I could feel the difference
between a thin strand of hair
and a thin thread of spider web

I do not want to have the same seasonal wardrobe fashion
that everyone else has
I do not want the trendy jewelry
or to  make the same pose in front of a camera
I want clothes I can wear that suit
my mood
earrings with a story behind them that you can hear  
a candid that captures corner smiles

Frankly,I do not want to be anyone else
you can take
the “fit in” trophy and put it on your mantle because I am glad, glad, glad
Gleeful and cheerful that  I get this opportunity
To live and  to walk in this skin
with these gifts and this inner light

At the foot of a mountain, I come to bury the ashes of all my past lives. I come in joy to lay down what sorrows were of old
to empty my heart as if it were a pail of water to be soaked up by the earth below me

to build another mount to honor all the challenges that like rocks struck skin
those difficulties that winded across time and felt like chains
but that were really sections of a map
that were really my healing under a long period of time  
that were a gift worthy of receiving

I come to sing and play and love and be under the moon by the mountains as I commence the burial of all which weighed me down

He has a life line that runs right across his entire palm
so his grandmother used to tell him he would do great or fail great
( we all fail great if we live long enough and do great if only we can see how stupendous our simple acts of courage and kindness are)
He listens when I am

angry because my ego (my little I, my concept of “me” with all its stories is in full gear) activated dancing circles around my sanity,

sad because I cannot see past the veils of ecstasy and sorrow and peer into reality (where these is no story attached to anything, a pencil is pencil, ) for that moment,

hopeful that the small caterpillar hanging from the tree will survive and enter chrysalis ,

goofy dancing  good bye as the train doors close and he’s off to his home  and when I talk his head off about the albums I have been listening to (most recently everything Branford Marsalis has played on)
at the foot of the mountain and ask that he please be my climbing partner.
                He hikes. He hikes  though the forest in summer with me despite the inevitable  encounter with his arch enemies (the mogi) the mosquitos 🦟

stretching my hand out he reaches for it and we take a long peaceful walk

The Sierra Nevada is a dwelling
for the old limbless sages
rooted firmly into the ground  
three thousand years slid off their annual needles
like rainwater in front of them I disappear into the fog; there together 
   We meet like old lovers while outside
  the others cut tree trunks and ask for more lumber
     And of me demand  my hands and their labor
They want our lives to be spent for them but in the mist alone we know that the clearest things can be hazy amongst but not lost in the madness of our cultural weather

“You can love the whole world” floats from up to the surface from the ocean in my chest

I can love the whole world within
me–the love affair commences
in the  limitless heart there we are introduced
so eager, so light and meaningful such small fleeting things are like a smile, the sound of steps and the tips of another’s  cold hands warming when you cusp them to try and hold them although they are like water destined to change and move along without you

These are the girls that dream
one speck of dust turns into a planet
orbiting their soul