it is wild this breeze
                that leaves me       half-tossed
              on the coast
  of my hometown
today it is the clear,    sharpened
chirp
   of a
     bird
       that
        sobers          
           me to
              the world      somedays
                 it's a smile
                    hoisted by
                      a edges
                       of stranger
                        lips
                       other
                      days
                      a boundless
                    certainty
                   of being  
                  I find
               in the               confidence
          of round pebbles
next to rough granite

they begin
to wink
and make
bold comments
they begin
to swing by
and try to squeeze
my hand
or worse
my thigh

I remove
myself
walk into
the other
room
I put
headphones on
take out
my tiny
notebook
& scribble
poetry
in pencil

where is
the someone
who likes
words
like i do
who can
listen
to albums
old and new
from beginning
to end
who asks
about what
moves
me,
what ignites
my eyes  
before their hands
reach for
the *****
of my back

where
are
you

purposefully
hidden
in
this big
ole
world
reveal
yourself  
come full
into your skin

I wish
to know
you

where
are
you

Dear language you hold everything in the  long expanse of your eternal unfurlment  like the cosmos always expanding

We see constellations we have named
being  pulled further apart  
How could the space among planets  feel like the space between us

we sit and look out at your star
the brightest point is still love

It is 11:00 pm and a flock of quacking ducks  break the silence of the night slicing with the tips of their wings the sky

I will give you a bowl with your favorite grilled vegetables, grains, and legumes


I will grow so comfortable that I will take a  sting bean off your plate and replace it with the sun-dried tomato you like

To share your life is to share your bowl skillfully for the purpose of common joy
and nourishment

Tengo que tirar todo lo que pesa del cuarto de mi corazón, una cuchara no sirve para vaciar tu sal ni su arena de mi costado tiene que ser esto, un adiós
un no mirar atrás

Tengo que despegar la goma de mi querer buscar las nubes y seguir el viente que las ejerce que las mueve a otros cielos tiene
que valer la pena el dolor
un no olvidar jamás

Aquí en mi ser te velo, hay una funeral
los gorriones del pasado atienden
pero ahorra ellos y yo cantamos, damos gracias y nos alejamos de ti

long live the birds that migrate
and the people who follow

long live the black bears that adopt
the orphan cubs

long live the grey wolves that repopulate
north of Los Angeles

long live the human kin that stand
next to each other

to protest tyrants, oligarchs, and kings

Friend’s home and laughter/smelling the skin of a passion fruit/ her brother grew/ /coffee beans from El Salvador/we giggle and drink late night coffee


My mother‘s home under foliage/ wind carrying guava leaves / this hour murmurs/ the old earthenware from our people/before they told their names


My home with a desk facing the window/ the books eating ledges/ my dreams are  wolves that cross the desert / silver are the steps of the moon/ still I walk into thirty-two in the green gown

Little twist of hope in my hands this bird feathered and new flies

behind my eyes,  a girl sits with a smile

how simple to be peaceful, how simple to be a smooth pebble but still a sturdy rock

Bless this earth and the people that feed you
The sun that bathes you in light
Bless all teachers that labor with love

Bless this very moment that holds you
How I love you , even as time goes on

Bless the continuation of all their wisdom
because it all amounts to love

To love we kneel And grasp in awe at how it holds up the planets and the stars

It finally started raining, here

in Los Angeles and the first thing we did

was so careless step outside looking

at each other smiling my brother and I

realized that the droplets on our clothes

were carrying the round muck of ash

every day you bcomer kinder


and the slopes of the past are so sheer


that their old painful attendants slide down


without hindrance to you


your grappling with long struck emotions


murky or endless now become your helpers


you can understand and lend a hand


it is yours and you smile because


you can and nothing is too far out of reach


everyday you get closer

Earth is a beautiful place to love and to be loved. To take in a breath and calm the racing of an otherwise anxious heart. To burrow into its crust of time your home, unrepeatable it is this particular morning, this passing into night. Dance to rejoice that earth is your mother. No one can undo this: no man, government, or line drawn with a wooden stick of childish silliness. however much they try you dance for earth is your home. Earth takes a breath, and you, like the magnolias, the jacarandas, and the mesquites, breathe with it. All must know that this here is your home.

The sun rose and with the birds and with you
scooped up in its light
you who toggle out of bed

the sun rose and the plentitude of steps
to the kitchen counter for water become
morning pilgrimages murmuring sweet thanks even when your mind  cannot articulate
its daily gratitude of satiating
your body’s needs

you write about everything because everything is life and so even this still peaceful morning deserves a poem, a morning drink of water.

