The Sierra Nevada is a dwelling
for the old limbless sages
rooted firmly into the ground  
three thousand years slid off their annual needles
like rainwater in front of them I disappear into the fog; there together 
   We meet like old lovers while outside
  the others cut tree trunks and ask for more lumber
     And of me demand  my hands and their labor
They want our lives to be spent for them but in the mist alone we know that the clearest things can be hazy amongst but not lost in the madness of our cultural weather

I choose what feels good to me
what feeds my spirit and makes me stronger
I continue to reach with the fullness of my heart forth
and I do not silence that little voice because that is violence against myself;it harms me and then I am no different from someone else who hurt me.

Everytime my mind gets crammed with perceptions and I cannot feel what really lies below it all
I must pause, breathe and realize “I do not know”
I do not know what is true and what is not  so I think I should stop thinking I do
because slowly assumption and stories
can obscure it all

Pieces of me that love you sway in front of me
and it is my first inclination to always hold my hand out
and want to say “are you okay?” it is in my nature and it is because
I care deeply
that no outcome, no gain, no debt, nothing need be collected
it is just my own peace of mind and will to share with you something
as I dram you forgot your jacket
and I knew I needed to return something
give something

I swallow, all the light
in my cup, all the light and hope
my father poured, when
he would take us out
to protests

It feel it ,warm light, traveling
down my throat, my white
ancestors atoning, my black ancestors surviving transatlantic ships
still praying,  my indigenous
ancestor watching their home
burn down and still building
a new one

I swallow all their light, amidst the sorrow…
I must not coward…not now… I cannot …
I drink from their light on days like today

the sun becomes a river in my eyes, engulfing all,  maybe then the majesty
and luminosity of everything will shine
as does the golden beauty of a sunset or of a compassionate word perched on the lips of another
all is possible
why change the lenses, see more pf what is already, sincerely there

I feel like thanking you and if you need to hate me to release and if you need to find me sinful or weird do so
every one has got to do what they think is best with the tools they have
including I
you
everyone

If I could be anything I would still rush back into this body
hold it tight and remind myself how good it has been at helping me write & paint
how it has stretched
stretching its hands into cupboards  to reach for jars
stretching  its hand out to console
and to ask for help
or simply lathering my hair in the shower

I would look at the places we’ve been and thank this body who at times was my only companion” thank you for daring with me” I would say to my tiny feet

**** cool

My mother’s wings would be made of thin iridescent chitin. The kind everyone notices
because they absorb black light and give off a bright blue-green glow. I am certain this glow and the spiral of her womb  are what others sought to dominate. Her inner beauty,  her pretty, her numerous adjectives that numerous men wished to fish out and keep as keepsakes to make them feel like the bigger fish. She was never a small fish in a pond she was always fluttering in the sky. Free. Wild.Winged

1.

The wind blows and I am nervous over a hill,
where the grass is low
but lower is the water flowing

Keep in mind,quiet costs
the dry branches motion in the gust of time
slowly churning thoughts
over the eve of our crowing destiny
2.
From that hilltop
I see them

The smell of Franciscan Manzanitas and bees
surrounds them

I thought they’d lost their way,
down the path where the ferns grow high
and the forest deepen enough to make most forget

But I saw them egress the woodland’s mouth
an abetment of hands cusping future

they giggled and where light
on their feet
enthroned to this field
they walked over the sharp blades of grass
3.
there is no such thing now
as optional, ornamental pruning
trimming is to occur
and its necessity makes itself known
coils its body like a serpent
4.
our consciousness burrowed for too long
in the ground

5.
When I turn my head I see you, too
Do you see them ?

the crowned that have come
blinking their love for all things

it seems like we must begin again or the fates will cut their strings

if there is
if there is
If there is all the things that thrive within the being
those that never die, those that perdure untouched, uneffected by the outside lores
then there is always the presence of forgiveness
the room for second chances
and there is return

If this is where we call into being the loveliest of things
with deep intention I dare to call
a loving and joyful life
and so I start releasing fears
believing the impossible is not a satisfactory measure
that all that we cultivate and devote our time to is not in vain
it is our class and teacher
we the artwork coming together
as the willful painter places another mark
so if this is when I finally begin to more firmly draw my life let me call my lovely gems of light
my keepers of the light to aid me on this journey to the blossoming of a fruitful life

the alarm rings in Guernica
All wounds open with this one

The first verse of Dalton’s Como tu
“I love love, life.” witnesses as
All wounds speak with this one

