I
See you
Here
In
These
Four walls
Soft and strong and earnest,
As we snip
And weave
And mold
And sing
The fear
And grief
That seeps
Into stories
We can’t quite
Bring ourselves
To tell.
I see you
Here
Seeing me
Blinking
Away water
Seeking
A way forward
In time,
The only
Way
We move
Within
Walls
Unbroken
And heavy
With our
Works.
It’s loud outside,
The crumbling.
And —
That last piece
Really spoke
To me.

I didn’t
See
The emboldening.

I was so
Busy
Catching
Breath,
And butterflies,
I didn’t know
The times inside
And covered,
Were practice
For these times
Outside,
Exposed.

And we diminish
What we’ve built
In ways
We hope
Are tippy
Tops,
In thin air,
Just for show.

But I worry
There are young ones,
And tender souls
Up there.

I didn’t
See
The emboldening.

And the butterflies
Have pins
Through
Their bellies.

“Shock and awe,”
They blustered,
Telling us
In three
What their mandate
Said in
Hundreds
Of thousands.
“Shock
And
Awe!”
And I do,
Indeed,
Find myself
Awed.
I am awed
By the canyons
That separate
My understanding
From the world
Their blusters
(Smug now)
Name,
And shocked
By how swiftly
The world
Seemed to
Crack
Beneath
Our feet.
And I think
Of the shoes
Collected
When the time before
Was over,
And could be seen
For what it was.
And I wonder
What cliffs
The curators
Will lay
Before
Our Children’s
Children
To convey
The depths
We face
Today.

The bayou,
Named after
The saint,
Named as
My mother’s brother,
Doubles
The trees
And sky
Perfectly,
Rich greens and blues,
Like windows
For my church.
And I wonder
About my inverse
Who stays
Hidden
Until I’ve
The courage
To remember
To walk on water.

Seven souls
Visited
This morning.
Arranged
On the line
In a two
A three
And two ones.
And one one
Sang
For the group
A swirling song
I knew
And I missed
Them
When they fled
The churchgoers’ traffic
Without saying
Goodbye.

“Power,”
I say.
“My word is power.”
And the hesitation
Is as great
As the clarity.
And what comes
Makes heart
And body
Tremble,
Nearly off
The bone,
And writhe
Nearly out
Of skin.
Did I choose power?
Or did power choose me?
And time and space shatter,
And I survive to have soup,
And brush my teeth
Before bed.

Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ.
To all my relations.

I’ve long known
Two
To walk beside me —
One fighting  
In the tension
Between chaos
And order,
One flowing
Where simplicity
And complexity
Meet.
Both Grandmothers,
Covering me with love
Filling me with strength
And guiding me with light.
And there,
In the light,
In the strength,
And the love,
I meet the third,
In the tension
Between then
And now,
Between all
And none,
Between you
And I.
And we are beautiful,
In the tension
Between pain
And bliss.
And once I’m able,
I braid my hair
And find my feet
For our journey
Has just
Begun.