An elephant and a dog became pregnant at the same time. Three months down the line the dog gave birth to six puppies.

Six months later the dog was pregnant again- and nine months on the  dog gave birth to another dozen puppies. The pattern continued.

On the eighteenth month the dog approached the elephant questioning- “Are you sure you’re pregnant? We became pregnant on the same date ; I have given birth three times to a dozen puppies, and they have grown to become big dogs, yet you are still pregnant. What’s going on?”

The  elephant replied- “ There is something I want you to understand. What I am carrying is  not a puppy, but an elephant. I only  give birth to one in two years.

When my baby hits the ground- the earth feels it.

When my baby crosses the road- human beings stop and watch in admiration.

What I carry draws attention, so what I’m carrying is mighty and great!”

Don’t  lose faith when you see others receive answers to their prayers.
Don’t be envious of others testimonies.
If you haven’t received your own blessings- don’t despair.
Say to yourself, *“My time is coming, and when it hits the surface of the earth- people  shall yield in admiration.*”

Flashes of yesterday’s garden,
deep green under a gray sky--
I step into the canvas, moving
slowly, regretful and watchful,
with the weight of past light.

So many colored years,
some bright, some somber,
and you, the voice that ripened
youth, the accented syllables
opening the hours between
cliffs and sky, your presnce
re-appearing in soft explosions
of living, so painful to let go.

I pray for change, impermanence,
for last year’s dust to settle to
acceptance, to turn over the pages
of the past and to forgive everything.

breathe—
like mint shrub under a drizzle,
Ink clawing it’s way up a quill
Like lemon grass growing
Like steam rising from a cup of tea
Like parchment.

Like confetti circling a cyclone
Like a whip kissing skin
a branch cracking
Like chalk against cement,
Like nails on sandpaper
Like glitter.
breathe—

But sometimes I lie straight on my back
Under a heavy quilt—
let my limbs slump away, let my fingers sink
weakly into sheets
And I think,
this is how we die—
Insipid eyes blanketed by skin
A book incomplete—closed midway, without a mark.
They may tie our chin and skull with a strip of cloth
to prevent our loose jaw from falling open,
this— is how we die

Like the carcass of Morning Glory
hanging— swaying in the wind
Like coal left behind by a burning log,
Like a dusty painting.
Like a moor.

No wings sprout out of our jagged backs
they put us in a box and clothe us in dirt
No earthworms spare our clotted blood
Clouds don’t come bowing down
nor does sky break to shards— for our escape.
solid bricks, we never did mind sleep
nor the warmth or tight embrace of our beds
the world's too big anyway— for our shrinking selves

Silence—
Like a beetle crawling down a leaf
the ocean behind a portrait
Like moon, yawning
Like a folded paper, filled with scribbles
Like dusk.

Like a still child.
a tongueless nightingale up a bough
Like words in a bottled letter.
Like rubble under smoke
Like a palette, unwashed.
Like a bone.
Silence—

And someone knocks under you—
You dig out the coffin and break open its lid
But it’s filled, to the brim, with mud.

And time spirals on—
Pushing us behind, and we fight against it.
A puppet tied to the sky,
wishing to see the end of an abyss
Like a stone under the ocean, dreaming of stars
breathe—
Like a newborn leaf.
breathe—

But the time spirals on—
and we, with the dirt, reunite.

what poor soul has to depend on the admiration of those they have fooled, in order to feel ok about their own sense of being?