When you wake up
wrap yourself in brilliance
it does not matter if yesterday was hard
if this whole month or this whole season
has been difficult for you,
has pressed your face against cold glass  
you are still here
and  just as unexpectedly as sorrow came
so can joy

find your gleaming cloak of hope
of laughter or liberation
and laugh and cry if you need to
but carry your brilliance with you

I wax like the moon
the water in my body
feels like an uprooted planetary mass
subject to rotation and cycles
bathed in an ocean of time

Aveces me enamoro de los puentes
fácil y fatalmente frecuento lagos de ideas
en esos charcos anchos me gusta salpicarme en el <<quien habrá caminado estos rumbos con solo tiempo como el factor de lejanía entre nos >>

The jazz became part extraordinary
swinging into my ears
leveling my mood and the uneven picture frames of the past hanging within my mind needing of proper straightening of care and of being carefully hung to show my immense gratitude for what was

It is about timing
and the willingness to act
I had the willingness but never the timing

Half of it is grace and the other is your own hand

I am walking into the light
into a reawakened life
into the vast colors and into
my own fullness
brilliant and unobstructed
I rest in life
here in this place and at this moment
I will choose to see the brimming cup
and hold back the tears of joy
because I made it back
back to myself
thanking little limbs for walking me
thanking my soul for not leaving me
thanking my heart for daring with me
here in this place and at this moment I choose to linger in my wholesomeness

Poetry whirls around me
and you will blow in like a leaf
And we will twist and turn
swirl in a leafy tornado

**** playing it cool
**** stoic faces
**** stiff limbs
you and I will dance
and the music will end all of time and drown out everyone except you and I

My duty is not to suffering
or to a half lived life

My duty is not to complacency
or to self pity or  to “woe is me”

My duty is to releasing all the
“ it’s not that bad” descriptions from my life because anything I describe with “not that bad” is not good enough –not if I want a meaningful and fulfilling life

“it’s not that ..:”must be replaced with “ I am blessed to have this” with the sweet sensation and utterance of “wow, I am so lucky” this is the space I am creating
that is my intention, that is the life I am working on having

I am opening the door to all things that bring joy and all the possibilities of a deeper more authentic life that overflows from my core
onto this daily altar that is my life

finally, i understand peace is a price too high to pay. continual compliancy is not a sign of consistency or of love. indifference is more painful than goodbye, and forgiveness is not something many are willing to do just as compassion is a muscle so is letting go so is admitting to seeing the steps you took of your own free will to destroy your own self worth. simple and benevolent the truth will find you scrape at your insides, stick its finger in your wounds
and reveal what still aches

you must look at things for what they truly are
just as naturally as sunset comes to the day
you will face night; call it “night” no need to wrap it up and make it tidy

There is no need to churn the wind or try and turn morning light into thick butter

No need for truculent mirages of the internal dialogue to command the noon

breaking into the present with all your heavy layers of guardedness
will not suffice for tranquillity and true amity

We find courage when it feels like there is none

The expansive space of adequacy that stirs
along side the deepest most naked reflection
a mirror could give
greets us

Now, from here is a good place to set forth
from here forgiveness brims and you perceive
we are all just **** under all these garments

I am up waiting for the inauguration
sleep cannot come yet
I am too full of need
the necessity to see

Who is to know
folding inward
and outward
my whole body is a pulsing heart
and you have got it
in dreams
and in life brown eyes

When I dream of  you I wake up content but when I turn my head and look behind my shoulder the room is empty.

Do you love me ?
Am I a crazy, odd, silhouette of a girl

You are not here to respond. Is that the answer?
(who can be sure; time swirls in my belly and I bend like a branch in the wind)

I am speaking beauty
into your heart
loving brown eyes
glowing smile
grazing cow

I am speaking warm sunlight
and bathing calm waters
into your heart

My dear
all is well

Even if I am too shy
I run to you
today I woke up
wanting to speak out loud
these words
in hope they would ride the air current and something would reach you

We are recovering
I am growing wiser
We are becoming kinder
I am every other human being
We are finally breaking the divide
You can be honest with me
We are not scared to be seen for who we are
You can make mistakes
We are falling deeper into life
and into our beating hearts

I open up the gates and let down my guard
May joy not be impeded may it flow like a river
I am so tired of trying to hold back the waters of trying to police my mind
I feel the way I feel
Care for what I care for
And I love who I love
I open up the gates may joy fill us

My high school was on Martin Luther King Blvd across the street from the Los Angeles colosseum, the sports arena and the Exposition park
I spoke your name so many times when telling my aunt on which street to drop me off when my parents where too busy to take me to school, when telling the pizza guy where to deliver the food, when asking the bus driver “Does this bus stop near MLK boulevard?”

