To Be Dead

What does it mean to be dead
and reborn as a new star
in the blackest of morning?

The raven has delivered the eulogy
at my feet as a dove
might carry peace.
His black eyes
the heads of shiny pins
that pierce my skin,
bleed me of everything
I knew to be true.

“You are nothing.
You were nothing.
You will be nothing again.”
he caws, loud,
so a not to be mistaken.

But how can I be nothing
when these tears flow warm,
salty into an ocean of grief,
year after year pleading for release
from my suffering?

My father has fallen—
sacrificing himself from a high place
in order that I should not suffer.

My mother prays to her Jesus
in order that I not suffer.

My children grasp at the hem of my worn
and dirty garments begging
that I be forgiven for holding
too much light—
stolen from the moon and Earth’s sun
in order to feed those more hungry
than I am.

But this black bird
has come with his beady eyes,
clutching mine and has cut the tethers
to yet another life of sorrow.
His blade is sharp and swift
and I swirl into the great universe
of empty and cold
where music and the Fates
are not allowed to dance.
The singing of a happy heart
is only a memory,
and for this lack of kindness
I cannot be thankful.

To what new treasure
will I ever be queen again
when even the Angels of Death
fly away from me?
They all fear me now.
I have become this creature
who cannot be sewn into the fabric
of even the patches on the knees of a poor
and exhausted farmer in his dusty fields.

I am
less than
the worms
that will consume
my rotting flesh.

I am less than
any imagined number
and more dreaded than a criminal.

I am not to cross back
to the other side of this life
to be measured
among the living.

The lace of this christening gown
disintegrates in this thin air
and I am naked, cold, and crying
at this prophecy of the eternity
of nothingness.

The Last Day


On the last day of this life as I’ve known it—
each day for a year savored
like the precious elixir it has become—
the white snow falls softly on the face
I’ve turned to the sky in wonder
at what a new dawn might bring.

I blink the drops of melted moisture
off my lashes and they fall to my cheeks,
become icy again dripping from my jaw
into the ringlets of my hair.

My face has become like a mountain,
stone eroded slowly by water and time
until I am no more than a flat place,
a meadow where daisies might spring up
again when the sun warms earth
into another life.

But today I am nothing but possibility,
longing for the warmth of love
that might slip his warm hands
into the place where skin
is now urgent to be released
from the lonely solitude of this day.

I have given up hope for happiness
of that fleshy path of the spirit
and must be content to trace
my own exposed collarbone
at the nape of control.

The breath is my messenger
to the next life—
in and out, slowly,
with gentle compassion
my lover now—
the only companion I can find
as the light dims to blue
and violet healing
of the night.

Tomorrow I will be reborn again,
the chance to take life into my own hands,
a tender seedling
needing tending
attention and absolute kindness
to bring blossoms.

Even if I must start here,
watering the tiny green gift
with my tears and sheltering her
from the winds of uncertainty,
I will do what I must to bring her
to bear fruit,
to offer this sacrifice at the altar of love

This is the only tomorrow I dare dream
into a new morning.

The Darkest Nights

December dark nights
don’t bother me.
I need the balance of them
to wrap themselves
like the black winged bird they are,
feathers like lashes covering my eyes,
letting me fall into
depths of the richest despair,
letting me fall asleep,
focus on blackness
that amounts to less than
the imagination can grasp
in her hungry, outstretched palm.

When the darkness comes,
my breath comes easier
as I dive back into the womb-cave of time.
My hands trace the face of memory here—
etch the symbols someone
might someday understand
to mean something
like absolute kindness.

If I place my hand over the heart
of my child self,
the one who wants to call out
to all of our mothers,
I calm her,
rock her to sleep
in this darkness,
and I let her slumber
next to the warmth
of your enormous love.

In the darkness, we turn
to each other as innocents,
wrap our arms around the other,
and become one light
that will be the spark
that will start another fire
and sustain us until spring.

Chinese Story

I'm learning to be the cook today.

The ox sits before me
so still after the slaughter,
his blood pooling
near his cooling neck
as evidence of this crime
of need.

I hold the smooth wooden handle
trying to forget the violence of the blade
and the death
that eventually
brings nourishment.

What will it be like
to plunge the steel
into this flesh
and watch the heavy hind quarters
or a shoulder
drop like clods of dirt
to the floor?

My hands are clean.
I have given thanks
for the soul of this beast.