Ingram’s interview with Ms.Goodman
the Jews Hamburg taken to the Mintz Ghetto stripped of clothing  and then shot
All wounds unravel with this one

The way I cannot speak the language of my ancestor and the violence it took to strip our tongue away but not our lives
All wounds open with this one


Refaats join Jara
All wounds open

And as they open still mothers and fathers wipe the clean the face of their dead children and smile

My your god and mine have mercy and smile upon us again as these wounds open I begin to understand a smile is a treasure

you never needed to be a prim
and proper porcelain doll
with a white stand running
down your back

you are everything but a doll

i had settled for being the girl admiring you from inside the store just across the aisle  
but seems like i am standing outside, again behind the glass  

with strings attached to my hands
and life puppeteering, all i can do is close
my eyes where it as dark as night and trust that when life sits me upright & i open my eyes– i will understand surrender
           (I will understand why)

I know we never needed to be a prim and proper porcelain dolls with white stands or strings

I know we came to be human, but why does it feels so fragile even more so than being a doll

each of the seedling kindnesses you plant
every small deed you do lives like a
giant redwood year after you're gone--
all your goodwill skipping over time's
lengthy lake to ripple

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 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.

I have decided that in this lifetime I must not give up
I must indeed go further in
wring out the chatter
wring out the events some might deem unfortunate
wring them until life giving water is released
enough to grow beautiful things

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 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

Little pieces of me are crumbling,
They lump up over my spine
they materialize over my rib cage as
soft tissue balled up
and I have begun to mediate
“ it is my nature to be ill and to die”

I wait weeks, days, to know before I frighten my friends, but it’s too late for my mind it is scared–and it prepares for the possibility of death.

In my mother’s culture they embrace death. They paint their faces as calaveras and line the path with flores naranjas between what they believe links
the living to the dead

So you would think
I would be ready

                               ...
My dad is old and has seen death many times before...
This quarantine has walked him deeper into a pool of sadness; he’s been in doors for  a month , but it wasn’t until the ball over my rib began to grow that he finally submerged his head underwater.
                               ...
I mustered the courage to tell my childhood friend; it made her sad– I don’t want to be a burden

My pals speak of post quarantine fun, of trips and of gatherings. I don’t tell any of them why I have begun adding “if I have enough life”

A little piece of me, who would of thought a little piece of me could potentially **** me.

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

I loosen my eyes and the suddenly the whole world appears before me
and I smile
and there is no reason
or perhaps every reason stand before me
evident, luminous, unified
that I cannot tell where it begins and where it ends
or even if my nature is separate from this joy

I made it
I survived
I made it through and I am stronger
I am stronger because I made it though
I survived and made my way through
It made me so much stronger
and I want be everything I am

I want to be who I am even if someone I love thinks it wild and disagreeable
I want to naturally unfold and love what I love and give what is in my heart to give

I want to be organic and honest with myself

I want with so much ardor to be there
to be there for today
to love again once my heart is empty

I want with so much fervor
to be reminded that all my elders walk with me
to settle even deeper into my being

I made it
I survived
and now what I cultivate reflects
only life’s innate desire
to flow through me

I met you here on this earth so I am not going to curse and complain I am going to say thank you. I am going to knee tonight and praise this life for in it my eyes first opened and this heart was cast into flesh. Oh how I will love harder, oh how I will love deeper
Oh how do anything else that live

I see you all like mirages
in a room
you become clear
the further in time
that I travel away
from you

There sleeps in the seeping ounce
of the tree burned to carbon
that made charcoal
a chance for me to take any
and all scraps of paper
I can find in my room
and put them to good use

There sleeps in the back of my mind
fragments of light
and sensations of summer
crystallizing into thought

"I want to hike four trails, around an island." I
say
but the speedy winding and the great illusion of time ticks me down
"I can only hike three"

The fourth I'll sit at its base, with my scrappy notebooks and sketch.
the burned vine will create trees    
      what immaculate a thought
to "good use"
the trunk that we took to shred and make this sheet,
to "good use", too
it'll be the paper under the black soot
when I draw

here sleeps my mind in the dark coal
ever luminous below the incomplete combustion of
hydrocarbons and the explosive nature
of untamed
emotions

"But I want to hike four trails.
Maybe, I'll have to come back"

I awoke one more day and the scent of gratitude overtook my nostrils

how the hills of thought become papers
ripped as all my ideas and limitations
tear away

I deserve the  beauty that inherently follows through on all that is living
giving it purpose
The dream of truly authentically loving everything I am
becomes tangible when I look into the mirror and I am not embarrassed or afraid of what calls to me ...I am eager to receive the abundant beauty, my rightful inherence.