Your name like your legacy permeated the streets on the other side of town and was carried on the tongue of the urban fleet
of feet commuting, living, making a dime, trying to spread visions of a loving world

we inherit your words and they are gifts and we honor them today
I am happy your name never left
it enveloping
humanely birthing hope
in us it remains

I think of ways I can brighten my own day
today I stood on a an escalator as Crowded House played on my phone and for the remainder of that descent
down the moving stairs
to the underground subway line 9
I fell so deeply into life that I couldn’t help but smiling at everyone and tapping my feet
and I was reminded of how much I truly love life
of how good it is to fall into the moment

I thought of ways I could live in this moment and create the joy I always wanted in my life and suddenly
without much thought my inner climate became just that as I rode on a mundane staircase the destination found me
And I might not know how all the pieces fit together but I do not need to know

Dear
I think of ways I can be close to you
without betraying myself respect
but my brain is still loading
like that of an old 90’s Macintosh
the kind I grew up with

I want there to be beauty in our hearts
that we can dream dreams beyond our lifespans
so that we are inclined to plant kindness
and nurture gentleness
and continue to see the loveliness of life
as we ripen and become more confident

and less interested in comparison
and more focused on what will open up
the well of joy within us

I want to be better because I knew you
I want to be better because I walked this earth with you

I do not want anything to go to waste

I leaned my head all the way back and watched the snow fall to ground
magical
nothing less than magical

I love you, but you never came
I just sat here surrounded by buildings
and people in a neighborhood
within this big, big city
having left it all
and having bought my one way ticket here

I love you, but you have not come
and I have started to memorize the names of street and buildings
within the old neighborhood market:
I know what stand sells what
–having walked into all of them
and having peeked into the busy ones

I love you, but you still are not here

I am trying to listen to the poetry of my life stacking all the coincidences on top of one another
taking the most random of details and connecting them like dots over

I have come to accept crazy hair days
as my everyday hair-day condition
I awaken with some curls at the top and some wavy strands in between, and then some straight ones
All of these paired with a voluminous bounce magnify the chaos of it all
and make me look like a little lion emerging from her blue-green duvet cave
in need of stretching and in search of food

I do love you, and whenever that truth settles into me I ask myself
so what is the kindest thing I can do for him?
I ask myself over and over again and I wonder if am  I wise enough to know
attentive enough to listen to life’s whispers

The soil ends at my skin
How could any other human being not be found
amongst the traversed path of that tie
You tell me where they begin
and I end
and I will place the ground’s earth into your hands
and kindly smile at you
There we will become two kids
standing over the blacktop in our neighborhood playground
awing terra firma

It is your turn to be open of heart
to come and be vulnerable
to reimagine what else could be
it is your turn to be sincere
your turn to find me human, and still
love me and tell me this simply by sitting quietly next to me
by showing up all flawed and all

I waited for you to write, to call,
to share a song, to share a moment
it was odd
months, days, hours in reverse

“Hope”called by many names
is the true muse
–it is the bird in our hands–
a torch passed down on this long and arduous journey

our desire to light the next one
and dispel the cold nights of hate is vehement
we cradle, what is to come

I thought of our drunk nights in L.A.
how without fail we would go to same 24 hour cafe and we always would end buying ourselves and the person asking for a meals outside the place something to munch on.

I thought of you yesterday when I could not pass by a person with a cardboard box and a few won in it, in middle of winter.
“It’s so cold”
I turned back around, and put enough in the box so they could have a meal and cup of coffee.
I know we said long ago we would buy people meals, but he was asleep and I was making my way from Asia park to my home in winter
–both of us were cold

we cradle, what is to come
so let us not hold back our visions
and our kindest of dreams

“Hope”called by many names
is the true muse
–it is the bird in our hands–
a torch passed down on this long and arduous journey

our desire to light the next one
and dispel the cold nights of hate is vehement
we cradle, what is to come

The things we dare to do
are magnificent
as simple and as noble
as opening our hands

risking blistered feet and the very possibility
of being hurled to the cold floor of our own cynicism
but there
where hurt and the outline of despair arise
the sun still seems to make its trajectory across the sky

and although nothing seems in place, the things we dare to do quietly are in awe of us
as we gather all our hanging parts, and lift our heads

Sleep with love in your heart
tomorrow is a new day
rest, close your beautiful eyes

Dear love could you see me with new eyes too
could we clear the slate and I could I love you
as I have always longed to love you
I forgive and I wish to walk down the narrow streets with you

I call a new dynamic into place
a loving
nourishing
appreciating love
that expands because it is fed
who knows of devotion

And wherever it abides
–becomes the very home of love itself
All are welcome to it's cove
to be a good resting place when times are hard
Love that inspires more love

I call a new dynamic into this year
So I turn to myself
And ask " are you ready to be more:
loving
nourishing
and appreciating?”


