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.

He acts.
A word,
A look,
A gesture.
And the hurt
He’s feeling
Strikes,
And she,
And I,
Fold,
Tucking in
Around impact
Withdrawing
Small
Around the blow.
From here,
I see
A yearning
There,
In that small space,
In her posture of diminishment,
And the yearning
Points to a need
Barely visible
Between the “no”s
And
(Switching
From memory
To intention)
She breathes
And I breathe
And we connect
In
And to
The strength
We embody
And gather
Our Selves
To join
For
And in
Expansion.

“Would you want to share first?”
They said
And I shared
Without knowing
What I wanted
Or wanted to say.
And I wrapped words
Around steps
So far
On my loud
And wordless
Journey
And they nodded
And listened
All the way to
The unanswered question
Of
One
Small
Act.
“An act to counteract,”
They called it.
Their name was Tabitha.
(I had them repeat it.)
Their name is Tabitha,
And they let me
Hold the question
Without answer
Until the bell.
And let me hug them
After we shared.

Moving
This body
On grass
Between stones
In swirls
Upon swirls
Switching back
And around
Until start
Becomes end.
One step
Then another
Marks the silence
Gathering
Within.