My teacher once said that the basis of all our knowledge comes from kindergarten.
Don't hit, be kind.
She said children don't have filters for people who look, sound, believe, think, different from them.
She said children are kinder because they don't care about anything except the need to be nurtured.
And in turn, the little ones will smile and give you a seed,
one that grows into a flower of purity.

spring is eternal,
slow coming after three seasons of waiting.

I ponder on these summer months,
of endless hours with thousands of people passing through,
but all I remember is your smile,
and our overlapping knees.

born with the water
the lotus opens in the moonlight

a man fell for her,
and every now and then they dine
on moonshine

above the surface she is rose and white
and below she is tethered to the world

no one can hold her
except for the water

no one is to blame except the billboards and ads and standards
no one is suffering except the girls in the showers and the boys in the changerooms and the people in their rooms
no one is helping except the conscience of your conscience
no one is changing because we are afraid of something.

she talks about everything not bothering her
she cries alone about everything bothering her
she takes pictures of her pretty self
and she envies all the others who are just as pretty and just as self conscious

a bouquet would consist of the flowers you love,

so I will tumble into the ditch, where all the marsh marigolds bloom for you.

stand too close,
and bite me.
I will lead the way
through people, swarms and swarms of them,
hold tight
and take me to that view of ours:
we close our moments with the lake in mind.

I think myself tall
compared to all below me.
I've never looked up.

a little revelation.
where did my mind go when i left my heart in the car?
i let my mind wander a little too far.
where were my good intentions, i forgot them at home.
leaving my pride and my bad ones alone.
it got to my mind, and when it came back
my heart found the remnants and then it turned black;
but sense came along and pulled them off their throne,
and brought them back to my good intentions at home.

doves send messages
and in the halls
you do not
look at
me

I used to be happy
Ignore the heavy things.
Tread and tread and pretend that nothing was below me.

But there are things that lurk.
Monsters and darkness.
While I sank, I sung out about how well I could swim.

And then she was sinking
And I learned how to swim
But I never taught her.

Just keep swimming
I tell her.
soon enough the mermaids will scare them away
I hope she believes me.
I hope she is strong enough to withstand the wretched currents.
I love you. I hope that is enough.

there is a scene in my day
when I leave the wretched white-walled windowless building
and a blast of the freshest air hits me,
and it feels like my first breath in hours.
The sun is a glory on my skin,
and I take off my jacket to feel the air on my arms
for the first time in a season.

When they fly back to northern shores,
assemble on the moonlit ice,
after long months of paradise
and call out to the darkening east:

the April Moon is for the Geese

The beast, in solitude, who roams these woods,
of wisdom only he is led to know,
he wears a crown so heavy on his head,
and walks through autumn, summer, spring, and snow.

He is not seen, but wearily, is feared -
a figure hiding deeper in the minds,
the hunters and the people keep away,
although the beast is difficult to find.

On stilts, he wades and crosses riverbeds
a mind so keen, remembering the way.
The burden of his crown does not weigh him,
the wind invites him to a gentle sway.

So many moons have passed the monster's eyes -
he knows how rivers come to meet the lake;
So when the hunter settles down to aim,
the moose is still, and it is no mistake.

Happy Mothers Day/Guardians Day

To all the moms/parental figures who give the world and ask for nothing in return (but deserve the universe)

that song is so beautiful
and the strings make me cry
but I forget that an instrument needs to be taken care of too
in order to sound so wonderful.

it is soothing to see them,
taking care of one another.

I've been craving the carved part of me that you carry, dear friend

I love you.
I would do a thousand things for you.
I would do anything for you.
And it hurts to love you because if something happened to you then what would I do?

What a selfish girl I am.

But it's true.
What would I do
if I didn't have you?

i lose myself at least once a day
but at least I can watch it happen in the mirror

I miss a thing I have never known
and it's ever so lonely to miss alone

The whole way in I thought about how courage is a ring,
and I found it on the hike

in a silent house

i hear her crying,
him dying,
and the dead ladybugs flying.

all I want is to dance, in the deep of the night
in a room full of people. we only have short years until
it's wrong to go out and dance. let me dance
with my friends, it's the middle of the
night; I can people watch. Looking back
on last night, we were like a school of fish
with shimmery emerald bodies.

I don't even know anymore.
I had this dream, it was peaceful
and when I woke up I knew it was just a dream.
But now that I think about it, it scares me.
What if...
what if it takes her?

there is a sculpture
she claims unsketchable
of a woman in a mangled
frozen pose

the people flock to kiss
her pale lifeless feet
and gaze up in such proximity
to the angelic, unravelled woman
who becomes something more
in their gazes

but we sit from afar
and she marvelled at those wings
at the bends and swerves of that limestone
or marble
at the spine and the cracks

the prose of anonymity in beauty without a face,
a fetish,
just awe in raw skill

on a northern shore, the air bites, even in june;

once, it was warm, but that is just a wish now. crouched in a chair,

I feel small raindrops brush over the pages of my book,

shaking as my stiff fingers flip through it on this slow day. This is the port where

the rich americans flock on their cruise, gold chained and wrapped in lovely fur coats,

while the people down here wear their thin uniforms and wake before dawn.

read this later,
so I thought it something else. The only thing between us is laughter.
Your eyes are touchstones
and you leave to let me be, then come back and
we are like this.
Close and then months apart,
everything in between is irrelevant when we unite.
In the mirror I examine this person,
not left wondering until the evening ends.

Like the river encircling the boundless world, so too is the depth of the sky, unending, and so too are the waves, a reflection and a window to the holes of our world, bottomless.

True freedom is letting go.

another sun to burn a fire in me,
to shake the frozen lake down to its core
she's young but once she was an ancient tree,

she's not a flower anymore.

I do not know the sheer sweep on the bow of the heavy and weightless sword as it cuts like a river through a century of bark in an old growth forest -
only the wind knows the fabric of its edge and the balance between death and silence,
only the sun knows its blinding metal glistening in a summer afternoon,
a slow-motion dance in the song of the birds as they flutter from the stark gleam of the dancer.
It slices through matter and vibrates the continuum of air, ripples delicate waves against the cliff of the body whose extension is the knife
slashing at nothing with utter precision and grace.
I do not know the cost of what such a weapon demands, what scars tattoo themselves into skin with every stroke.
Perhaps it is a race of endurance, but still it is an endless battle of balance -
the loneliness condemned to the sheath of the human,
and the longing of the blade to be freed.

1000 mistakes
might be what it takes;
100 hearts spared
before you're aware;
1 million dollar bills
before time kills;
an eternity of hours,
before the seed becomes a flower.

her house was burning all day long
and when she came to it after school,
one wall was left amidst the snow and ash.

her life had been in there;
her belongings and the finites that made her.
and now they were singed in smoke and dust
and they were nothing -
and she felt like nothing.

the fire burned obliviously,
orange and black and victorious in destruction.
it ate her being in one fellow, steady burn,
until her memories were held in a winter urn.

and she left that morning, from home.
and when she returned, her home was on fire.

the delight of love:
the pain you cannot surrender
in exchange for forever

Spray has christened the pines and firs in frost
at the waterfall.
Overtake me in the mist,
whirl your pointed pines
and infuse your senses
as you cover me in the spray.

Let me be a stranger to the consistent licking of melancholy
For her's is an anchor that I can just quite out swim.
It is tiring.