I smile at my reflection; little lady with some bright dark eyes
I feed my body, sleep and make sure to clear my mind with mediation and prayer
I hold the my limbs in the bathtub and rub them
thank you for walking me down all those roads
New dynamics are here unfolding
opening their hands and gently leading you forth
I try to pay attention to the whispers

I reach like a flower towards the sun
just as I did the first time I opened my eyes

I have not given up on tying to reach
for the rays of sunshine
and the for a loving tomorrow

I love to see how life flourishes
everywhere it finds a way to thrive
I love looking at the same people with new eyes
I love getting older. I love forgiveness and I love that we are all
not the same

I have to sit with all my “I don’t knows” until I know –until a clear answer emerges.

I tried to tell you
I loved you
in all the ways
I could
now it just lingers
on my lips
soundless

Some days I feel you, right in the center of my chest. I do not know how else to describe it.

I look at the trees with reverence; I look at the cats running across the street with eyes of reverence, eyes of reverence behold small  flies but what about the mass of skin and mystery that is me?

I should revere this lifetime, this instrument, this life –anything less is lack of love

For L

You were wild. They were not too keen of wild womyn and less of wild girls. I was rather reserved. Quiet but always strong willed.

If I said I would come, you knew I would show up
And you, your sister and your mother loved me
–and I you

the first time I moved away you came to help me pack
I kept the picture we took on that day  
Your short purple hair and my frizzy locks
Everytime I am home you embrace with so much love I forget time has passed

For KJE
She is wild too. they tell her to love someone else and she says no. While riding her  bike she came to the realization that loving another womyn, and choosing to spend her life with her was testament enough that she was “not so bad”. She could have chose  something easier, something as simple as marrying a man. But she chose to live in the land of the morning calm and ride her bike though mangwon- do with her love

For NL
She is the quiet kind of wild, closer to mine. She does not talk much but she feels the world as if it were an extension of her. Her long golden hair. Her love of animals and her gentleness soften anyone in the vicinity. Countless times I have been in awe of her depth. I swim there with her and she swims there with me. We grow expanding like two foam growing capsule lizards. Who knows how much we will grow but we are willing to find out

For AC
Car rides, records stores and synchronized dancing to “Yo La Tengo” running through sprinklers in the middle of the night
swimming
concerts and sketching, Co-op sandwiches and poetry readings
She call herself a full time goblin. She embraces what others think makes her un lady like and she is not apologetic for being who she is–a force of nature

For DR
You are firm. You are the kind of woman trees envy. The kind that is rooted and grows evermore into her own beauty. When you dance your eyes light up and you giggle and sway your branches.

my sister she carried the light into my hands
with each of her strong unmovable
words

Light of mine
I hold on dearly to you

Metaphorical winters
are worse than any sub zero days

Warmth
glinting of the soul
I embrace you with both my hands
and I give this living all I have got

What gifts can I offer
What can I give
I want to make beauty so that it surrounds the human heart
comforts it and wills it to carry on
What can I offer, I ask again
should I draw a hand or paint a beaming ray of light
Should I sing lullabies back to the night

What questions can I ask
What statements can I make
which requests can I utter
Are
Guide me, grow me, make me forgiving and more gentle
appropriate
Do I need more reverence for life
including my own

I do not like stagnation I like rivers and how they naturally flow
I want to make beauty

We all must grow
and we all need to be challenged
to sit within ourselves and face the fear
face what stands in our way  
towards becoming more loving
and at the same time more authentically ourselves

archive past mistakes
and learn to forgive ourselves
for not being wiser
–wisdom is a gift of time
with every experience carved into us
with every partnerships with friends
family and lovers aimed at the growth of spirit
we heal

everyone shows us we are whole
That divinity is our inheritance as they walk us to the door of our own soul


Nothing, no one, no possession is enough –none will ever be–
because you were born complete

There many rivers to be in awe of
wide,life giving, enough to satiate  

I must look at the rivers near me
and know they are just as healing as any other just as birthing and comforting as my most beloved rivers