Measuring Love

I’ve started
to measure love
slowly
by the standards of a universe
defined by those who know
what they are doing
when they open themselves
from a place so deep inside happiness
and find evidence of nothing
but love.

I breathe
and find love
with each intake
and in the letting go
of everything I’ve ever loved.
My throat catches,
panics like an ocean swimmer
grabbed by the undertow.
I thrash about
attracting attention
on the beach
where no one has come to watch
the sunrise.
I’m lost in this watery place
where the salt can only remind me
of everything I’ve lost.

Someone I love more than this solitary life
once asked me to measure my mass
against a ton of feathers that seemed to be taking me
toward flight and the sky
as I grew these awkward wings
from the seed of my heart
stretching toward the heat of the sun.
I’ve been burned before.
I remember the smell of flesh
and the that longing for release.
I could not measure joy even as Heaven
opened her window to let me climb up
weeping and gasping for some signal
that might remind me of how to return
to the path where I’ve measured my journey
by placing one small foot
in front of the other.

I’ve begun to count on my abused fingers again.
I will scratch my marks on the wall of despair
only after I’ve lost my way
and cannot remember
the names of the stars
where we will all journey someday.
I wish you were here to teach me
the language that measures
the distance between these two souls.

Second Chance

I could go. . .
stop this unending Breath
and the Mind that wants more
from places we all have come to expect.
But Desire and Fear, like brothers,
were waiting to rob me just when I thought
I was giving them the slip
in a moment of ordinary Joy
on my way to visit Grace
next door to her mother,
Peace.

I was wrong again. . .
Wrong to turn my back in this dark place. . .
believing Love would protect me.
What was I thinking?

What was I thinking?

Now that I’m dead,
on my way to Nirvana,
that land of nothingness,
I remember that I want a Second Chance
at a life that resembles
extraordinary
unstoppable
ecstasy
in the small things.

When I return
I want to be reborn
into the arms of a smiling woman
who sooths my skin with lavender
and insists on bouquets of flowers,
preferably daisies, when tulips and bleeding hearts
have gone out of season.
She will sing to me as I play with my toes.
She will dream me into a beautiful child
dancing in the waves of sun and ocean treasures.
My only understanding of tears
will be the salt of laughter
and a heart overflowing
with kindness,
the milk of compassion.

I will find you here, Love,
collecting shells among gifts of the sea,
and will tell you the many ways
I cannot die like this.

You’ve let me down,
letting me hope
I could count
on that myth of rescue,
when all you could do
was toss a few words,
opaque with your own sorrow
and confused longing,
into the undertow of my passing.

I want to give us both a second chance
to grab life by the small of her back
and pull her close
into a slow dance,
swaying in candlelight
with the blessings of the universe,
waiting for kisses alive with light,
that releases us from the poverty
of so much suffering
in settling for nothing,
even when abundance
was placed firmly
into the palms of our hands,
more than enough to pay our way
to lead the galaxy
away from the paths
where we’ve been robbed of joy
a thousand times before.

I will find you there
by placing my hand into the empty canyon
where my heart used to beat—
before you left me to die alone.
This is where Fear and Desire
talked you into
the comfort
of your own
unbreakable
solitude.

What was I thinking
walking alone,
quietly into the dark,
when all I wanted to do
was forgive you
for knowing how
to love me?

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.