let your heart settle down, let your years sink in
let the beauty within your heart cleanse you “you are human” and your being loves you for it

I want to write about the way the stars swallowed with matter the emptiness
and how the moons began to orbit the planets and how the planets became
silent floating dreamers
witnessing a red giant’s combustion
the ardent way a life burns bright in the midst of such a universe as our
all inevitably traveling towards extinguishment

It is today I want to write about all the possible impossibles that brought me here
I sitting on an orbiting rock
my chest rising and falling with bones just below flesh and arteries pumping rivers of red blood through me

They are standing on the hills behind me each one
but now I am standing on another

I climbed this mountain up hand in hand with him
this mount that then became a mountain is now becoming an Everest, my love full so full it overflows and drips  as compassion

Look at the very edges of yourself

the wall studs that have always been sturdy
from corner stud to corner stud you have been built well               you are made to fit

each end joist, brace and girder right where they must be
you are harmony and beauty just as you are

Look at yourself every edge constructed with purpose       and the space left in
between purposeful, too

Among my prairie of tears, I planted
sweet corn singing

I miss her

“Who is your favorite Beatles member?”
This was a serious question as she was a self proclaimed Ringo fan, and anything Ringo related  she could get her hands on she did

Some people are just so sure of what they like
of things
of life
that they make you want to questions what you like
They’re like a strong river, and you have to make sure to keep obedient to the nature of your own flow

I remember turning towards her bracing myself to be met with vehement disagreement and saying  “ Harrison”.

“Oh, okay” she said and kept digging around in the crates filled with vinyls

And it is
that this is who I am
I am not chasing
any kind of glory, that I don’t care about being the best at
something worldly I care about being the “ best me”
nourishing my natural gifts in order to share them

I am not competing. I am not running on empty or on misguided comparisons( I save my energy for what matters)

I
already everything I will ever be in motion towards my inner and outward destination
sit calmly because it trust again not a man or a womyn but myself

What someone can take is only a fraction of the real strength, courage and authenticity that flows through me
I am really human, fragile and sensitive to the touch
small and unassuming like all life on this earth grateful for every rotation in this galaxy.

I know what I really am and I call upon it and it calls upon me and we smile together
one in the same
this is what I am

The thin layer of burned bark sits black
over your hand no more hostile

than a passing thought preparing to exit
for a new one to emerge

from the mind’s entrance

Without the piercing
arrow of the night
who is to say
what daybreak is

Mistral en la costa de mi corazón se lleva el noble arrullo y la sigo hacia el un mundo de sueños

every child I see is the light of day
how could they not be

At a dinner conversation she said
she felt relieved to be able to touch her partner’s toe to her own on Sunday nights

She said “I don’t think you can relate”
And I stayed quiet and thought of a life lived years ago
when I woke up with you upstairs cuddled and warm
Your  mother and brother downstairs.
Holiday near Mendocino lake
where I met your cousins and uncles
driving to Bay Area because that is where you grew up and meeting your old elementary school teacher the one you had crush on

waiting for you cross legged on the roof of my car

flipping through cds and vinyls in Berkeley -Rasputin and Ameoba
grocery shopping and you towering over
always having to lean down to kiss me
It seemed like a life lived years ago but it no longer seemed to fit or feel mine so I remained quiet
that girl, that world is outgrown

Toes on a Sunday night
were a gift from a past life

I like to see you smile.
I secretly wish I could keep it in my pocket
like a child wishes to keep light in a jar.

It’s a smile that is covered in joy.
oh, it looks so good on you Brown Eyes.

I have hugged a three thousand year old redwood tree and asked it to remember me
someday  tree will use marrow, absorb my nitrogen,  my iron that I grew accustomed to seeing in my youth drip red drip
every month clearing my ****** to grow its own leafy children
I will be locked in it’s green splendor
come spring and summer
and fall I will die again as I did before, and in winter I will disappear as I have done before o my to defy death with the help of my ringed friend. We together. A redwood in my heart my heart in a redwood

Sometimes it pulsates in pain
and I ask “ is death near?“
but then I think when has it
never been near
from the time
my mother birthed me
it’s been looming
over my head
holding hands with my nativity

when you gave it your whole heart the
baked porcelain shards you picked up from the kiln
tell you
there really was so much there
too much
so much moisture that it expanded too quickly
too fast and you exploded
landed over by the thermocouple
hit the reflective coding at the top of the kiln and
was hurled down to the corner
that pieces of you even hit the center, too
and that others landed over the vases other artists had fired along with yours to bake

your whole heart did not rip or break: it blew open


fell into every part of the kiln, ate space and unwillingly
in a burst realized  expansions