But what of the sweet smell
of fresh blood swirling around me?
What of the bowels that
tumble warm at my feet
onto the sacred places
of this moment?
Do I wash them away
into the river of dispair
or let them pay witness
to the rest of the quick slices
into the truth of this necessary
sacrifice?

There is nothing to do
but wait for the moment
where the soul leaves his body
and I am called to find the places
between the joints where the blade
touches no bone
and the hand forces
nothing but release.

Drinking to Love

My lips hover
at the edge of this glass of wine
filled with gratefulness and hope.
The faintest smell of sweetness
gathers at my nostrils
waiting for the next breath
to bring you inside
this intoxication.
In this moment I have the courage of language.
I have not forgotten how to sing
and I am dancing in the deepest awareness
of a love that has transformed everything.

We have walked into this field of daisies
a hundred thousand times to place our skins
next to each other.
Even in winter it is possible
to burn clean the place where our souls meet
with one single, compassionate kiss.
Even in the light of a clear day
our brilliance outshines the noon sun.

I am dreaming the violet aura of a crown again.
This time I am the queen of a gentle universe
crushed by the suffering of my people
being lifted off the distant minds of time.
From this primitive, silver place
we will all rise, holding tightly
to the promise of that absolute emptiness.

I sip slowly at my overflowing cup,
spilling this generous love over both our bodies—
unashamed of knowing the joy
of each moment of this mystery.

We have uncovered the miracle of eyes wide open,
awakened to knowing love
in the face of every living being.

When I hold you,
I hold the angels of each body
you’ve ever been
next to my lotus heart.
Out of these dark waters
has come what we know
is nothing but truth.

How Do We Color Love?

Step out on a clear December night
and look up past the shadows of tall pine,
the shape of smoke escaping the chimney
into the white hot stars
and you’ll realize it is impossible
to describe the color of love.

Try, if you will, to make the mind move
into the rustling sweetness of happiness,
kick your feet through those leaves of joy,
rake them into a pile of pleasure,
walk away and turn quickly
to run back into ecstasy
only to fall heavily, confused
to the cold frozen ground of expectation.

When I was a girl I stretched out in the warm
green grasses of shaded June afternoons
and imagined myself into the clouds
above the Minnesota prairies.
I could get there,
a little bird of hope,
resting at the edges of that misty whiteness,
it was where I first knew the infinity of the soul
rested only in my young body for a moment
and then it learned it must rise up to the call
of our mother’s loving voice.

When you close your eyes each night
at the end of a long day of trying
not to be swallowed
by the grief of all the strangers--
by planting the healing mind in the center
of each suffering heart—
what color do you see?

If I am lucky,
if I pay attention to the collective breath
of the gentle universe
in the stars of one clear December night,
I see the brilliant purple Aurora Borealis
start at the edge of my dreaming,
the ripple of beautiful forgiveness
for needing to know again
that this kind of enormous love
has no beginning
and no possible ending.
The crimson of this blood
will eventually run clear
without the sacrifice of one more child
in this kingdom of grey forgetfulness.

Perhaps it will be here,
in this place of calm abiding,
we will remember
the color of love.

As If We All Matter

In the dream this life is becoming,
I can only go gently from day to day
consorting, and sometimes dancing
with angels.

These heavenly beings are my cousins
in this incarnation,
sharing stories about the vibration
of the stars in the fibers that make up
the essence of our hearts

And our minds fly like hawks
to and from the roosts
we’ve made in the stony places
overlooking the oceans,
gleaming and fresh as we find the quickest passages
to the places love needs us most.

How can it be that just yesterday we flew past the dark face
of a crying child without compassion
toward the breast of a mother
aching t nurse her sleeping son to health?

We open all compassion for all children in the nipple she offers
to those small, pink lips.

How can it be true that in the place I am from
could deny bread to the sad, hungry eyes of a neighbor
on the way to put out the fire at a stranger’s home?

We hold the cup of cool water
to the parched mouth of all.

What safe haven, safe harbor
will we douse from heaven
for all the suffering to bathe in laughter
and safety,
heal in the quiet pools of kindness,
if we only notice a single drop of dew
forming on the edge of a leaf at dawn.

I must be willing to talk honestly
with my sister angels
to clear the sky of all clouds and darkness of doubt
to fly straight into the fear and ignorance
that blocks our vision of the truth.
There is too much to be done to be anything less
than magic and miracle
with each beam of light approaching this atmosphere
searching for hope.

I reach out both hands
to the other dreamers waking and acting
as if the God in each of us
really matters.