Reminder (Part One)

 

You remind me of the lines

that have been drawn 

between the soft parts of the body,

where hands draw me closer in the darkness,

the quilts cover all that must be forgiven.

In this lucid dream

I am so wide awake

that I am almost

the sacrament that rests 

on my tongue.

 

I breathe.

I swallow the words, tenderly satisfied.

 

I inhale.

 

I am between God

and the earth 

frozen under my feet

in this darkest time.

 

At night under the cloak of clouds

the owls wait for me to arrive at home

and call to remind me we are in transition

between body and something lacey 

as the distance between the stars.

The birds call out, deep and throaty

to lovers just like you are,

 

but this will be the last winter 

for the warmth of the breasts 

that nursed me into the world.

It will be the last full moon 

before we plant ashes

near the man 

who gave us everything.

 

The lines are drawing tightly

and make me wish 

for so much more more 

than the relief 

that time can give.

 

 

Returning to Words

Every farmer knows enough

to let her fields sit fallow for a time,

to leave the earth alone in her own bed

without the urgent needs of the harvest

calling her to task.

This thin time quakes with longing,

surges with God’s voice in prayers

for something more

to awaken from the marrow

in the Beloved’s bones.

In this narrow place of returning to words,

the poet reclines, sated and naked,

stripped down by time and timid

looking at the white skin of the page,

perhaps exploring the curves

of her own body of knowledge,

touching each vowel tenderly,

letting the lips of some new line

kiss her.

It is so quiet in this place

between desire and consecration

that anyone would believe

whatever whisper

is delivered by the muse.

Ocean Dreaming

The last time I remember the ocean

it was in the bodies of whales

infused in the saline as phantams

meandering gracefully with their babies

in the depths of some other time.

 

This water was surely syphoned from heaven

into the liquid pastures where mothers

whinnied and groaned,

cuffing the napes of their offspring

as they slid closer to God

for a view of forever.

In the reflection of gazing

into one enormous eye

of another mother,

it was impossible not to bristle;

fear and extacy the twins in my belly.

 

Trapped in the allure of this seasick vision

I pushed to birth my own offspring

into the world of unknowing,

smooth and effortless as ever.

  

 

Considering Fireflies

The first lightning bugs

have started their dance

in the field across the road.

 

Every inspired flash

is like a tiny lighthouse

frantic to find a true companion

lost in the vortex of chirping peepers

and cyclone of mystery that awakens,

passionate and hovering softly.

 

The compass is not lost in this voyage

toward love.  The night is thick with hope

for those who think 

they might know 

the way home.

Longing

In the brine of the evening,
after all the rest of the day
has been put to bed,

liberty is on a collision
with the smothering tasks
of responsibility
and what must be done.

I squirm knowing how to do this better
and the freedom that is just beyond
now.

I am ready as a maiden
lacking the liberty to choose;
locked in my own constraints.

In these quiet hours
I am longing to walk away
from everything
into the wide ocean,
nothing to see and
nothing to do
but sink into the night
and the darkness near the stars.

I float on the still waters
and peace is with me.

April Wakes Up

This month of April wriggled her way
out of the shivering dream of the dark and icy
ocean of winter that drifted far too long
away from the shores where the sun
knew how to bring us home.

This bundle of daffodils
and rain on the roof
rocks me, comforted
like a blanket.

Joy here is a fleece jacket
instead of down coat;
bare toes in sandles
and legs sans black tights;
and leaves raked away
from the mole pocked yard
making ready for the first mowing.

Garden gloves are at the ready
near the garage door
with the clippers
and mud boots
are obvious
and necessary footwear.

We must awaken to the red flowering maples
and the green we can only see this last week
of the month where everything is alive
with the buzz and peeping of the world.

A Poem About Green for my Unborn Granddaughter

Tonight
in a circle of women
I have decided to write
a poem to you
about green.

This color
of waving young pines
is my favorite color
especially in early April
in Vermont.

Green dances in sun
near the setting time
and birds are looking
for the night's sheltered places.

Tonight
in a circle of women
I have started to knit
a small blanket
full of wisdom
the color
of the beloved sea.

Beloved,
you will know the sea
like the waters in which you swim
and grow inside your mother's womb.
This wild and peaceful darkness
is all the home you will ever want

until you walk on grass green with spring
and pluck peas from their pods
into your open mouth.

Then green will be everything
that twirls and tumbles
into eventual dust of understanding
and more love than any mossy tomb can hold.

Some night soon
in a circle of love,
enfolded in the soft woolen comfort
stiched with whispered prayers
offered just for you,
you will hear the magic of singing peepers
and the gentle rain pattering on the cool earth
and dream of daffodils and crocus
blooming in the Green Mountains
and the Amma calling you into this life.