Once and for all it all turned magic
and the girl could see she could not age
and she could not die

that all her loved ones whereabouts
were deep in her heart
because her and them were
one another
It all turned to magic
and the girl danced a calm and grateful dance
as the great spell that plagued humanity dissipated and from her countenance sorrow was lifted  

magical, the world has always been magical

You are carrying the frame an old  brick house of pressure determined
to go in your intend direction
your quest to get ahead
in life blinding
you are too busy to stop and really see
all the growing things
still you ride on with your oversized load over the highway

I am loved and I should soak up the small gestures of kindness by friends and let them marinate. I am loved and able to let unkindness slide off me because it not a reflection of me; other people are my teachers. And no one can take away the love that is  already mine– everything everyone has poured willingly with into my cup. I am loved. I am a bright beautiful being and so are you.

It’s in the small moments you being to steal my heart, scooping it with your hands as if you have known well what it’s like to have an ***** decompose, return to soil, recycled to nourish once again this earth

It’s in the small moments when you play out 1966 salsa albums, Ray Barretto, Robert Roena that homesick in Jamwon-**** near the station in our tiny home, that I the dust begin to rise

that my heart, my being just as immense as all of life, mundane and earthly dances in our small kitchen. how much I love that in your hands you hold me and I don’t sieve through; I get thicker.

This beautiful teeming orbit is not ours to take care of
it is us
“We breathe together”
it is inseparable
you and I
, it –our fate the same

I want life to flourish
and so earth must sing
i want a shift
a second coming of a loving consciousness
not as some man or some messiah (stop limiting divinity to human figure)
but to have us recognize it in the entirety of life in its miraculous omnipresent light that indeed does shine permeating all

It just gets deeper and deeper this
never ending route inward
and there is and less and less  resisting
And I want to laugh with myself in-hand and “say stop just relax. isn’t it nice to just be”:)

Lay down the thoughts that are like smoke
hiding the reflective mirrors of doubt.

Rest your mind well
and ease the racing predictions,
scenarios of doom and possible gloom
that chip away at good things.

Soften your glare,
here,
there is no need to worry,
life has already been so much worrying

This is the point you rest, rest deeply
in your hope

I hand you a flower and you open your palm and place a coal stone

I smile
after many years your flowers were pressed
died and combined
made dark but I do not just see one
I see the bouquet you gave
(The years and the darkness of soil mixed with all the gentle things in your heart)

It could be the stars could fall on me tonight but I think they’d turn tiny if they touched the earth’s ground
where I would pick them up
and place them in a blue plastic bucket

You are becoming more beautiful
not because more people like you
or because more people agree with you
You are becoming divine
because you are in the closet pulling down the cobwebs
In your home, brewing your tea to cultivate moments of attention
in your heart adoring what great effort
you body makes to keep you here
you are beautiful because you try over and over see the miraculous

To all the beauty in our hearts that will never end
to that infinite microcosm pumping
in each lub-dub love is dubbed in physicality
(as is to be expected in this world of form)

My mother would always argue with me. “Why can’t you look nice” “here wear this”

I would smile and wear her dresses with black combat boots. My dad would always laugh.

Bickering. We bickered always over that. She would utter “you are a locked combination box
whose combination I cannot find”
then she’d proceed to laugh and let me out the door with my black lace up shoes.

And if he does not feel the same
I would understand
but I needed to be brave
because it means so much to me
he means so much to me
everyone has got their things( their no to great traits)
but i don’t need someone to put on a pedestal that is not what I am asking for

I am asking to see you further for who you are

I have no intention of ravaging
through the piles and aisles of consumer goods in my mind

No ravenous hands that will do the hunting
deed and feed a primal thirst of mine, aching
to satiate a beast from an old fairly tale

Long, long ago is over. Long long ago in a faraway place
is no longer here and now, there are no beasts
except the ones I indulge and tonight- the room is empty

No high wall outside my window
just a half moon of solitude
and its ray of acceptance shinning through

Sometimes I press my hand to my chest when this feeling comes and I close my eyes
who is it?
who calls me at this time
sometimes it is my mother or my brother
sometimes my childhood friends
sometimes it feels like an older brown eyed man
each of them different strings
but when I concentrate I can work my way back to the source
I don’t know how but I don’t need to know

my dear tender eyes
the smallest things are the greatest things
disguised by nothing
their beauty standing on its own and like truth
it can only be recognized
so my dear tender eyes take my hand and can you feel we are made of that same tenderness that tilts towards love

Somedays I have no words, so I do not send correspondence, instead I send you a silent prayer.

