deeply 40 years apart
1:54

< notes ...
remembering
a list of good things
like the grocery receipt thrown on your fathers empty table in a sunny afternoon of his early adulthood,
wondering about what his parents were thinking when they were his age ---
writing as re-experiencing his memories,
a million miracles drip from a faucet in the house he rented ---
reality is how we decide to read it
or what i've drawn behind cabinet doors, late nights, phone calls.
sleepless papers and chocolate chip cookies and words dreamt out of open windows
concentrating on the good things ---
a chemical, she interacts with us the same no matter your thoughts
waiting for coffee to bloom, brining you watre in bed, locking the door at night knowing everyone is home.
simple precious tangled moments
we are listening to muffled through the walls
hearing footsteps of your family on the old wooden stairs
these are the most healing

sage green safe place, burning sage and mint to clean my bad dreams. sage green bedsheets, knitting a scarf the color of sage green eyes. I went on a walk in sea foam forests, every hue of green lifting me from my sleepless dreams. sea glass on the shore next to the sage green forest, an opal haven.   omens sent to me from safety, to my protected place, I light a candle on the green table cloth, a mirror reflecting trees, ferns crawling in the bright corners of the safe silent house.  blue green bottles line the counter next to the stove, where we keep our lemons.  mint smoke lifts in the green room, reflects in the green glass door.

Up all night until the sun was still below the horizon, I waited for the medication, the slow burn of anesthesia in the cradle of my arm, the quick sleep where it wasn’t drifting, but an expanse that deepened around my irises and low in my belly as the white room darkened to green-blue, the freshly warmed sheets from the dryer placed on me by a stranger, the blood dripped down my arm as I closed my eyes; here is where I am empty, where an eclipse of unseeing determines the wide inquisitive canyons of impact within a single point, sedated wildflowers hung still in the dripping silence, and sunlight slowed through lace curtains on winter landscapes of uncovered shoulders.

a small kitten with one eye... sitting on the floor of a bookstore for hours.... a sunny day on an empty street in Baltimore... quiet gardens in glass boxes... warm desert bodies strung on the walls... in your hands... a ripe orange balanced delicately in slow light... shallow dark water with koi... a wall of orchids extending with ferns... we smell them on our tippy toes... the light was honeyed, indelible, embroidering our gaze...

pajamas in a museum... mirror mosaics on a wall outside the train station... frigid air removed our breaths... hot cider with cinnamon under colored lights... our fingers were close to thawing... her beige wool scarf... reminding me of my mother...

Soft brown bedsheets... canvases dripping with color... a memorial on the fifth... across the water, a skyline glitters as he holds the intimate illusion in his eye... without damage or harm... satisfied without seeing... we ran through tunnels of spiraling light like following the pen of a child’s drawing... an art that is faithful to yourself, not others, not the narrative...

flowers for my mother, it’s nice to hear the voice again…

lift heavy mossy beds, our golden depth…

it’s today, it’s bright, its continuous summer,

thread tugged from hot wax.  

quilting leaves, gentle and warm home breath.



sounds of water rushes words on skin, evaporate in lungs.

windows sit in windows until they are opened,

until they are opened and swiveled and creased on the edges.  

moss on fingertips.



a rabbit entered my dream like the smell of rain –

thunderous rushing sound -

anthropocene buried in a new bed.  Pause.



painting water on backs of hands,

sun dried thoughts return to lungs and yield ferns in the yard.

the first tomato harvest of the season.

they stretch the shade, slow light down.  

last garden rows on a crescent moon.



dans un reve, tu m’aimes.

dans un reve, le ciel et rose

dans un reve, tu m’aimes

et je ne saigne jamais



hieroglyphics sing inside limbs, absent and changing, dividing, growing

why do they make the strange art?  When will time stop?

being lived and lived again, being told about stories

find emerald home reclaimed



within the final days, she said

the stars are unseen

an eye closing on sunlight water

in naked tenderness, humble and gardening open air

visible but cannot be touched,

plant into the earth.  resume.

profound and rich memories carved out in pen and pencil

moss grows newly made bed.

We have been silent for the whole time I’ve been awake
Since the stars slowly faded
And we drove to the park
Under a white construction paper moon
Harmonies of watercolor hills,
Turning pages of blanket clouds
Panorama lover skies.

While her spirit still lingers in the forest,
Her and I will reunite
Under a ladder,
A constellation,
A renewed childhood
Another two years from now.

Magnolia and dogwood flowers
Say our names over and over
As they delicately pause time  
Their petals run and play
Catch in the field.

Golden light leaks through lace
And touches his sleeping eyes
Dreaming of early morning
Bird singing like a newborn.


The leaves of the painting slow their ecologic song,
Rendering the negative cool blue a cohesive orange yellow sky.
The hills unhinge themselves from the borders of the frame,
As the rabbits return to their burrows,
Brushes washed; the homage of colors slip down the drain.


All that remains is the sketch of her ghost, a hazy white anatomy of corners, planes, indications of form:
A spine, her hands, quietly strong features.


To ghosts, what is a forest?  A canvas?  A feeling other than the wind?
A memory or reality?


I regard the painting, the forest, the woman.
She becomes younger as I do.

Small video collages of opening eyes
Neurons firing and  
Right times in right places.
Homes painted after hospital beds.

What else?

Every minute of the dream was the brightest orange sunrise
We were camping in the middle of the field
I looked at you inverted,
Accepting what we already knew.



My heart is split in different places.