Time is drifting by so sadly...
in fact it seems so long ago,
that you turned away from me
dress open
the freckles on your back
like constellations in the sky
and you  gestured at your dress
so I tied the yellow bow
and watched you curl your hair just so
and go about your night
blooming like a rose...
such a sad and lovely sight.

Where, my girl, did the time go?

The late-day light slants in through
the large, framed window and onto the couch where I sit again.
I watch my Abby lean against the back and
squeal with joy as she points towards the tall trees
dropping pine cones and needles and filling the air with yellow dust.


"Dance! Dance!" she chimes while the trees continue to sway.
A sober smile spreads itself across my face
because the contrast lays heavy in my heart.

The air is thick and stuffy even though the wind outside blusters with
the warmth of a young Indian summer.

My grandmother sits pale and broken in that chair.
there was a time I sat there with her
delving deep into tales that took place so far away.
Her soft, careful voice lulling me
like the trees were lulled in that wind-

And there were times that I lay outside with my sister
our hair ratted with autumn leaves and pine needles
on a carpet of the greenest grass.

We would lay there, trees swaying above us,
shrieking and giggling nervously when they would bend.
Clutching hands we would laugh nervously and say
it was just a game.

And Grandma would call us in
to soup and sandwiches
made with such care
and over chocolate milk
we tell her of how the wind had snapped branches off the apple tree
and we had found a perfect bird nest with feathers still caught in the twigs

As she listened her eyes would widen with interest and,
at just the right moment, her hand would flutter to her heart
and she would gasp with such sincere surprise
that my eyes would meet with my sister's and we
would choke back a chuckle with a smile.

And there were times when I would snuggle deep
into the cleanest smelling bed linens and
Grandma would pull the quilt up over me to my chin.
"Goodnight my Angel," she said.
But in her eyes I saw the real angel
as she bent to kiss me softly on my cheek.

The smell of her face cream always lingered on my cheek from that kiss.

But now she sits
tired and broken
in that chair we used to share
and watches my little angel
young and vibrant
giggle at the same swaying trees
in a different age.

This isn't the time for a blueprint,
there's no time for a sketch,
a rough draft,
a note,
pushing off into waters untraveled,
my soul is my sail,
my body my boat.

The only map that I need is my thumbprint,
the only compass I need is my heart,
no one said this journey was simple,
I learn nothing from just sitting still,
I must start.

So I glide on the wings of my eternal voice,
and I soar knowing well I may fail,
but I don't need any net to catch me,
I have seen both sides of the shadowy veil...

And I will greet this world with dust on my feet,
and I will sing at the top of my voice,
nothing can stop me from finding myself,
nothing can save me
this God-given choice.

Anger fills my bones,
Like stones,
Anchoring me to the soil.
I cannot budge.
And like the mountain,
Though not serene,
I sit.
Heavy,
Immovable,
Permanent.

But nothing is permanent,
Even the mountains,
And like the earth,
I rumble and groan against my burden
And the fury rages and turns
Over in my gut
Preparing to spew
These stones that are not mine
Across the earthly plane.

Will one gather them
And turn them over in their hand
And see the scars on their surfaces
And wonder where they have been?
Will they sit
On display?
A trophy of my pain,
A lesson ,
A symbol of martyrdom,
A rough exterior
Encasing a beautiful,
Crystalline
lotus of wisdom?

And once this poison
Has been returned to the earth
To cleanse and be cleansed
I am neutral.
A tower of neutral stone
A monument
A skyscraper
Observing the passage of time,
And reaching for the heavens
In innocent, intuitive knowing.
Like the infant stretching arms
up to his mother
For the comfort of her
Orbital motion.
I sit.

Secret mothers everywhere
On a guerilla mission
to claim their inner goddess
and stake the heart
of every man
to bring balance
to the earth.

Secret mothers need no words
with nothing but a look
recreating the womb
for your solace
let the walls fall
for no one to
pick up again.

Secret mothers everywhere
walking tall and
falling down
and getting up
and dancing for the gift
of their womanhood
with stretched out stomachs
like gunny sacks
full of breath once;

Empty now, but not of promise,
she perpetuates her cycles
like the moon
urging you silently
to cry and drop
the pointless boundaries
you create around
your heart
even though
it feels impossible.