Light and warm, so that it can rise and be carried by the wind outside
where ever your feet roam
and over whatever pillow your head rests

Were there a better way to soften your pillow,
I would
like a massive online shopper at the drag of a mouse and at the click of a button I would choose to check that box

I know I am a distant breeze. And though I wish to come close to you I think I am better off far trying to build a loving life
where I no longer run after you
no longer run after what does not want me

I know I am distant scent
And although I wish to reconcile
and laugh with you
I think I am better off trying to mend myself and build more staircases to my other dreams
where I can find my joy in being of service to others
where I do not run after anything
but instead wander into the right rooms
and truly find that which appreciates me
for being what I am

I know I am just on this earth for as long as this body lasts
And although I wish I could travel the world non stop to see myself in all others
for now I am better off appreciating the small womyn who stares back at me from the bathroom mirror
she too is sacred

What can I do if my tongue does not want to stretch. I boil some tea in hopes that it will loosen its tea leaves unfreeze this iceberg of a lengua
I am an ice picker just trying to carve this **** thing but it is stuck and ten Hail Mary don’t warm it up, two miles along the river do little to exercise it; only my feet feel the distance but where in the world is my tongue–daydreaming in my mouth.I drink more tea hoping that it will be jolted awake by the unbearable heat of my pu’er tea like a woman who feel asleep at the sauna reddened not only by embarrassment but by the sheer heat.

Mind of mine I brought you some rubber gloves, a bucket and some soap. Mind of mine we must dust and rearrange; I know change is hard but bear with me. We must make it a little nicer since lots of our time is spent here. Mind of mine we cannot quit as we get older we must continue to reach for growth, and yes relax a little more. But right now we gotta clean so put on your rubber gloves it’s time!

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

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

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

She is a seamstress pulling
strands of words from the ether
into the wooden loom beneath her

We went surfing as a team of five
out into the water helping each other know when to catch a wave

we floated over the waves
and we fell often,
I fell often
always just 3 feet from the shore
everyone kept trying
and we cheered for each other each time one of us rode a wave

and every-time the waves were too strong that it knocked one of them over like rag doll
I saw their head emerge again from the water their arms reach for their boards
we failed together many times
but still we stuck together
in their bruises a similar purple to the one in mine

“One day at time”
I say to myself
when my eyes redden
and my body feels exhausted
and the bathroom mirror is too close
and reveals me
to myself

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

How magical is life that I still want to open my palms
breathe the dust, pollen,  

and carry flowers from the fields
to my gentle resting place
How magical that we suffer
but that woe is never us

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

Silence as you gasp and before you scream

Silence

A sigh is another place in which one can find the quiet residence of a lexicon

In complete silence women pray;
some do so in the zealous quietude of their rooms
where the silence is like a mime
sending only signs

Silence comes while the musicians wait attentively on their condutor to count them off

Silence is what we endure
when we believe we do not have a tongue


Silence

When a moment is full of beauty our mouths and minds lay cusped in that second’s ineffable existence

Silence

The great friend of fools and the great companion of the wise.

We looked at the state of our nation and there was only silence

what followed was drowned out by all the noise in a place
where there was no room for silence

It is the cool basin of her skin I curl up to i press against my calmest self
and savor the fresh invitation within my own hands

poem writing is a slow art
cannot just cultivate
your mind, you must train
your senses,
your eyes, sculpt
a beautiful mind
and become a deep sea diver coming up
for air at just the right speed

the art of poesy is the art of living
with age more profound

Expect beautiful things: she runs to me and laughs with her usual pink furry sweater.  we combine “my mãe” with some English “let’s go” and head to the door

“my mãe, let’s go!”. We try to make out the door to downtown to meet her divorce lawyer.

for my mãe, mãe
I finished filling out a declaration and 5 other legal documents. Did her laundry, folded her hospital uniforms and cleaned the yard.

She laughs and smiles and sometimes looks off into the distance, my mãe

everyday we try to find something to smile about