The things is I need you to build home within you. One whose roof is strong enough to not be swept away with the ill intention of others options or opinions. A roof off of which all situation not deemed safe to keep in the heart are able to slide off as short and noisy episodes of a stormy season. You must build a sturdy home within you. One with a garden that grows you flowers but also vegetables for you to make warm stew. Make home at last for your whole being where no one can run you off. It’s too long to go with out a solid home so now sink your hands deep and do what only you can do. Build your home within yourself. You will not be alone instead the whole world will come to greet you.

here
sit gentle
as the night
prolongs the day

there
sit calm
as the day
absorbs the night

it
is one
this temperate
longing that takes the skies

it
is one
shared sentiment
lingering that breaks stars between light years of nothingness

that drenches
the heavens with silence
so loud that I quietly hear you beyond reason as if we lived in the same house

now
due away
with anger
unfurl your brows and sleep lover
there is no way that I could ever leave you behind


(the world just isn’t made that way)

a wide field as far
as my eye can see
my feet are surrounded
not by the dandelion’s
flowering yellow but
by the second blooming
of its seedling flowers
where thousands of wishes
sit on little stems
waiting to be granted

I had a dream that I found you on the Subway, leaning on a rail guard by the door slouched you said our loved had ended with such sweetness in your eyes that I cupped your left cheek with my hands and smiled

When the doors slide open, I proceeded to put my arm around you and guide you off as you drunkenly made your way out. I knew I would still love you
just not in the same way. If before you had pierced me like a needle, now you were one of the threads that had stitched me. And so I kept smiling

i cannot move the clouds, cannot clean your perception nor open the window’s curtains: you chose the best narrative to keep me in shadow– in life there are tragedies, thing we ache for that the arc of our lives will not give.

yes, that is me on an overcast day under the shadow of your weather, where you have put me in our mind

but as soon as I exit your set; I am the sun

throbs of pain that materialize from the air
i hold my chest,

i try to imagine two warm hands embracing
the heavy iron stakes of sorrow that pierce you and then me

I have learned that to clear the vine of grapes completely with two hands
is an act of love

no misunderstanding, even if the fruit fell
you turn around and pick it up
and with your words you wash them
                                         and make wine

weep if you must, for death is like birth: we all cry but your birth was a flower hidden
in your mother’s chest, nurtured in your grandmothers dreams
Let go—
you will inherit the world if you can inherit
the the fullness of today

my neighbor is named cricket,
she is quiet, pale perhaps in her 70's

my housemate says she lives alone
when you ask her a question she looks

her body softens and she walks closer
then she leaps back after giving an answer

a surface siren of the air
with wings instead of fins
the black phoebe perched
on the wooden fence sings

calls me to the surface
of an aquamarine pool,

“Ah, yes … right.
this water shouldn’t be here. But you should”

This Phoebe is my neighbor
warm and welcoming, who stays
and stares before departing

the crows in  the mountains I used to climb
in Goyang recognize people

if a stranger was on the path on their way to the temple they’d crow three times

When I almost stepped on a snake they crowed repeatedly more than five times
as to warn me

Black Phoebe will you recognize me tomorrow, are we friends ?

I stand on the dirt arena, the matadors are my thoughts and bulls are feelings. Both strong and assertive. I watch them and breathe.

It is about to erupt, my chest over my life
blanketing everything anew

If we wish to be tender then we must accept to be brave.

Marina left and at first I thought she was out picking berries, drifting under the canopy in the forest, but at last the june birds cried and her absence was louder

realizing only then that each step she took
had taken her farther
            My Marina was out of the forest
and although there was no knock on the door and no ring was presented by a striking suitor, I felt
as though at last life had come for her hand

I saw a beautiful man in his late 50’s
with his curtain bangs and his shoulder  length white hair that contrasted
with his tan brown skin

the creases below his eyes looked like holy mountains
And around his lips and under his mouth a thin three day beard let itself  awaken over his chin as well

But the two most beautiful things about him were the glistening of his eyes and the field of calm that surrounded him

I stood up and said “ hello, I want to tell your hair is so beautiful. I am growing mine”and pointed towards my three strands of white hair. He smiled and chuckled a little and said thank you with with a spanish accent.

He reminds me of my uncles, my cousins and the old pictures of my grandfathers.  So beautiful his long white hair.


How beautiful, how I long to remember
when my own set of hair becomes an enveloping white sea against my skin

I could hold a foam sword towards you
but only from a distance must it
look real, this bluff of mine–

unzipping my mouth like a coin pouch
to reveal its teeth would do little
no words would change into a charge of bulls

a faithful distance
for the harmonious well being of an  aging
heart that needs a steady home that I cannot provide, this bluff of mine is played –

adorned with this old regalia of indifference, so heavy it stops me from running to where you are, forgive me—

every time I grow silent and distant it’s a bluff not on you but on me who loves you. The bluff is one me—

I recall winter willows
over playgrounds wisping their smiles
and stretching theirs limbed branches towards me

