uneasy
at the newness
of this unfamiliar
set of words
and  return
to what we know.

I am holding him
in my arms
like I did
when he was a baby.
We look one another in the eyes
with so much honesty
it seems impossible
to teach him
all the words
he will need to know
to find all the happiness
one lifetime
allows.

I tell him again
of a love
that will sustain him
beyond the body
to before his cells
divide and grow
with others.

Here he knows
where he came from
and why the blood
of this woman
is a seal
of God
on his
soul.

Reunion

They return

the travelers from the trail

into the warmth and light
of the home fires

and I am comforted
by the constancy
of the heat of souls

who never forget
the beauty

of that moment
of reunion.

Of that much love.

Finding Enlightenment Over Dinner After Yoga

You ask us
what we think
about finding enlightenment
through the experience
of the body
as we sip soup and ginger tea--
consider salad made with flowers
and pumpkin seeds.

I hum
and listen
to the other yoginis
who want to sound close
to the edge of this sea
with their talk
of laundry
and grief
and the ways dance
has revealed the truth
to them.
Violence is nothing.
The body only captures anger
if you let it.

I listen knowing
my skin
has become the paper
on which I write the chapter
of a new story.
My hips gather evidence
like a detective
on an unsolvable case.
I open my mind
just before sleeping
to the Universe,
my new lover,
and wonder where
I will meet
the sound of the voice
that will whisper softly
and hand over the keys
to everything.

Over dessert of simple fruit
I smile and cup my right hand
under my left breast
and lean into the table,
satisfied to know
my heart
is only inches away
from flying.