1.
Her name is  like a fine diamond,
clear,
every which way the sun hits her
she shines
letting everyone know why with so much love
her mother laid her against her chest,
since small
and called her Crystal
2.
"******" screamed the nasty Idaho boys
during the town celebration.

3.
Aberdeen Days,
a fixture that seemed needed
to adorn a town's narrative
of property claim,
scattered people in a small town park
bunched them up in cliches
and incubated 'people among their own people'

4.
"..." silence were the words she used.  Cage's 4'33
playing


5.
The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968
Mills v. Board of Education 1972
The Higher Education Act of 1972
The Americans with Disabilities Act 1990
flutter in U. S history.


6.
Four butterflies over my aunt Berta
and my cousin Crystal's head  
ever radiant under the beams of the sun
words unable to dimish beauty  
as they walked across the lawn to join
Byron, nothing impeding her too
from walking in that beauty
like the other girls in the park square

You sleep in the next room tenderly
splayed out like an elegant silk dress

while I sneak  out of bed to write poems
in dim oven light

tomorrow we will see Jung Seob Lee paintings, I haven’t told you why I want to go
(He reminds me of you)

May the day soothe you and bring you all the strength you need
pour into your being how ever many cups of sweetness are needed to balance out the sour taste

May the day remind you, you are capable of whatever dream, you wish to reach for
that your years have grown your roots, so there is no need to worry; even from afar I can see you’re a tree that can weather storms.

the blossoms were pink and iridescent
I painted them purple and added blue
hues to the trunks of trees
the tip of my round brush swirled
like the petals caught in the breeze

We should see each and think brother, sister– earthly kin.

Love our kin so deeply that when they survive
the unkind acts that do unfold
in life we sit with them and cry

May we love our kin so deeply we become even more courageous and emboldened
to stand in the door way if they wish to seek revenge

Walk them through their pain
to understand their hate and sorrow because the wick of  hatred will burn them distort & corrode them burying
the thread between the world and them melting away
their peace–their heaven on earth surrendered
if they walk through that door

Mi corazón tiene aliento a vida y sol
en los días cuando se repira calor
El céfiro por dentro refresca mi existir

Por fuera la luna, luna
está en resplandor

Hoy vuelve a morir Lorca
y el manto cubre a mas que una cara
en más de un país bajo esta misma luna
Vivimos

Hoy frente al monitor el deseo de dejar los barcos de Kaufman zarpar
existe profundamente en el mar de nuestra colectiva conciencia

En tu corazón existe aliento y una vida con una sol.  
El céfiro mueve barcos.
No importa si salle la luna, luna

I stand in the shower with lavender fields in my chest

how do I scrape off the muck, scoop out the loathing
and take off the gloves to pick up the patches of fear
that periodically gather at the base of my shower drain  

how do I heal each limb so that with majesty
I awaken knowing
full and bright that I am a child with wings
and elevation is the right song that pours out when I dream
an inheritance marbled into my being’s skin
                              …
how does a child beget forgetting
how does an adult continue such forgetting

what is the suchness of wholeness
whose scent of remembrance seems mythically far
but its verity present within our plot

                              …
our hands reaching for the bunches of lavender
that can be gathered from a bountiful field
a calm whiff of what we truly are
that can send us back into an infinite space of fruitful life
cusping possibility
                            ...
portable pastures inside our homestead
running water
and a chance to be cleansed
what suchness of being over my body  
how ecstatic
how simple to stand under the showerhead 
on the toes of today
with a meadow in my chest

Believe that there is something bigger than you
And if you cannot fathom that thought
sight
Think of a redwood tree,try to hold it
And realize you cannot


Let its massive
Unholdableness
Seed its likeness in you

wholesome love sits here
in the many "may's"
in the hope for what can be cultivated
and in the hope of what can come about

in the staircase of thoughts
and in the apex of

              /\          \               /     /\  
            / s \          \   self  /     / s  \
          /  elf \          \  lo- /     /  elf  \
        /      -    \          \ve/     /  -acce \
      /   value  \           \/     / ptance  \
                            
                      
            
stacked up against each other in the form a trapezoid

               \            /\           /
                 \solid/&\stro-/  
                  \    /  ng \     /
                    \/            \ /

we share mantras her and I, sisterly maneuvering through this life

"We want to feel better" & "we want to be better",
...and so we set about finding the right equations
stacking meditations upon visioning upon affirmations upon counseling upon books of poetry, and teary-eyed artworks that carry our twisted knots that do not undo with words or the spitting out of crunched up syllables onto the ground

so we make shapes, some geometrical like the ones above

When will there be no table
just people gathered in a circle

3 ways to say this earth is really beautiful

I want to cusp your soil in my hands
I fancy the touch of your moss
Are you earth because my eyes see “art” in you

I had the sudden thought “...and I’m the thing he doesn’t mind losing”

It was a little tornado of thought that I quickly put inside a mason jar and placed on a wooden shelf in my living room.

I sat on the couch across from it observing it and watching it stir.