Sacrifice

This gentle time 

is plundered again before we get there,

at the jagged edge of falling in,

a romance with the need to produce

some achey harvest,

some crackling voice

leveraged to convince me

of the value of the lineage of threat

that will never bring me comfort.

By design, there is no time to rest.

There is nothing that will slow the wave of rage

that rushes in and sweeps all reasonable thinking

away.  

instead of thrashing around,

I have changed my mind

and will sit

quite still

the breath

moving

like a dance,

in and out 

leaving this one

precious body 

as sacrifice.

Leaving Home

Lately transient thoughts tremble
at the edges of my lips,
just inside my mouth,
like bees ready to swarm,
prickly with the heat

and not as tidy as you might imagine bees to be.
The allure is dreary
with the potential of being stung
and gravity of the world
just heavy with worry and shame.

My eyes shift
from the present moment
to a proxy of real life
somewhere behind the flinty spark
of this day.  It is here, in the moments
before sleep takes me to the dark waters
of rest.

I am breathing fully into these lungs
and shudder before the release,
a few signs that show the way
from gravel between your toes
and the unending larder of words,
one after a line is sweeter
than a signal that it is time to leave home.

New Life

for Clair

Nature has spoken again
like a voice of the angel,
this time to my daughter.

Her new kitchen is warm
with cinnamon and green
with her sweet love's passion;
routines of morning tea
and something barely sweet,
like a moon waxing toward fullness,
round and luminous with awe.

The angel is watching them
become a family,
medicine to all the losses
of champions and innocents.
They are healed as their life grows roots
and the wings of a child.

She commits again,
the servant of children,
and cried when she revealed
the outline of her new life.

The Day Mary Oliver Died

On the day Mary Oliver died
my son sent me a message
with the announcement,
knowing how much I love her words,

so much that Wild Geese holds forth
displayed near the table where we share meals
like a prayer that has blessed our home
year after year since we moved to Vermont.

Today I think Mary
would ask us to enjoy popcorn and bacon
and the musty creak of the birch in the back yard
while the doe and her yearlings munch to the tops
of my raspberry canes in January.

Perhaps a cup of ginger tea will soothe me tomorrow.
Perhaps if the murder of crows
 that visited me last year returns to the white pines near the house,
or the fox and possum that live under the porch stop crying,
or the she-bear topples my bird feeders,
I might remember all the ways
Nature and Spirit are with me on this path
even when Mary has flown away with a simple whirr
from her body.

I drop to my knees,
good enough
and repenting,
praying in gratitude
for this new dead poet.

She is my friend
with each page I turn,
marveling at all the ways
my heart and mind open
to the simple turns
where she always guides me
to God.

After A Thirteen Hour Day

The stillness is harsh and thick
after a long day in the office
blustering around the slippery edges
of balancing priorities.

This is a time skinny with needs
and strikes my panicked mind
with too much to do
and not enough of anything
to make it easy.

There is frostbite on the toes
of my morning meditations
that have often been the hearty relief
for this darkness of rationed breathing.

My teeth chatter
under the covers.
I cannot get the heat to rise
from cold ashes
and the wind
is still howling
for more.

Until Night Comes

I had forgotten
what it was like to be alone
and bristle at the prospect
of giving up that freedom.

It is a memory tingling at the edges of my lips
like a shoulder that aches before the rain
that makes me draw the afghan of amnesia close
and rock in a chair until the night comes.

I am done with mystery
that leaves me regretting asking the questions.
I would rather drop my yeses with a clatter
onto the floor and walk away
than give up everything
for almost nothing myself.

Tomorrow when I wake

I will gasp at the thought

that I've given up words that matter

and laughter until I am breathless

and taking in the smell of juniper

and the true nature of white pine.

Dreaming of Going Home

In the dream that I dream of some sort of peace
I am barefoot and on the beach in Maine
before the crowds fraught with human noises
and where I can explore the horizon alone.

In the dream I dream of lovely silence
I sequester myself with the sand
and the times between light and darkness,
neither frightened, nor fraught with distractions
and too much to do stiffening in my neck and shoulders.

Dreaming of the sea
I begin to pantomime gulls
and the waves.  No words are necessary
for this kind of love.  I dance free of my human form
and  know what it is to be like incense rising in the mist
just long enough to hear the answer to my prayers.

The Wrinkle

The wrinkle starts slowly
just under the surface of the skin.
Near the eye a splinter of frightened flesh
loses hold on the plumpness
we call youth.

If we walk briskly into the quietude
of our true age, perhaps we will be christened
with purpose and hope for a bright face
and a smile that shows the luxury of joy
in the abundance of lines that have been worn
like weathered stone broken apart
by the loving forces
of rain, wind, and the shaking of seasons
all the way to oblivion
and the hand of God
upon your shoulder
telling you it is time
to come home.

