Hour Glass

What is this life
but that of the sand
released willingly,
over and over again,
gravity having her way
with each grain
until nothingness is filled,
bottom to top,
with the spaces that will become
nothing again?

Waiting for your love is like this release
of the dunes of a lifetime--
shifting with anticipation,
the shimmering mirage of the Oasis.

I put one breath
in front of the other.

In the heat under these sandals
my feet burn crossing the waves
of suffering and longing,
desire for the moisture of cool waters
at the edge of this desert,
wanting my thirst to be quenched
by the patience of the journey.

My lips will drink you in.
This throat will be restored by the ultimate
compassion of this love you have given.

The truth of this passage,
from one full life into nothingness,
is that I trust myself here
in our gentle exchange,
the knowledge of one thousand lovers,
the ease with which I take you in,
to bathe myself in the ambrosia of your face,
the patterns of your skin.

I plunge my hands deep
into the granules of sand
and watch you slip into emptiness,
only to catch the glassy grains
of your body in my other hand,
waiting greedily to hold you
just as full as her sister
hovering above, unable to hold anything—
never permanent,
always changing
and turning like the hour glass
marking the time
of endless love.

Thinking of Love
after Jane Kenyon’s Thinking of Flowers

Oh love,
promise to bring me flowers—daffodils
or the whitest daisies
in February
and I will leave them—

leave my husband
and my children,
leave my books
and my Buddhas,
leave my photos,
the evidence of a life
livable without
the one who captures
these truths on film.

They would all disappear,
with my fingers cradling stems
and yellow petals
instead of waiting,
waiting, waiting,
to capture beauty
or happiness—
a bird that flies less
and less frequently
to my hand
to feed.

Every fall
I get down on my knees
in the light of a full moon
to dig the soft heart of earth
near my kitchen door
open one more time
before snow—
to place the crisp bulbs of spring
into a bed, a sleeping death.
This little grave,
these bodies lined up secrets,
helping me make it through the winters,
just like my mother and her sisters
and all the grandmothers before them.
What else sustained them
in the white and wind
prisons of the North,
their male captors hovering
and their coughing, crying children,
wailing like sad sirens
warning them
that their short lives
would soon be cut
like these blossoms
or spring
or the humid breath
of summer.

No love,
don’t make me wait
until May
for the escape into color.
Deliver me now
and it will be you
who will be rewarded
beyond your Earthly imagination.

This desire no longer
contained.

Hunger Moon

Tonight the Hunger Moon rises
frozen white, trimmed with copper,
shining with her longing.
She is drawing the darkness
of her love like an eclipse tonight,
covering her face in that shadow.

Beautiful pearl,
you are crumbling into your own hands,
language lost in the many tongues
spoken in this blackness,
this Tower of Babel,
layer after layer of woman
lost inside herself,
inside the sands
sifting through a stone heart,
warring with itself as time continues
to run out, day after day,
night after night the lone orb,
the last sweet drips of wine
in the bottom of a glorious goblet
once full to brimming with the first sap
of the tree of forgiveness.

Full moon,
Goddess moon,
be the silver coin I will pluck
from the sky
and warm in the palm of my hand
waiting for the sound of travel.
I beg you to find me worthy
of your generosity
that will buy my passage across these firey waters,
to the cold burial grounds of this winter.
My skin is turning the color
of the red earth
and here I will dance on the graves
of my past lives
cutting the ties with all ego—
drink until I’m drunk with the necessary meaning
of all life—
In this feast
I honor your fullness,
pregnant with knowledge,
and lift up my cup
on this night of all possibilities.
My hands are ready
to catch this child
of hope.

Raining in February

I miss you
when the rain
drips cold
and freezes on the windshield
of my black car.
What could be worse
than to be alone in the rain
and the dark of February?
This emptiness my silent companion
when there are fires burning
and tea to share
and the warm, softness
of skin rubbed with oils
protected against the winds
and harshness of winter
by flannel sheets?

I miss you today
more than I thought
a woman of my age
could allow herself--
to feel the ache
in the space where
a heart might have taken up
residence only a few lifetimes
before this one.
How could that longing survive
in this body that has forgotten
how to glow?

Until you,
I was lost in the common
comforts of a busy life.
Hands wrapped around pottery in the morning,
cotton to console
my midday feet in clogs,
and a warm soup on the stove
at the evening of the day.

Now I miss the minerals
of your mouth pressed against the fluid
nature of my breath--
constantly flowing south
toward the ocean
of home.

What I would give
to find an umbrella,
a large quilt,
and the sound of laughter
riding next to me
to a new sanctuary
where we wouldn’t
build walls
to hold out the irresistibility
of the flowers that will come
to bloom
in only a few short months.
We’d stretch our pale skins
naked next to yellow flowers
and greens
and in the sun
allow our faces to relax
without giving up
the treasures we thought we could
only lose in this game.

Outcast

Consider the alternative--
to be locked out of the body,
the mind consuming itself
in the cannibalism of ego.

Madness, when the door stands open
to the fibers of hair
woven at the back of the neck
waiting for the warm breath
of the lover to ignite
the flame of the universe,
wrapped in one small woman’s body.

I would rather be this kind of outcast.
Stop the care of worry about my reputation
or some set of man-made rules
that hold me prisoner
near the home of my soul.

I will not give away my rights to freedom,
but must first study the laws
I will choose to abide by.
Each ridge of each fingerprint
an expert escape artist
liberating all my fellow prisoners.

We claw our way under the fences
of another reality.
We run under the stars
after midnight of this deep winter.

This outcast will step forward
to the front of the line,
where life is too short,
present flowers to the captors
and demand a naked embrace.

The Tax On the Soul

It is said in ancient places
that you must honor me,
adore me,
the woman who has given birth
to you and to your children,
who has given her body
countless times
to bring you wisdom.

My tears are salty and warm
like the fluid of the womb
and given with no less pain
than that of the labor of this soul.
These tears find the honest
and a true path over a weary face
engaged in a lifetime of searching.

Imagine yourself in my body,
your face, your mouth, your tongue,
all ways of loving the flesh that wraps
the spirit so tightly,
finding the sweetness of the hive
like a bear waking in the warm snows
of spring.
You are more hungry than you know
and you have only to surrender to love
to be fed until bursting
with unimagined joy.

Love, you do not have to hide from me.
You have only to be your true self,
letting me take you in
from all possible perspectives.
I will stand in front of you,
having opened the door with the ring of keys
you have given me
over these many lifetimes of loving.
I will place my hands firmly on my hips
and demand the truth a of the universe
from your lips,
from your body—
the tax one soul pays
for ultimate joy.

Weaving

A dream came to visit me
in my sleep only two nights ago
waking me at my finger tips
inviting me to place my hands
into the ८०,000 threads of light
that make up the soul.
I listened to the sound of the spinning
of all time in that drowsy place.

His face came first
with the center of his right eye
fixed on mine
in the embrace of my deepest heart
showing me where to begin to weave
these blackest threads
into the space
where the truth of his mouth
could have been.
I was lost in this god place,
in the place where all my knowing
was right,
making my skin sure of each knot
I was tying in the purples and greens
and golden strands.
The bonds holding tight and secure.

“The work is hard.” I thought
in this dream.
The path is here in the layers and layers. . .
in the fabric I will smooth
silky over my body.

I am the bride
stitching my own gown
unwilling to go back to the life
I knew before love. . .
A child, grown into a woman,
the goddess taking the hand of this consort
and willing him into a handsome partner.

This gown is perfect for travel
at night through the stars of sleeping
light captured
like a breeze
in the open window
of spring.