Waking Up for Nothing

Time is a luxury we’ve all longed for,

our most precious gift

of assurance that we mean sometime,

have something to do to prove ourselves

worthy.

And now, with so much fever to worry about,

we blush to get ready for the camera

at our home office—

polish, powder, paint

applied with a feather touch,

with care to flirt with what was,

in order to get through another day.

We ache for the touch of reality

that gives us something to wake up for,

something face to face

that helps us know

we are alive.

How the Bird Catches the Worm

It happens every spring;

a sacred offering to the God of Winter 

who must surrender, 

eventually,

to Spring and the light

of a new moon.

The robins return with purpose.

Their red breasts blind with intuition.

They tilt their heads as if deep in thought,

waiting for the ground to tremble;

maybe even slightly quake,

brilliant divination beneath the skin of the earth

to find with that frisson of wisdom,

the worm,

slinking and submerged from the beak

and almost hidden

from the thrill of the hunt.

This Simple Prayer

Let me be tender tonight

and release my hold on the world

that cannot be held.

Let me surrender tonight

and let desire cry for my attention

in each sacred moment

of looking at the flames and confusion

and picking up words with gentle hands

to share in a poem like communion

 or a call from a beloved friend

that chants in earnest to God

and all the angels.

Let the subtle work of silence

consecrate my mind and lift my heavy heart

toward the most holy light we’ve ever seen

in the faces of the others around us

as we become family begging for more.

Let me place my hands palm to palm

resting on the edge of my bed,

quilt soft and colors fading,

and pray the prayers of a lonely child,

I will be sated with simple words

that tell of the truth of love that lives

in the eyes of a stranger

and in the songs of the children

I have always loved.

Who Would Have Expected?

Who would have expected

the essential would come to this;

the potent power of distance

to heal these vernal times

before the frost leaves the ground

beneath our feet?

In our grief of everything we have lost,

it is somehow too soon to reminisce

about the way we were before

the earth swooned with fever

and coughed herself

to nearly death.

Stand too close

and the heat of virus

will seep like and echo

weaving back and forth like a shuttle;

madness has you imagine the worst

of the stranger you’ve never met.

Stand back.

Stand away from the flames.

Don’t get too close.

Expect the unexpected.

Waiting For Love

In this respite of time,

a prayer answered,

I embrace the morning

where there is only the sound of small birds

and the flutter of the furnace

warming the air near the cat’s register.

She is only too happy to sit,

the heat blowing into her bones,

her soft greyness fluttering,

eyes nearly closed in delight

in that mechanical breeze.

My mind repeats the ricochet

of thoughts about silence and suffering;

a world full of isolation and fear.

I rummage around for courage,

capture my breath

in lungs that swell and fall

like the angry sea after a storm.

In the spaces between a moment

peace shimmers.

In this light

an angel swells,

divides like an embryo

in my unoccupied womb.

Here I am,

waiting for love

to tell me what to do next.

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.