Blood Red Moon

If I had a dream

of the blood, red moon shining

I would die happy

Bad Dreaming

Tossing and turning
in blankets and bad dreaming
I plod through the night
without the usual joy
I find in the darkness
of God's time.

Dreary and stealing from the day
like a kleptomaniac
who can't get enough of taking
anything that freezes the fear
into so much alone.

The lack of desire
is as much neuropathy of the heart,
so much misfired love
in the wrong direction,
as it is a body turning off the lights
and going to bed without a glance
at the possibility
of warmth.

I hum a little lullaby to myself
and to all the angels who know me
from my clear and certain voice.

Blind

If love is blind
then that explains
the ways I have stumbled
and fallen hard
into the ditches
of despair
so many times.

The reminders of boundaries crossed
and controlled daydreams
that prescribed mind numbing
 Yes, Dear.
and No, Sir.

I know what it is to meander
not quite lost
not quite found
into the nature of losses.

If love is blind,
I am not ready
to walk ahead
without fear
of falling
down
again.

After Epiphany

Epiphany gone.
The tree was all that was left.
Silence rings lonely.

On Rain in January in Vermont

The January rain in Vermont
is a stranger tapping on my roof
like a dream of spring
only colder.

The snow that should have whispered
and soothed the earth with her quiet voice
went strolling with a lover
somewhere north of here.

I miss her reflection in the mirror
and the geometric glory
that once embraced our backyard
from November until April.

The warmth of the ways we have stolen power
from the depths of this planet in pursuit of a devil's dream
have me unable to speak

I am so ashamed of what comfort we have lost
and what my children will never know
of the ease we have given away
to fools who would not bend
to marvel at the inconvenience
of another winter storm.

Night Moves

The mysterious twitch of an aching shoulder
blossoms as the night, musty with flannel
and the cocoon of winter struggles
against the layers, unravels and tightens
around the compass that can't find the way
to making sense of the ocean of tasks
that come washing in each day.

Citrus and verdant light
might protect us from the scurvy
or old woman's gout; age defies our wishes
with the promise of pain
and evasive sleep.

Modern witches slather salves, inhale lineaments
and essential oils, administer needles,
prepared tinctures,
and sling capsules full of healing
as defenses against darkness
of the heart and wandering mind.

Going First

Falling like milk steaming from a warm bucket in the barn
this frost is pulling us all to the windows.

We crave the white
after the oddity of brown Christmas
and rain on New Year's Eve,

as if we have never seen the sparkle,
drastic and kissing the dry grasses
with light.

A murder of crows
huddle in the pines
cawing their stark reminder,
caressing this is the last day
with strong music
for someone
who least expects
to go first.

For Silvie

The cat prowls slowly
A modern tiger so sleek
Alive like silk threads.

Delicate Axon

Close your eyes for just a moment
and you might notice the pulse in your body
or the vibration of a truck rumbling by at dawn.

Open your eyes and breath deeply into the earthquake
of an ordinary day in a life that trembles at the evening table
and synapses flash and flicker with all that electric joy.

If you are awake
you will shiver knowing
 that stillness absorbs
the undulation of responsibility
and grief of letting go of the delicate axon
that connects charge to reaction.

Close your eyes
and listen as I inhale
and exhale as many lessons
as one woman can learn.

This knowing is the elixir
we all must swallow.

If I Wanted Comfort

Sitting in a circle of strong women
I whistle at the stockpile of chatter
and steep emotions that burns
yellow and bright flames
in each belly.

Each belly that has birthed a child
from the chaos of wisdom
clanging loudly in order to find comfort
in the skin to skin human experience
of mother and child at the breast.

The skin is the largest organ of the body
sensing everything from storms and sticky summer heat
to the cool breeze of love gone from our sight.
and the mouth of a child looking for her source of life.

If I wanted comfort
I would walk with my face to the wind
knowing that the way home
might be easier.

Instead, I will clear the mind
like a slate washed clean of yellow chalk
that traced the shape of problems solved
and words too precious to repeat.

Going to Bed

Feverish with a drought of touch,
the approaching night is bleak
and notorious for the pain
provoked by the flow of too much yes
and not enough yowling alone.

I pull the feeble flannels
and too many pillows
close as feathers
into the nest of bones I make
each time I must sleep.

If I motion to you and whisper
that it is time to join the tumble
into what we know of love,
be gentle.

I have forgotten
all the rules
and need to be reminded
of what really matters.

First

Pray,

cut me close

like a fresh razor

drifting on the edge 

of melancholy.

At dusk on this first day

of a new year

I am on the fringe of delicate ice

of the mind where disbelief

freezes like crystals

mid-thought.

Somehow sunset crouches near the road

ready to throw me into the inky darkness

of a steep ditch and leave me

until the rumble of morning

shoulders the way home.

This stupor sinks in,

standing at the head of the line

waiting for some kindness

to break the silence.