Whatever should I do,

workin up the courage to knit a sentence or two to make something warm that stretches like their thin arms do
long past me to you

whatever for
winter has passed and summer rages around us


But the round yarn ball is still red, the end of its string has been tied to you

I recognize the longs leaves of the willow and I recognized you
I am sure they were there along before

Just as the seed was there before the thinness of the willow touched so we’re you planted dormant

One sparrow chipped up a storm
from a light post
adjacent to the worn bus stop’s bench
to the patch of grassy forest behind it
then proceeded with its city pilgrimage flight from light post to the grass three more time on the fourth descent,  I
was surprised it landed next to me chirping, I couldn’t not help but say hello and smile

I scrape old paint off of my forehead's wall
I am smoothing it out as we speak
I got a new finish-my words of self-love are the final varnish

in all the in-betweens where i tucked my notes of sorrow
                        I have set little fires that

i move around putting out fires from year to year

Point your eyes at the flowers,
not at the harshness of the rocks
sieve your words and throw away
the ones that clump up with judgements

The one who looks at the granite sharp edges is just as precious as the one that looks at the bellflowers

Las horas son como ciclos de consuelo
que dan vuelta sobre la manija del reloj

la veo- toda mi tristeza en la mano grande de su cara que gira sin parar

Es necesario voltear la mirada hacia otra cosa aunque se la mosca sobre la pared

A turtle dove brings its wings into its sides and dips
beginning it’s a descent into the air below it

like a seasoned diver with great confidence
gliding through the blue

Maybe for some people love quantified by the things your give them or the physical proximity of you to them, what will they do once you die ? Will they think you have stopped loving them?  

Can they feel the world? The way in which birds feel the air currents while defying gravitational law

Are they aware that nothing truly dies?

It is an honor to hold your hand in grief
as it is to hold mine while I weep

It is a privilege to see the books you selected on your bookshelf by hand as it is an honor see the titles that tilt on the shelves of mine

You are sacred and so am I

It is an honor to hear you sing in the morning hours and it is an honor to hear me sing to the falling rain

It is a privilege to enter the sanctuary of your mind and soul- the one you have watered with love, care and delicacy as it is an privilege to be allowed to enter the sanctuary of my mind and soul


You are sacred and so am I

Still maturing…
never too ripe
always eternal
and with one foot
in time

keep your feet moving
and look above at the full moon
it shines like your eyes
but it cannot see itself
how beautifully suspended
it is in time, full always
just sometimes it’s real face hidden
in the shadows

One crane standing
in the shallow river
is enough to make me smile

One passing lifetime
in the depths of my being

The day is beautiful and there is nothing you need hold onto
the pastures are open and what you meet when gaze at your shadow is till a part of you
and all the light that flurries your dreams like a leaf in your chest’s sky is also you

good things are here and good things will come and there will never be an end to good things among heaps and heaps of goodness you will find your name
close your eyes and feel the flutter of it in all in your chest. The day is beautiful—

I think of you and how you carry
too much, even your old house number
is your phone number. actually, I thought that was quite beautiful(what you did:keeping those numbers) one of those human made engravings of poetry
onto the block of life
you are too thoughtful, and full of possibility
do you see yourself as I see you ? Do you know ?

I walk across the overgrown grass and scattered patches of wild flowers with her by the hand
we are going to take a walk together
her small palms are warm
her heart she believes is as big as a dog’s  heart
and she believes her dog is a superhero
who will live forever

I walk with her and promise not to leave her. I kneel down, look her in the eye  and promise to choose her that I will no longer entertain friends, acquaintances or anyone who does not hold her, respect her and see that her feelings and her life matters, too.

I will walk with her, and only those who embrace her with care can embrace me. We will walk and only those who wish to see us and are not ashamed to be seen with us, not ashamed of caring for us
only those who would proudly say they love us with words and with simple gestures will be allowed to come near her

At the end of woods, there is a small path that we will thread and when she is scared and feels responsible for someone else’s thoughts of her, I will remind her that each person must sow their garden of love.

Tell her we are heading toward our garden, planting— that we are walking down the path of lightness and forgiveness and we have no time to stop and take in the illusions of the world. I will tell her we going up to higher ground and only those who dare traverse the depths of their heart with honesty will meet us there

I am still here .

who would love a poet
greedy with words and full of intent
that dissolves into sorrow and brevity
and then at an instant springs
into the delight of joy smothering everything close enough
with such sharp affection akin to a second of piercing recognition,
but one raging like the sun toward a slow unfathomable end

It so precious dear Lily, I want to cry again how the stream bends and the cranes stands still
today, the water deer came with a friend
today, I was honored that it brought a companion. So, I bowed as it customary here to bow to another.

Dear lily, I take it all. The temporary tears, the way in which I cannot hold all but care for all. Lily please tell me the heart is infinite for mine keeps growing and I have the suspicion the whole world is held up by deep love

the way these deers appear when ask the forest to please bring my friend