In thinning air
Cut through by words
The dust has settled
Broken ties
Will not carry me
To the other shore
To open arms

I long for the land that never was
For the stairs leading toward a better dawn
For the days they called me
A dangerous optimist
Because I felt
And I loved
No matter what

I no longer feel anger
Hatred is foreign now
Envy has left me
I no longer weigh right or wrong
I only write

Carving my breath into the world
As far as spirit
And matter allow
Without indulgence
Yet still with tenderness

I carry within me three women
The holy one
The one exiled from Eden
And Silence
Who through awareness
Longed to make beauty of it all

When I lie close to the earth
I feel it breathe with me
It brings me spreading peace
If it is cold marble
I hold my life
Not to awaken
A deeper wrath that eats
My feeling veins


I reach for another’s hand
Pulling loose the words
Caught in the mind’s old tensions
I am only what lingers
When the breath forgets itself
Warmth without name
I have not surrendered

Let the world try to frighten me
I was two meters underground
I tasted the black soil
And now I look toward the indigo sky
I will never betray myself

When I crossed to the other side
And came back again
Beneath my left rib
An old scar pulsed
The red of the fruit
Was calling me

I walked the field road
Speaking with the lost souls
I felt only sorrow
That they had not yet known peace
Nor learned where to go

It is always the same
We carry just ourselves
Our thoughts
On our shoulders

So, I stopped breathing
Then I began again