Beating Our Forgetful Drums

The advent of so many dawns
has me weaving verses again

alone and wanting my breath
to transport me to waters
where childhood is played
with avarice, sinning in that joy
and with all the greedy laughter
I can gather.

All the grandmothers cry
when I depart on the wind that takes us all
away to the other side of hearts that beat,
thumping our forgetful drums
for the last time.

Ten Thousand Things

They wake me in the night now
like babes crying for the warmth of the breast,
hungry bellies of thought
unsettled and unsatisfied
to sleep.

Perhaps it is the lover that nudges me awake,
wants something deeper
as his hand rests absently on my bare hip,
warm and insisting on the attention
that only skin can convey.

Perhaps as I arise, unmoved, slip on my pink robe
like the tired queen I am,
I cannot help but notice
that Honesty is the most urgent
of the ten thousand things.

She flashes across the lawn
like June fireflies
making me pick up a pen
at 2 a.m. to make a list
that will soothe my aching shoulder,
organize so many thoughtless tasks into neat rows,
and give me courage to forgive myself
for what I have left undone.

Of Nothingness

This molten moment
meanders past the mind
hot and dreaming of morning.

It is possible,
from the place you are sitting
near the window,
to touch the face of some mordant comment
with generous thoughts.

The heat of this cup of kindness
is enough to release the madness
that has been trapped
in the spaces between your fingers
while gripping the edges of something
that looks like sanity.

Confusion is a word you have used
and know as well as the lines on your face.
You are a mirror
that will not let go
of the images of too much
of nothingness
and grief.

Open Water

Labor long
at the edge
of another wave,
of another birth,
where it is simple to list
the ways you have been lost

at sea before,
the ocean lovely,
the enormous confusion a leviathan
who wanders leeway
past the bow of this ship.

Set the sails free
and cast away into the watery blue.

Taste the salt on your lips
as you disappear into the nothingness
of open water.

Agonizing

In the intricacy of this morning,
just like any other morning,
I am fragile as a husk of the juvenile ghost
I once was.

I cling to the idleness of that haughty girl
as graceful as granite
jostled by the plumage of a body,
exhumed flaunting the deft hands

engorged with wanting,
consumed by thinking
I could keep myself
from the agonizing arrows

of another chance
to disappear into a cleft
of a day of organic despair
and measuring the blue of the sky.

Calling Out My Name

Biding my breath,
I have been waiting far too long
in the shadows of my head
to be honest.

But the mist and these abundant bird songs
remind me of days when I was a maiden,
chaste in thoughts undefiled by anger
or worry of the discovery of my hidden gifts.

This inspired thinking is brash
as it dares to step into the open meadow
and announce itself
like the bells ringing
in a clear voice

without apology
for calling out
a name given to me
by the goodness
of universal kindness
and unconditional love.

Getting Somewhere

What difference does this abrupt undulation,
this current of smooth radiation of a smile
and the balm of loving kindness make?

What difference if I levitate a little
when I walk in a spell under a small invasion of joy
with my hands submerged in the morning dishes and eyes
tracing the edges of bleeding hearts peeking over the deck

crouched and at the ready to disappear
at the slightest friction; sparks of unpleasant radio news,

tremors of the invasion we hoped would never arrive.

Rather let us notice the explosion of spring chanting freedom,
the waft of pink voiced apple blossoms off the veranda--

a chronicle of the evolution of fruit and women marching
on their way to harvest,

arms swinging at the urgency
of getting somewhere fast.