I used to call them brave, the people who would misbehave
but it was destiny one day I would become like these kids
broken and alone, not feeling loved or happy

the bond between those youngsters was unbreakable
blood is thicker than water is what the old people say
but it in their case the water had won

some people call them tiger stripes
others choose words like battle wounds
you always called it beautiful
but for me it was a curse

something I could never stop
demons whispering in my ear

the devil loves pretending
he always seems to care

and for me that was enough.

Freely accepted, constraints that bind
The senses can free the mind.

And so I knelt before her latitude.
Her choker became the horizon,
The light from her eyes a silent beatitude.

“What do you feel?” asked the voice of the wind.
I tried to answer, lips rapt and spellbound,
Eyes questing, but made no sound.

Enlarged by desire, encircled by pain,
I felt the fire and the rain.

I watched the walls of the room
Dissolve into clouds
As a crack in the sky beckoned,
Opening wide.

I was pulled upward into a swelling storm
And watched all around as I climbed
A mirror world form,
Like the universe rhymed.

Then calm.  I found myself at a steely gate.
A sign read “The Labyrinth of Language.”
The path began straight
Then forked into uncountable branches.

Words took shape and tried to dance
But hung
Captive on my soundless tongue.
They have remained there ever since.

Free them, goddess,
Let these words find flight.
Take them from the shadow of my tongue.
Release them into your luminous night.

(for Peggy, with Alzheimer’s, 1996)*

Absent spirit:
Soothe our hunger for consolation
In the presence of this woman
Who asks for none.

May the colored shapes we have become
Stand apart from these walls--
Where sun after sun has tiled
A catacomb of days--
Distinctly enough to radiate our love.

Banish our loss.
Dissolve the bitter mystery of why.
Forgive our numb embrace
That enfolds this slumping body
Whose eyes reflect glass,
Whose mind quests beyond a dark door
Searching for a land of lost names.

Give words to her passage.
Resolve the twisted path she must follow alone,
The cratered wastes she calls across,
Seeking a land of kindred beings with cognate powers
That name her as their own and exult.

Our lives are just like books
Filled with numerous chapters
We may not like what’s inside
But turning the page and
Continuing the story
Is the only way to move on