It is good to travel alone, to venture into my being
no people to distract me
no vision of tomorrow to blind me
nothing but
me
and everything I neglected to feel together in one room

my body naked in the morning rising
to shower, rinse and pat dry
my headscarf over my wet hair
the peeling of an orange
the boiling water inside the kettle
my willingness to face the day

I send photographs to my mother
she calls me her butterfly, her bird
her brave girl
on a wall of my old room she
had painted “fly “

and I think back to being five years old holding onto her leg
scared of letting go on the first day of preschool
anxious to swim in the ocean for the first time
shaking at the thought of rock climbing

I thinking back to her smiling
telling me to go and be free
this her greatest gift in this world bundled in words of encouragement often too harsh
she used to get mad, that at first I would not take it
but I know I treasure it
her toughness, her zest, the courage it takes a mother to open her palms

my nakedness to feel, the nabi flying
                    my obsequió is
meu vida pra ser quem sou

I know that I don’t know
and that whatever I am is big enough to hold all brokeness and large enough to absorb all sorrow
it is all encompassing
living in the rocks and in the leaves swaying on the branches of the trees

I know that I do not need to know

le dije que ya no muero
que algo en mi despertó

que siento la vida surgir desde mi costado
un punto definido y la totalidad de la inmensidad
a la misma vez uniéndose
enlazados en la misma cosa

mi ser está en este mundo
mi cuerpo sobre esta cama
pero yo no me habita la habitación

es que desperté del infierno y desperté del paraíso
desperté
es que desperté un mañana profunda, una mañana clara, una mañana sin ninguna ilusion desperté de un gran sueño
dónde todo estaba dividió ahora
todo es

The doors’ music plays from the speaker at a pub near namsan tower and friends point at me “L.A woman” and we laugh.

when I first listened to this song I was 13
i guess I am a woman and I am from L.A

Are you modern poetry and am I translating you
can I run my fingers ever so slowly until I remember you so well
that from your skin I can craft an alphabet
are you
life so exquisite and voluptuous
that I cannot get away from you without wanting to write you ****** free verse or an ode to your blades of grass
a sonnet to your beloved sea so pristine when it glistens
that instantly I fall back in love

what about it does not make me weak at the knees? You just keep surprising me.

How is it life that I came to you ?How did I get this lucky?

What is birth and death as I hold them ? Are you really in between them ?
or have you always been there ?

they told me People who  buy books are older
they have money to spend on them
they have been around the mill
saw some wooden wheel of some sort turn and “know” they are “suppose” to know
But when I see them I wonder what kind of knowing they have settled for

Is it this knowing that build stairs and curates nature so that you walk down the same stairs
why
why must nature must be called wild
and why is
our wildness to be left out on the curve to wither like a patch of grass that no one dares water
why if nature’s accomplishes all in its timely manner would wild be chaotic
if nature accomplished all with grace
look at your hands
look into your eyes of your loved one is it a feral field of darkness, desolate and riveting blood,
has all hope and beauty been lost
why do you hold in disdain nature and call it “wild”

It was added to me this sweet scent of summer that accompanies random days when the thought  of your smile makes me smile and cry simultaneously
reverence for life means
to hold in your arms the painful and soft

resignation that smells of a stagnant room fills and so does love and so does sorrow as does loss as does self respect as does truth