Between
Reaches
And twists,
I lay
My body
For a moment
Of rest
And my
Mind
Slips
Quietly
Away
To spaces
Where senses
Blend,
Where words
Tumble,
Where my body
Is left behind.
And I startle
When I wake
And wonder
What else
I don’t
Know
I need.

He spits
As he speaks
And thrashes
About
Insisting
His rights
Outweigh
His duty
To serve
And I spit
Anger
For those
He will cause
To suffer.
And then -
I breathe
And let
My mouth form
Simple words
Of ancient
Sentiment,
And I remember
Him,
And recognize
The weakest parts
Of me.

I approach
Her
Gently,
My body,
Sheepish
With a dash
Of hope.
And she
Turns
And opens
And welcomes
Me back
Into my skin
To settle,
To rest,
To find holds
And pulls
For moving
And for staying.
And we
Create
The rhythm
We follow,
And we
Create
The light
We have seen.
And I am
Grateful
That
She is
Gracious
When we rest
As she will
When I
Can no longer
Be.

I gather
My parts
Here
For practice.
And,
Knowing,
I declare, and
I ask,
And suppose,
There
And
Find
It hard
To hear
The yearnings
Of flesh
And bone
Now
From within
My constructions
Of then.
And then,
Knowing
Goes on
Without
Me,
And I practice.

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.

I sat
Today
In stillness
And watched
Her construct
Riddles
And mazes
And puzzles
For me
To try
To solve.
And when
I noticed
Myself
Trying,
I pulled
My lungs
Open
To make
Room
For less
Than trying
And more
Than solving,
And touched
The answer,
The center,
The vision
Within,
And beyond
The problem.
And she
Looked
Into
My eyes
And said,
“And this is how we practice.”
And I
Handed
Her
The prize
And said,
“And this is why we practice.”

I wandered
Around corners
Today
Through familiar
Tunnels
And over
Peaks well-traveled
In my skin
From my mat.
And everywhere
I noticed,
I found you
Calling me
To tread
The paths
I’ve yet
To be.

As I
Ease into
Pose
Of a corpse
I wonder
At the edges
We construct
Between us,
How real
The chasm
Seems
When I
Succumb
To the urge
To set
Both form
And beat.

Feet planted,
I sweep
The world
Around me  
With arms
And wrap
Them
One around
One,
As hips
Call for space
And I extend
And I fold
And I breathe
And I reach
And I settle
Before sweeping
Back
To the start,
To listen
For
What
Comes
Next.

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.

I settle
And listen
And my path
Reveals
Itself
One reach
One twist
One bend
At a time
Between
The edges
Of my mat.
And I long
To remember
This ease
When I stow
My mat
And settle into
My life.

She floods
Her skin
With intention,
“Be here.”
She wills
Herself
Back.
Backs away
From the lure
Of stories
That make
The hurt
Make sense.
(Stories
That make
The hurt.)
And his smell
Is familiar
And sweet.

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.

“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.