The Heat of Decay

The spider outside my kitchen door
weaves her silver threats again
between the new shoots of green
that pretend to be spring,
a new start,
gathering dew on these delicate strands
of belief in something I can’t see with my eyes
but know in the tremors that arrive
from the earth in my feet
and explore their way,
like voyagers in the stream of my blood
and climb into my bones—
knees and knuckles bruised
with so much struggle to rise—
make the way out of the trees
into a clearing where light and open air
might bring relief from the pain.

If I bend down to where my eyes are level
with the translucent body
and eight legs dancing in the sun,
I can see the craft of fear take shape.

She is a Master--
using her body to survive
even when her work is destroyed
by the wind or inconsiderate trappings
of words like death. She knows what to do
at these endings and is not afraid
to quickly move in,
wrap the unsightly shell of disappointment
into a neat package,
and move on to the necessary
repair and beauty.

How can anyone blame her for trying
to catch the stars when she lives
so close to the heat of decay
in the stitches of her home?

Traveler Finds the Face of a Stranger

I never travel these days.
My life list of places to go
has stalled in Italy, Montreal, or Paris
and I wonder if I will ever get to China or Brazil.
Even New York seems impossible.

I am desperate for a long summer
in a small, sturdy house on the shores of any ocean
where I sweep sand from the stoop,
my bare feet constantly covered with the dust of the sea—
my face freckled with the saltiness of air meant to heal anything.

How could I have known
that the charm of the myth of you
would fade from blue sky
into a prison of endless grey days?
This rain melts away any hope
and puts me to sleep just to deliver me
from the constant tapping of guilt at my window.

On the horizon I imagine a break in the clouds
above the churning waves of this shame.
I escape into the arms of painted skin
and eyes flecked with fire and gold.
Here I will take in every drop of ocean
like laughter and the thirst of sailors lost at sea.

I will travel to that island,
if only for a little while—
a tourist stumbling upon a remote
and beautiful voice up a path,
into the door of welcome
where the table cloth is red,
the forget-me-nots are fresh,
and the bed
is warm
and soft
and kind.

Ritual of the Spirit

Most nights the spirit that lives
in the cathedral cavern of my chest
wanders toward the echoing ritual grounds
following the breath to the bodies and bones
left alone to shine white under the moon
next to marble and cold stone.

She has carefully tethered herself to my heart
with a fine thread of metal stretched thin
with trust and beauty so that she might find her way
back to this place of blood
if tomorrow she must still search for love.

The nights can be dark and so quiet when she slips away
into the stars past the windows of my sad silent chamber.
I have seen her go, dancing toward the dead,
to practice the rituals of love again and again like a child
learning to trace letters into words of poetry,
or anger learning to scream into nothingness,
or like the heart opening like the pupil of the eye will do
to adjust to the lack of light—
letting in the meager offering
as if it were nearly midnight
on the longest day of the year.

She opens her arms to the breathless, the hopeless,
and welcomes them into her bed, warmed by fires that will not die
and each night burn as sacrifice to the most holy
and tender acts of unconditional desire.

In My Mind

In my mind
I see you,
see your face close up,
eyes looking into the place
where love lives.

You see the gifts forgotten there,
put away from greedy children,
and their impatient grasping.

Open the music box at midnight
where tin strips pluck notes of an ancient song
as you turn a tendril of my hair
at the nape of my neck.
Let it drop to the pillow
like a feather
and I will give you
everything.

I will bring armfuls of daisies,
white diamonds and gold
of early summer,
patterns of beauty quilted
in small stitches
of laughter,

and cups overflowing
with the sweetest wine
of surrender.

I can barely contain
the image of you
in my memory
and find it impossible
to draw a line
between the past
imprint of your hand
on the small of my back
and the sound of your voice
that makes my body quake
with joy.

Take this love away
breath by breath,
hour by hour,
as if it is the only gift
I have left to give.

Kisses For My Children

If tomorrow
were the last day
in this kingdom
of ordinary time
I’d want to know,
want to have the chance
to say goodbye to all my children,
touch them on the soft skin
of their beautiful faces
and kiss them each on the mouth,
release them from the wonder
of not knowing how much
they are loved in this life
by one woman who held their souls
open to the light.

This is the inheritance
I must leave them boldly
before the time when they feel gravity
or the tilting of the earth
away from the sun.

When so many need a yes or no answer,
there will be no question
of yes.

Lord knows I’ve stumbled
on things and into people
I should have known how to avoid—
to pass by without the need to grab a handful
and fill my emptiness with slow poison.
Everyone knows that love and wisdom
are the cures for that addiction.

And it is love and wisdom
I will leave in the awake kisses
on the mouths of my children
and no one will take away from that place
in the bone that remembers truth
like a song or a poem
or the look of loving kindness
in my eyes
as I say goodbye.

Sister Story

You ask me how I do it
The children, the jobs,
the studies, the poetry,
and the garden.

I simply place them neatly in rows,
balance them gently on top
of each other
like stones
on a rocky path
up a mountain
pointing the way
to where the view
might take my breath away.

A Sister once told me
that this journey is about putting one foot
in front of the other
in the fog and blizzard,
in rain and in the threatening anger of lighting
and the sound of thunder.

“All of it” she said
“makes you want to descend—
go back to the place from which you have come
looking in desperation for shelter and comfort.”
The uncertainty of darkness
and the cold of alone
will make you shake and cough
and cry out in a fearful Where am I?
Who am I? but we women know now
that there is no turning back.

“Listen to the birds” she said.
They will lift your heart with their chirps
and the fluttering of their wings in the small branches
nearest the path. These announcements of hope
will be everywhere if
you erase the doors of disbelief
from your ears.

If you step forward with the remainder of your courage
that you carry in your belly like a treasure

One day you will you will bump against
the wall of the fortress of your future.

Sister, you placed your hands on me
embraced that busy place of disappearing
day after day
up the steep path
and I am gone.
Free with my burdens.
Joyful at the load of work
and released to make my way
toward that strong wall
above the tree line,
above the cloud banks.


I don’t need to practice
or have you point to the next path.
You have already shown me the way home
and I am singing my way there.

Jailbreak


It’s time to break out -
Jailbreak time.
Time to punch our way out of
the dark winter prison.
Lilacs are doing it
in sudden explosions of soft purple,
And the jasmine vines, and ranunculus, too.
There is no jailer powerful enough
to hold Spring contained.
Let that be a lesson.
Stop holding back the blossoming!
Quit shutting eyes and gritting teeth,
curling fingers into fists, hunching shoulders.
Lose your determination to remain unchanged.
All the forces of nature
want you to open,
Their gentle nudge carries behind it
the force of a flash flood.
Why make a cell your home
when the door is unlocked
and the garden is waiting for you?

- Maya Spector