I compose poetry on the subway
on my phone

People think I am texting

I think they are texting
Maybe they are writing poetry, too

Abrupt is the formicidae’s descend
into plummeting disapproval

this brisk ant mountaineering
over the hot terrain of my left foot

Is  not brushed off by my partner hand but my his fear of  a “crawly thing”

…
I tell him of my childhood-
alone in the garden with the animals - my mother in our home depressed- the plants and the insects were my friends.

I used to play with ants.
…

“ a life is a life no matter how small” i read in one of Dr. Seuss’ books. I would look at myself in the mirror– a worn out pink stool below my small eight year old feet. I was  in the third grade, but I couldn’t sit with my bottom on the chairs. If I did only my eyes and forehead would rest above the table. I so I began to sit over my knees and propel myself forward when I needed to grab my rolling pencil. Small hands reaching forward.

…
What is it about small things that makes someone try to dominate them to try and tell them where their place should be. When I saw the ants so steadfast move through their course I started to tear.
…
I realize now why, why I couldn’t let him step on the ant after brushing it off. Why I take take insect out of my office or my home in Tupperware.  

My life, their life  and our lives are  miraculous even if they are brief, even if from above we seem like those ants  scattered over green and brown splotches of earth; our cars lined on an overpass mimicking their lines.

(there is not such things as a small life)

**** cool

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