“What a thought”

How destructive it could be to let that little storm out. It could grow and it’s winds could slowly start to peel off the walls and start to take down the roof.


So, I closed my eyes, cupped my hands and I thought of your smile–warm and tender. When I opened my eyes, a seedling had grown over my left palms.

“How beautiful”

I contemplated putting it in glass encasement, to watch it from afar, but instead I decided to take it outside and plant it near the middle of my front garden.

“This is what I want to cultivate” a flourishing sprout of life; a garden of plenitude.

I hear the rattling
the noise inside
and I wonder what nourishes it...
too many cold days didn't awaken it
and neither did the days when the heat's haze lay itself
pink over my face, so what makes it shake it's tambores  

give its songs volume
rank it up high enough, so that I cannot ignore it ?

when I find something that makes it louder
I turn towards its direction and I do not waver
I do not know why it calls me,
but now you know why I chase it

Get ready lovely being.  It may get rough and there will be some tumbling but your spirit  is strong enough and your heart is kind enough that it will love you consistently through the toughest terrain.

Sifones  que mantiene el gran charco de las emociones, están sobre el estante.

De lejos veo solo mi pared repleta de repisas.

Contemplo si uno de estos frascos quisiese yo hoy bajar

Hace mucho tiempo que en este cuarto de mi casa no me encontraba la sensación de ser un lucido espectro, pero quizás si lo era porque daba la coincidencia que sólo recordaba ver mis manos en las veces que me acercaba  a tocar un tarro.

May you soar whether you can see a crowd or a crow from the corner of your eyes.

Constantly, may you see the sky and take it to it–all flight is nature’s miracle and so are you.

If our line of flight crosses or never does overlaps matters not. Let us be two fleeting flapping winged creatures for now

We hold our traditions as our ways to life
in our pocket books
in your our palms pressed together
in our sutras
in our rosaries
In our myths
in our stories of creation

We place devotion in whatever path our heart has been lead to and with devotion
we find where they truly lead. To now and it infinitesimal  wisdom and unity

The blue sky and scent of cosmos flowers are crispy
like the brown leaves that begin inaugurating autumn

I see lines of periodic motion caved
by the birds dancing overhead

When they look at us , those birds, do they notice our lines- our traversed geography made  obvious by our commutes

Does one of them know the shape of the line your steps make ?

I pay my dues with each poem

It feels like I took one deep breathe and never exhaled until now.

I have laid lilies at your door, close your eyes and smell them; there is nothing pretentious about them.

There is no bill enclosed in the greeting card nor needle tucked between  the stems. It has been a gesture of love, simple things that grow
like moss on rocks and pearls in oysters

I have laid them gently, made a horticulturist of myself

I have worn big hats and ventured into my own fields
to snip the loviest of the bunch –and in my basket I always gather for two.

One for my kitchen table and the other one for you

I run at night and try to jump like a doe towards the sky (it’s the closest on land that I get to a dolphin jumping out of  the great horizontal-ness of  its own life

Under the moonlight
could my two feet multiply into four

At the peak of outward youth  
should I breed

what but love and kindness is better to breed in this world

my tongue feels heavy,
like to write is to drag one heavy damp
rag across a desk that's getting dusty

do I still make sense
because it surely doesn't make sense
to use a wet rag before you use a duster

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

Despite all the sorrows, I love the first ominous eye blinks
that come with my body’s rising
to meet this new day; they signal
I am alive– I take the gift of open knowing they must close. Blink. Blink. All material lives close. Life, my life a blink in the cosmic morning. I blink starring out the window, how much I love this life even this monsoon storm.

I awake with you asking me the same questions, and I answer truthfully and then I cry.
But I don’t know if I cry of joy or sorrow because before I can take another breathe the dream is over and you are sleeping next to me. And the dream is a piece of yarn that unravels me into waking life where I don’t have the courage to answer you truthfully.

the first time I hiked through the forest at night I was frightened And then, I just decided i could not remain scared
I trusted the bark was bark
and if I stretched my hands out  I could touch the solidness of a tree
and I trusted that the ground was ground firm beneath my feet that it would
support me and not suddenly give way
opening like a trap door
I trusted that my ears would hear
I trusted
so now I must trust that the heart
can feel ( what is truly real)

When you pick courage from your mother’s garden
don’t pick the rock, pick the flower if you must leave your home and venture onwards

dont be scared that the flower will wither and you’ll be left courageless. It will dry and take a new form, but it will be with you.  Please  don’t worry that dry flower will last long; long enough to accompany one human lifetime-maybe even more.

To the quiet tiles and the slow rocks
that are
to flesh over bone that is
To the body and the mind that are time bound
and to the cosmos in my being which are not
The dweller, the dweller cannot die because it was never born ☺️

My world is not shiny, in fashion
or trendy
it belong to the slowness
of revision in a tiny room
alone with my hand over
a piece of paper
the cup of tea close to me is
a pool of fragrant words ready for alchemy
the blanket a sweet resting
spot where I  “San Francisco- burrito” myself  until I am completely  wrapped in it.

