we watched the sun spill the sky ******
and we painted pictures in the sand.
we watched the ocean i so feared wash the shells
a different color, ruder and ruddier than before,
duller with each passing wave
like blue jeans in the wash
or hearts on a string.
you were the moon, pulling me on and pushing me back,
and i was the sun, laughing at you.
we ran barefoot over reefs and rainclouds,
never minding that we tattered the hems of our pants,
and i had to remind you that there are still stars in daytime.
we watched white-black clouds over pink-and-purple skies
and we laughed to see the birds just wheeling.
we watched the ocean i so feared wash the shells
a different color, brighter and righter than they were before,
lovelier with each passing wave,
like stars in the night,
or hearts on a string.

things i love
   (such as)
books and rain, knowing snow
will come again
have nothing to do
             (i'm afraid)
with you.

count the paint stains on my finger-breadth
one for every year of my life, or
       one for every color of my heart?
  paint my words into tapestries of canvas-strewn
truth.
                
things i love
     (such as)
leaves in autumn, breezes in spring
  walking my dog in the midewestern rain
have nothing to do
   (think what you will)
with you.

things i love
     (such as)
a golden haired boy
   particular small niceties from strangers
thinking
writing poems in margins
      dancing by myself
holding the world in my always-steady hands
have nothing to do
     (cry me a river)
with you.









so there.

remember, i'm recieving loneliness like
tears bought, nothing for frightened
and still loving.
leaving like dying, under skin
twirling under rain for death, dancing.
open my falling for words and a boy
dropping life.

she was brushing her hair
when she glanced out the window and caught a glimpse
of him cresting the hill.
she sprang to her feet with a yell of
"****!"
and then
"ow!" as foot upon foot of hair
got trampled under foot slippered foot.
the tower was high
and she thought she'd hidden it well
but they always came,
and she really wasn't
in the mood
to be rescued.

nothing bothers me more than people who say they have found god.
no one has found god.
life is not about finding god.
"GOD" is intangible and not something we can grasp,
but we pretend to.
people put quotes around his words
and then put those words in his mouth
they string ideas of her into beads and crosses -
what exactly are  you clinging to?
people don't know.
we are too small
and we are not wise enough.
god is the whole universe.
god is nothing.
god is a tree, a bird, a thought.
god is a little boy with a piece of candy stuck in his hair,
an artist in a garret,
a dog on a cushion,
a girl in an alley.
i don't believe that god has abandoned the church.
i believe that the church has abandoned god.
i don't believe in my catholic roots.
i don't believe in christianity.
i don't believe in buddhism.
i don't believe in islam.
i don't believe the bible.
i don't believe the priests, the shamans, the medicine men.
i don't believe the trappings we place around god
(our weak ideas of her,
our sorry attempts to define him).
i believe that god is people
god is rain, god is the sun
god is the night air
god is the words on paper
god is the paint on canvas
god is creating, god is being, god is gone.
god is here, now, and everywhere
and i only call her god because i lack another name for him.
it has no name.
i understand this
or i think i do.
god knows me intrinsically
or not at all.
god loves infinitely and sees to the depths of humanity
or else god is old, decrepit, and alone
curled in a corner of the world
trying to shut out the mayhem of his earth
(what have i done?).
god cringes at our killings
rejoices in our births,
or is vengeful, red, and full of war and death.
god is spring, summer, and fall.
he is the snow in winter, she is the birdsong
at my window.
she is multitudes and she is one
wildly insignificant
and all-knowing being.
she is the creator, the destroyer, the lover.
she is nature, she is earth,
she is people,
she is the industry, the tapestry, the travesty.
she is love, she is me.
she is loss, she is you.
she is life, she is them.
and i love her,
as anyone loves her -
if you can love an energy,
an idea,
the ungraspable concept that a grain of sand
is the same as the greatest mountain in the world.


but i don't presume
to know her.

can't you see it?
  my pretty smile, my petty laugh?
i will scorn you for scorning me  -
               your half-hearted aggression!
i will still see magic
i will still see love
you will see nothing of that
   nothing of me.
my secrets
             so beautiful
                            and not for you.

twirling sweeping circle-strokes of a paintbrush
on a color-soaked canvas
and humming softly in the
quiet
of the room
and the
quiet
of the creating
and thinking as a dip into the
swirl of color on a rainbow pallet,
the point of the brush into a dab of
yellow-green and blue
red at the corners and a swirl of
purple
and drifting across
already paint-curled surface giving
life to the lifeless and
color
depth
meaning
to something simple
and so, so complex.
studying, softly, with
open-swirled mind
dizzied with the colors and the
unspoken and unspeakable
meanings they have and they hold
you.
sighing and shifting, glancing
from one painting to the next
to your own and
spreading colors like a waterstain
beautiful and unstoppable, this
madness
this
abandonment
this
knowing of the world in a point-tipped paintbrush
this
holding of the world in your paint-stained hands.