Ties between us
all in knots,
full of bramble,
full of thorn.
Any bond once leading to you
is forgotten,
lost and torn.


A heartbeat born,
once in sync,
with the rhythm
of the Earth
has lost it's link,
lost it's form,
lost it's living, breathing beat.


A deep breath in,
a natural feat.
should come easy
so it's said,
but breathing water
not so sweet,
as air that fills that
and clears my head.


Like moving through
this dream of life,
new and different,
old and set,
I sit and think
like those before me...
an endless dream?
a pointless bet?


Breaking through
these clouds above me,
open palms,
full of light,
we yearn,
we grow,
reaching upwards,
to those gifts
which will unite.


one and the same,
an endless game,
breakdown,
build up,
shed the shame.
live for love,
live for peace,
give for giving,
take with grace.

The words rise up like *****,
spilling from my gut,
uncontrollably escaping
my lips before I can catch them
In my outstretched fingers.

I am helpless as they slip
between the cracks
of my perfectly imperfect consciousness.

The stars cannot be expressed
the way they feel within me,
like tears that will not come
when you need them to,
and arms that reach out
with the slightest hesitation,
a stiff coldness,
a dark moment.

And I am lost without you.
How can one sit in reverence of a constant tease?
The brink of epiphany?
Like a sneeze that won't come,
even when you look at the light?

I am inches away from
the ultimate,
*******,
eruption
of existence.

It's lonely,
and those few inches make all the difference.
Yet I will strive for this encompassing vitality!
once again
a child in your arms,
fresh to the world,
yet knowing it all too well.

My name is a name unspoken
Laying quiet and dry on my lips
Only my tears to wet them
Only my hand to brush them away
Only a memory in these sad, empty hips.

My heart holds a prayer unspoken
Unrecorded, in need of a voice
Only this anguish to fuel it
Only these thoughts sitting still
Only this gnawing yet motionless choice.

Immovable ocean within me!
Rise up at my cogent command!
My sails are open
And ready for flight
No winds to fill them
No storms to fight
But only the storm within me.

Only this storm within.

Got a pit in my stomach
The size of a mustard seed
And heavy as a mountain
But something tells me
It’s all part of finding myself.

Can’t get my footing on this
Molehill I’m climbing
And the rain makes you
Look like a crater in the earth,
From way up here.

Is there something missing,
Or is it only displaced?

My heart sits here,
Gaping and exposed
Like a nest in a tree
Which has released it’s leaves to the wind
And it’s cold here.

But something tells me it’s all part of finding myself.

On the last day of may
overshadowed with gray
you feel rain in your bones
and hear children play
and you sing like a siren
in pale moonlight
and you're certain the dead
visit you in the night
and when the rain falls
in thick, warm drops
through the red maple's branches
your breath just stops
and your bare feet
feel the life energy
sometimes it's so strong
you can just barely see
to the ends of time
and back through the ring
like matching both ends
of a ribbon or string

I've been down this road both ways
taking in the sights
wondering why I fight
so hard to live some days

Like raindrops fall on to the dust
and ripple in that way
I find it hard to say
though I know I must

There's a sadness in the mountains
that sit outside my window
there's a madness in my mind
that it just can't contain
there's static all around me
it beckons from my window
takes every ounce inside of me
not to crumble from the pain

All day a war was fought
by the clouds and sun above me
fighting for the darkness,
fighting for the light
every day's a battle
a churning sea within me
one minute black
and then a blinding white

Everything around me is so deep and dark and living
even in this pain,
that I comprehend,
to fight and bleed my soul each day
is worth it to be living
it just makes love that's good
better in the end.

Sitting between two worlds,
Like a bird on a telephone wire,
surveying the foreign landscape below.
Nothing looks the same,
And it all started when she woke
and turned over,
wrapped in a cocoon of sheets.

He was gone and her fingers
told stories of when he was gone...
and a feeling like being weighed down
by the clothes on her back
because they are drenched in water.

She smells his musk
on her cold pilllow,
But he is gone,
And so everything is worse.
A strangeness within her,
Leaving her organs restless
and hands twitching for an outlet,
that doesn’ t exist.

All alone she has no flowing words.
All alone she is a dried up,
lonesome,
fearful,
fool.
Too few words to change the world
and far too many fragments to glue back
into something recognizable.

He is gone.
Left her all alone.
Between two worlds.