I cannot resist your wriggle
your movement wrestles me awake
from my routine slumbering lumbering day
your breath
your wind are my oxygen
telling me I’m alive
you move from heart to fingers
and dance on the floor
of this keyboard
with your partner
pen on the smooth flat surface of paper.

It is more vital to write my heart
to write write write as I MUST
than to obey some poetry manual
or imitate Longfellow, Rumi, or Frost
or any other.

Writing your movement is like breathing
I cannot go long without it
you impel me to this place
this oasis
this pure land
these tropics
where I let you speak
and have your way with me,
you my magnificent muse.

I woke up this morning
feeling gratitude
even in the warning
my legs gave in my first steps,
gratitude for one more day
for one more hour or minute
on Earth now in my brief stay
on this tortured beautiful planet.

Just to be here now
nowhere else but here
is a feat for me
in my erratic mind
but now it’s just you and nobody else
no beauty queen
with voluptuous ******* and sparkling eyes
just you in your magnificence
I melt away my I-ness
and fall into your love alone.

Worldwide they sing of joy
at the birth of that baby boy
but I have to say that this day
I feel as empty as a holey vase
from which all the water has leaked
dry, unable to feel,
lifeless as a brown fallen leaf.

I wish I could feel his life inside
this empty vessel
feel his tiny beating heart and collide
with angels hovering around
hear their celestial sound
but on this day - of all days
again I feel a sadness
as silent as the night
he breathed his last breath
empty as a cave of death.

But a small crack on the side
lets a beam of light
in this night
so maybe a particle of hope will abide.
Let it be enough
to help me rise
to make another start
and give some life
to this dry heart.

Here in the gray light of dawn
I see you, gentle and tender,
approaching us
and I am in wonder
thinking of my ignorant and obstinate species
and curious about why you keep coming back to us
you beautiful being
each morning and twilight.

My deep sleep dreams disturb
confuse and trouble my mind,
but awake here and now I find
the placid lake of your presence
and abide in your uncanny arrival.

I come here
to this island rich in growth
clear warm fluid
to catch its currents
and swim its nurturing depths
where I can breathe underwater
and leave traces of my darkness
to float like drops of ink
in a glass bowl.

These tropics
reside on the map of my heart
for me to locate
when covered
by layers of sand
in the desert
on gray slate days
barren days of lost inspiration
when I am turned in on me
and my tottering self
the me I see
on my pockmarked well-traveled and aged face
each morning in the mirror.

I arrive here
each time with a glimmer
a hope I can find
within me a point of light
some soft and pure place
a source a force
where I can rise again.

The simple peasant girl
received some blessed news
that would overturn the world
she grew up in, the life she knew.

Chosen to receive a special gift
she was confused and dismayed
to get this favor she had not wished
for which she had not prayed.

She felt unworthy, confused, and awed
she knew not whether to make this start
on this journey to which she was called
but said yes and opened her heart.

I wonder if I would have the nerve
in spite of feeling so unworthy,
knowing this gift was undeserved,
to be open to such an uncertain journey.