What is Not Said

Watch closely
as I move my fingers
against the grain of the fabric
that makes up your thoughts.
Those intricately woven threads
are becoming the life line
I return to for comfort again
and again in the memory
of a time when words
were not needed—

where complications of chronology
and space washed ashore
on the white beaches of the mind
with answers stuffed carefully
into the bottles blown thin
in the shape of our hearts—
the messages clearly
calls for help
and salty love.

Knowing all that has been,
how do we extend our hands
to the divinity that lives
within the other
on days like today
when sleep has gone
past our bed,
and pain lives
in the large bones of our legs,
making travel toward peace
seem impossible?

I reach out anyway,
like Eve asking forgiveness
from Adam for handing him the fruit
angels dared not to taste,
and step in
to embrace
the soul’s companion
as if nothing stands in the way
of gathering grace
into my arms.

There are no words necessary
in this sweet rising up
to look you in the eye and finally see
everything that truly matters.
Tracing letters with our tongues
would only diminish the joy
found in silent recognition—
understated in the jazz
that trembles constantly
in the knowing notes written
in the encyclopedia of the body.

What is not said
laughs,
absorbing the language
of longing like liquid gold
condensing around a lifetime
that will never be lost
on words
or with such foolish games
that we mortals
have learned
to walk
within.

Squandering Blue

There is a part of me
that is beyond what is us,
where winter
and Jupiter’s moons
call to the floors of the seas
for waves that rage,
blindsiding sailors
with water and turbulence
until the walls of blue
squander everything.

Release the fury
from my fingers
and flash from the strands
of my electric hair
while I stand alone and naked
in front of you
leaving you gasping for breath
as the colors fade into golden coins
of truth at our feet.

Here, the evolution
of spirit
has grown wings
and lifts up
from the base
of my spine
to the crown
at my temples,
bejeweled with sapphires, and emeralds
and purple amethyst light
that dances around
each of us
like fire.

I am not afraid
of what might be lost
in this union.
I can only let the brilliance
wash through me
in all manner of death
that must bring abundant new life.

Swarm on the Solstice

The hum of summer
lives inside my mouth today
like a swarm of contented bees
drunk on honey,
the hive celebrating
her Queen by busily fanning
the energy of kindness
all around this beautiful center
of sweetness.

As the sun rises to her highest,
the moon picks up speed--
waxing toward fullness,
sharing the brilliance of light
even in the blue of the day.
These round mysteries
can’t help themselves
as they dance together.
Their movements suggest a joy
we might all share in this
remembered awakening.

The ocean breezes have come
to the wings of my skin
from far away on this morning
the same way they have
for a thousand lifetimes
on this first day of summer.
The tendrils near this soft longing
sigh with a breath
that will be taken in again
and gentled toward the core
like a whisper
of all the times I have loved
so fully that I burst open
in golden green and violet light
and I laugh out loud,
vibrating like the hive around me,
as royal as all summers
that take flight to some new home.

Blues in Bed

Why get up from my dreaming of writing
the blues with strangers at a piano
when they are still all around me
laughing and adding verses like limericks
and lovers making light
of these bodies,
note by note,
between these white sheets
in the heat of an almost summer Sunday?

I turn to see you
looking at my sleepy face
smiling and welcoming me
into your arms
to hold me in the folds of flesh
like a sacred set
of breaths
only two can share
in the unbelievable
silence of knowing
unconditional love.

Hold me in this happy place where time stops
and then races ahead
and swirls around us
making no sense
of the ticking of clocks
or the white space
between the black keys
of days
that have stacked themselves
into years
that became a lifetime
of forgetting.

Pain is nothing
next to your chest
as I wrap my arms
around the thin frame
of the story
after story
that becomes the truth
of you.

Don’t wait to tell me anything.

In this dream of music memory,
the words weave
a gauze and smooth an ointment
that heal these wounds
we somehow have come to share.
Tear bandages of primitive strength
into strips that bind these insults
with another kind of light.

Through the open window of the universe
I can hear you humming
a familiar gospel
the shades of twilight
and indigo.

Sketching a Room Where Love Lives

It is the precise green of spring
in another time of another life
when, on a pad of blank paper,
you make notes about the way shadows
trace the lines on my face
and you presently offer
to sketch of a room
where love lives.

“What would you bring?”
you ask
after settling on two comfortable chairs
and a small table between
meant for tea cups and books
that must be discussed.


“I will bring flowers
fresh cut from my garden
and green plants that will balance the air
and the light that can’t help but stream
through the glass and celebrate the knowing
between us.”

“Let us bring pillows
and soft blankets
for meditation
and napping
near the window seat.”

“Let us fill shelves
with favorite books
and films we must see
while touching
palm to palm.”