Longing is the language of spirit; so I welcome longings and I inch towards them

and as this voice that guides me towards the healing becomes louder
– my being becomes clearer

grateful                  life      
Be                 an/a                   well of
    constant is        infinite

carrying is the wind
floating is the scent of calm
arriving is the doodle that with playfulness freshes

falling is the temperature
soothing is the array of clouds
restoring is the laugh that puts an end to silence

i cut my hair so that another
girl who had only been an earth for a few years could carry
its softness and know someone would
give whatever she was not born with
this world would offer itself to her
cradled in her bed wherever she was
....
i forget the many times
i slept in other people’s homes
or had to leave mine as a child
those many times were coiled and repressed
pushed back into a box like a jack
...
my youth is here present
i mingle with it
and forget it is not always going to be here
and i hear the world is not kind to older womxn
but hear from older womxn those years are the most fruitful; there, they are their most powerful
and like the promised land i want to rush there
the way i used to want to rush towards death
and none of them will do when the early morning hours come
because i just want to be here
cradled in my bed wherever i may be

You are already a poem
that I love—

Like all great poetry
it is to be shared with the world

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

Every time the wind moves a cloud
may the sunshine peak
if only for a little while
to warm his skin
and clear away any thoughts
that may linger to fester the peace inside

Speak your words
Take them, from the street signs
Tear them from the books, from the thoughts nestled into song, take them
clip them onto your chest, and once you are ready
pull each of them off and stack them on your tongue

Saliva to soak them is all you will need and when you feel like you’ve had a bite full and
it’s much more than you can chew

Thats the minute you will start choking up,
And that is when you will know you are back.

Move your body
Let it move in any way it must move
and make sounds
Any sounds

Now open your mouth
and speak
You are alive again, with your own words caressing your lips.

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

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 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

gently slide your anger onto my palm
even outrage has a purpose

sometimes all the softness in the huecos
between cavities declare themselves present

There is an artist who walks into dreary hospitals and law offices
to accompany his partner
he cannot paint the walls of these building  the color he desires but he paints a smile-one so pleasant it calms-on his girlfriend face

You swirl in a sweeping of leaves up to the heavens, and I stand again at your grave
your songs spin and join the dried foliage, I hear you sing my name and the flowers you gave me, now dry, spin in air too and so does my grandfather’s songs at your window, my uncle’s guitar before he passed, the tuning  of my cousin’s bass and the strumming of my brother guitar melt into the canvas of today’s fall skies. And just when I feel so close to surrendering, I feel all these dried parts of myself begin to lift.

if there is a love in your hands
be kind
like winter is on the unexposed
root of a tree,
be gentle
as if in your hands was a soon to hatch egg

be all that you are, naked
baking under the sun
but whatever you do, do not underestimate
love
like a novice swimmer does the sea
or the way a traveler does a new city's river currents

I push through
hanging little paper notes on trees
pinning up reminders on walls
walking my feet over the grass
and running my finger through my hair
I push through
mustering a little storm of hope
to shake with gusts of wind and cleanse with water
all the negative thoughts

I really do love him or I would it have not come so far away from my own home

I think of all the letters I wrote with so much love till the moment I got here
of all the middle of the night alarms I set to wake up so I could watch him smile and play

I just sincerely love him
and I also sincerely love myself

Do others find
the things that  I find
beautiful
beautiful? Did you ever travel
through that question
on your way to getting older

Do they find him (in the crowd of people)
beautiful?  the old man sitting
on concrete steps under the the street lamp reading a newspaper
at 10:30 pm his sunken cheeks and eyes darker his hands moving slowly
and gently
beautiful

the young woman on her motor-scooter stoping in the side of the road, the light on her phone illuminating her face as she stares at a map pulls back in the handles and

Your eyes
your skin
your body

hold inside them
someone I love

they are
precious
miraculous
instruments
of life

they allow me to find you
in flesh
they allow me to sit at the hearth
in front of your fire
they allow me to share with you
my ember

your brown
pupils
your soft
hands

the days
pass
and i thank every sunset

knowing
“soon”,
will become
“now”