Take a walk to clear your troubled mind,
And hear the pizzicato violins
In the wind in the pines, and see
The flaming leaves
Brilliant orange, dying in a fire
Of hot colors in the early dawn
The grey sky, cold and smooth
The leaves gilded with frost
Fire and ice lying quietly
In harmony
On the forest floor.

Take the time to
Clear my troubled mind
Take the time to shut up
And listen
Normally I write, but now
I must be quiet. Just be --
As the sky
As the cold granite in this forest, and
The snow-glimpsed peaks.

Do you love me?
I cry into the sky
Too resigned for tears.
Do you live, is there life, must I
Always try to read
What you might say in the wind and the trees?
Will you ever speak to me?
I touch a coal to my lips
It is dead and cold
I feel no fire springing to life in my soul
No words of prophesy tearing out.

The morning is silent.
I am ashamed.
I walk back to the road
And look back over the forest,
Alone.

Dear mentor:
You taught me to see the world
Through the eyes of opportunity
Gave me the bravery
and the delight, and desire
To flout expectations
Disregard my GPA
And soar to new heights,
Taught me to value education
As the greatest gift that could be given.

Dear friend:
You taught me to smile
Because I could make a difference
To be kind,
Because everyone is insecure
To laugh when the stress overwhelmed me,
To see the humour in politics
And philosophy and the human condition.

Dear mentor:
You taught me about debate
Taught me about family
Beyond genetics,
Bound by common passion.
And when you left,
I realized,
You'd taught me, in turn,
To teach others.

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

Singing angels of the deep
****** me into quasi-sleep
To wander far-off shores.

I see the sky of molten lead
I see the waves, restless and dead
The souls that sing no more -

Piercing cry and banshee's wail
Sound from behind the heavy veil
Of immortality.

Monsters, lovers, all the same
In this dark and dreary dream --
The veil keeps you from me.

Do not disturb a father's promise
to a man
three times the size,
of age as tradition requires.

Do not be stunned at a ******'s gold
who seeks
his child ******,
or even a mother's approving eye
to bloodied sheets her shamed pride.

Family honor-must-be- fulfilled.

Yet what duty of cowards can protect a young life?
who shall
spoil the
untouched,
and
naive mind.

And what radical deviant cries that her vows were lies,
a sanctioned marriage under desquise.

To delude the chance of hope--
Najood Ali
made her plea before a
court
of empathy.

"Divorce my torment and misery,
I am not made for property."

Do not force--righteous anger,
                        As a stone disturbs the water.
And so radical is she, that inspired a community,
                      Love is not a dollar.

Deprive one of her scholar
          in place of
                   pre-mature mother,
                          makes not the smiling bride.

And why shall daughters
                 sacrifice
the chance to grow with
                       laughter?
Tis is the world,
                        a male-order.

And so the Islam burns her flesh
                                                           ­  to purify
                           the abused mess
Take away all her
                            unrest,
This flaw a
                                                    human disaster.

This morning the wind whipped
The rain into a storm
Each drop pierced with sunlight
And I realized,
I don't need you.

The wild joy of youth
In the face of a government shutdown,
History being made,
Tonight
I realize, I am free
To be brilliant
Kind, passionate,
All the things my parents
Don't want me to be
And you don't understand.

I can love someone else now
Someone who cares --
Closer than the wakening wind
Through the storm of life and death
Present in the glistening rain
And the sun taking its first breaths.

How do I always love more
Than I am loved in return?
My best friend, who can't even
Look me in the eye
And can't bear
To speak to me in public
And won't tell me why.

The mother, who can't
Even really love at all
Consumed in her past
Her silver hairs and loss of grace
She feels so bad for herself
I don't know what to feel for her.

The father, my childhood idol
My companion --
But now that's done
As soon as I became a woman,
All I am is "not son --"
Not quite what he wanted
Not the physicist to take his place.

My brother, ADHD
Incapable of having a conversation
Or keeping friends
Or understanding kindness
Supported in everything by
His father.

The world, unfeeling
Trees, unseeing
Wind, unhearing --
I love them all
Even my stupid hamster
Who I save from her own
Suicide attempts --
She will only bite me, but
I hold her more than I hold any
Living human
Close to my beating heart
Because her teeth are not as sharp
As the silence
On the other end of the phone.

Welcome home to me, my love
In this autumn gilded bright
The summer's lonely skies above
Are flecked with fresh and flaming light.

I'm glad to see you safe, my dear
The unspoken words still true
I'm glad to see our friendship here
Revived from across the ocean blue.

It's sad to see you torn apart,
It's good to see you home again.
I hope to spare your battered heart
From an ounce of unshared pain.

I cannot always walk with you
You cannot always lean on me.
But I know somehow you'll make it through
To become what I cannot be.