Candles and blue glass vessels.
Wicker and wood and metal
objects to hold stones and shells,
petals and papers,
pictures and faces
of things and people
we adore.

There is a coat rack
for leaving the outside world in it’s place,
like removing useful garments against the elements,
and a small rug for shoes near the door.

“Will you bring the flavors of fresh yeasty bread
with crab apple jelly and sweet raspberry jam,
good cheese and grainy crackers, fresh fruit, nuts,
and farmer’s vegetables
to sustain us, Love?”
I say.

”And, of course, there is the matter of my green sweater
and slippers to cover painted toes,
and the mug filled with favorite pens,
and some way to share music.”

“Crystals will catch the sun here
and paint rainbow on the walls.
Soft voices will read poetry
and dictate stories here.”

Silence will not be a weapon here
and words exact tools for understanding
of all matter of things.

“Let us not forget,
in this place of simple beauty,” you say,
“that it is in kindness
where love first resided
and is the place where
we will return again and again
to perfect our design.”

“But most of all,
since you asked,” I reply.
“I will bring this body
that carefully moves
and remembers
the threads that dance
and breathe
in this friendship
of the soul.”

Tools of Prayer

I am deep water.
You are the fire that warms bones.

I am infinity.
You have questions
about the sturdiness of each wall
that surrounds us.

In the night I awake
to the hum of your absent body
and the smell of lavender.

In the painting
tattooed on your skin
dragons wrap themselves with snakes,
spider webs are covered
by the sound of the Buddha
laughing
and I have traced your name
a thousand times,
letter for letter,
on my plain paleness,
understanding the caution
of forever.

One of us is a stone
rolled smooth by the ocean.
The other is the taste of smoke
exhaled and disappearing
after loving.

One of us is a sip of cool wine.
The other the hand placed flat
on the surface of the kitchen table,
convinced of the smooth comfort
of wood.

In the revolving door
of this incarnation,
memory does not serve me
with abundant kharma,
but leaves me guessing.
Thus, my troubled intuition,
my endless kindness for others
and for blue eggs
dropped from the nest.

Have mercy
and explain yourself
and the temperature of the air
that hovers like a ruby-throated warrior
in my dreams.

Amuse me
with the light of candles
in the private room
of anywhere
so that I might burn
with the shame
that has taught me
to fly.

I am the woman
crossing the path
known only to animals;
the soul companion
you forgot you had.

I am the beads in the palm
of your hand as your pray
for enlightenment
and the pull of peace.

Room

1.

In the quiet of my breath
it is possible to return
to the tiny room I created
while my father’s voice
coaxed imagination
to decorate freedom
from the farm in Minnesota
when I was only twelve.

He, with his sailor’s adventure,
opened the riggings
and was the person
who first taught me
to fly across the surface
of the mind toward beauty.

My room was cozy,
tucked into the rafters
of a Swiss chalet
with one window looking east
at mountains and a small lake.

The narrow bed was enough
with a thick quilt and fluffy pillows
to gather around like the gentle clouds
of sleep.

A simple desk
sat under the window
for writing
and the wardrobe
held the simple clothes
made by hand.

In this place of the mind
the sun was always
morning and shining
with the promise of alone.

Happy there.
I am still happy
to meditate my body
into silence
and my thoughts
only whisper,
just out of earshot,
content to not be heard.

2.

I have moved
39 times in 45 years
and can pack a house
in two days with the proper cardboard
and excess newspaper
all reading houses must hold.

From the Philippines to Aberdeen,
from Fargo to Florida,
and then to Minnesota’s Onamia, Milaca,
Willmar, Morris, and St. Paul
before New Hampshire.

I first remember the built-ins
at the top of the stairs
and the pink rooms
with Alice in Wonderland curtains
made by my mother

and the summer we were homeless
and chased by dark rain clouds
and too many tornados to count
on their fingers stuck out of clouds
like God pointing out our rebellious sin.

And now, in the place that has held me longest,
for over ten years, it is not my home,
but someone else’s,
where I have camped,
if only for a little while longer,
under the mirrored glass of stars
and the constant swirl of dancing umbrellas.

3.

I’m coming home
to my body again
after the earthquakes
have flattened my disbelief.
After abandoning the shell
of the sunny farmhouse
that lives in the cave
of my chest.

In the invited dream
my guides have taught me
to open the beautifully
painted doors
into room after empty room
of light.

These spaces are sparse and glow
and have had no need to collect clutter
or the ugly leftovers of history.

These rooms inside me
welcome a soul to sit down,
look around and marvel
at the gestures
of laughter
in a vase of flowers
and the freedom
of lifting a window
off the frame to offer
the movement of air.