There are two quilts of stories woven and hanging between you and I. You cannot see  the layout of my thoughts or their coordination with my actions.Nor can I see yours.

You see the quilt. The same quilt from years ago. The stories blow in the wind and as does your hair . The same dead ends come up one after the other like roads signs as you drive into the highway of the past.

One question, two questions, ten questions and perhaps you would understand. Perhaps all could fold their quilts and see clearly what has been blowing behind the fabric.

A million splendid subs could not quench my hunger for words so I tried to look outside “when the spirit catches you” pages and found life more alluring than any page
for creative then any hand to pen

The prosperous will grow from your left
palm
ravaging the earth skin of your hand
and becoming a volcano that bursts into a beautiful biennial

Your nails will know themselves as leaves and the misery will no longer undo you

You will feel the profoundness of your years
and calmly you will water yourself
and with the fecundity of your acquired patience
you will give rosettes

and I in that second year
will be back
to see you in bloom

It seems this week has taken to its own will
chased me down the hill into the prairie as it came close
to lunchtime
–the starving lads crying–
the whetstone ready
its hands skinning my lips,
for once I am glad
there are no feathers
anywhere close to my mouth
–at least I can keep my wings

I just needed
solitude to move my aching willowed heart
to drop another seed just outside the periphery of my shade

Where a newer dream would have enough sunlight to flourish
and  burst as a sprout through
the  darkness of rich moist tears and acidic soil to became a sapling growing

I have asked the dropping branch
not to yield it’s snow like it yielded its leaves

I had it under control. I had just spent 3 hours reading, indulging my mind and then it came like a giant wave. Knocked me off my feet
all cliched, down to a bench
My watery guts running down
my twin cheeks

“****” I screamed.
But I knew exactly how I “gut” here.
However, this didn’t make feel any better.
how many ***** can you scream until it gets remotely better.

One was enough for me today.
One calming “F” bomb.

Hoy me e cansado
de alejarme
de no buscarte
de pensar que el no tomar tu mano
significaría no tener que cargarte


Pero mírame aquí, agotada
reconociendo
descubriendo
que te he cargado desde el cuarto de las golondrinas

es por eso que me encuentro exhausta
viendo pájaros volar fuera de mi ventana

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

Seré una marinera Mari,
Una mujer que rema
sin timón
penarán me
errabunda

Eternamente fuera de quicio,
dirán que nunca lo tuve

pero cómo la corriente no cesa
tampoco mi remar

When I stir the ***, I am happy with the scent of every ingredient that I have poured into my life, of every version of that stew that slow cooked until now.  

I am not saddened, ashamed or ******* my hand that poured in salt.

I begin to feast.

por amarte se me partio la lengua en dos
el lado izquierdo una rosa avenida larga capaz de querer tu manos y saboriar el manto humano de tu cuerpo encajado sobre tu alma  

el lado derecho igual, bajo mi paladar sensible a tu tacto
se rindo pues es  incapz de juzgarte  

aveces pienso que parezco aserpiente por quererte
y me hace querer inventar nuevos mitos
pues cada mito de mujer y culebra me roba la lengua

I look at the decorative paper with colored illustrations of moths. They’re beautiful–why don’t people write more odes to moths? A moth is free.
The moth just like the butterfly comes to know flight, but when it’s sedentary it rests with its wings open unlike the butterfly. Why don’t we champion how it waits within this state of openness.
How when the moment comes it’ll be closer to readiness.

I look back at the many drawings on that same thin sheet over my desk and I want to cry. I guess I’m staying here a little longer; I will sit and rest like a moth–
preparing until I, too can take to the skies.

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

From one gut wrenching moment to the next you breathe, you breathe, you breathe
and listen–to the bird’s song and water trickling until the leaves become leaves and you become you, again

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

I would like a night left alone with poetry
when the darkness of the sequestered  wishes that went ungranted swirl above the root of their conception
where all ill is met with the frankness needed
to climb a mountain in which the elevation is high
the feelings dizzying enough to make it easier
to want to trek down

I would like a single night to be multiplied  into months and years that chip away the ice top peak of such quiet black midnights
hidden at the crescent moon of my experience

I will write until there is nothing left of me until everything is poured out and given. Until it’s over: these hands &   their warmth.
Until someone else comes to let us know what their world has been too
Until my writing is of no need in a world of peace
in a world of beauty
in a world of compassion
Until we have conquered no one’s land except that of our own mind and laid eyes on the cruelty and ailments just as much as on the kindness and cures inside us

Make the decision to see all and pick to nurture only what will bring peace on earth.

In my pit of sorrow
I grew wings looking at you

the flight of winged sparrows above
me common to the city dweller was a miracle  to me

my once in a lifetime
sets like a sun over me
as I learn to love
someone else slowly

the emptiness of a room spoke
to me. For over a year, it dragged
me into a closet, it buried
me in winter sweaters, ruthless
wired bras, and band shirts reminding
me of him

my once in a lifetime sorrow sinks
into the past as I reach
for someone else’s hand, grasping
tenderly I see my sun rising

it is now a once in a lifetime thing, too