Do I want to know

your suffering to get some --


idea what mine is?

When you share my pain

you don't know where it ends, you --


suffer limitless.

The phone call continues to echo in my mind. I keep waiting for another to tell me this isn’t real. My own home now serves as a reminder that although minutes away you left this world alone. We were just young girls running around as if downtown was our own play ground. Our nights at Kaldis. Our endless dance synchronizations to Premier Gauo. The meals and stories we’d share the next morning reliving snickering at the havoc we wrecked. The way you lit up every room with your prescence and smile made you infectious. Your perfect melanated skin and bone structure. I always wondered how God could make someone so perfect. It was impossible to not be enamored by you, your unwillingness to conform, bend or fold. You were the epitome of life. Now I’m mourning yours. No one preparers you for tragedy despite life having so many. Even then you hope to never lose friends before they’ve seen gray hair. The way memories made from love now haunt you. My sister, my partner in nonsense in joy and sorrow. Please watch over me. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.

I came to the creek to talk to God,
But I'm not sure God is listening.
I used to see the world through rose-colored glasses,
But now my heart just aches.

I let my tears flow down my cheeks
Like the leaves flowing down the stream.
I release my anger and anguish to the wind
And as I look up and to my left, there a blue heron stands.

Deep breath in.
I watch a chipmunk scurry behind the blue heron
I watch the blue heron watch the chipmunk.
My dog sitting next to me is full of curiosity.

Grief and despair, sadness and rage
And all I can do is sit on this rock
Listening to the flowing waters song
And write some **** poetry.

I feel sick in the depths of my stomach
For my nation, for my neighbors
For so many loved ones.
For my own body and the choices I may no longer be able to make.

The warm sun beating down
Reminds me that it's too warm for November
Our Earth is crying out
And so are we.

I'm not sure what hope feels like in this moment.
I will give my body and mind time and space to grieve.
Grief turned into forward motion
Transmutes into Love.

I came to the creek to talk to God.
But I'm not sure God is listening.
So instead of talking, I will sit in silence
To watch the blue heron, to feel the breeze, and weep.

©KSS 11/6/2024

Under the velveteen red moon
I shall come a knocking,
Raising you from your slumber
Of dreamless sleep,
To cast your eye over your earthly deeds.
Will there be moments of wonder and awe?
Love, comfort and joy?
Or regrets and self-loathing?

You only have one chance at this game called life,
So throw the dice,
And make of it what you will,
No matter what life throws you.

But I beseech you to play the winner,
Not the victim,
Be your own warrior to the end,
Courage and compassion
Your soulmates,
And love, your sword.

It is not somewhere over the Rainbow
Beyond Mother's breath or
In the devices of ancient
Or modern hands bereft

We touch it in our pathos
And empathy from
Time to time
Through a shallow fading
Gravel bed
Filtering a bitter water table Perhaps

Whilst the tender leaf of spring
Feels it
In the autumn of unconditional
Acceptance of the inevitable
Morning frost
Cold relentless rains
And colourful leaves
falling to their death
In beauty

So far removed from our bipedal Posturing
And upright positioning at the Computer
Desk knowing there is no mystery here
No wild cry in the night
Only electronic and organic
Bleeps and drones and

Aw! there… I heard it again

A lost chord
A missing link
That the wild
Creatures understand
Of what we sometimes feel nearer in our shared limbic
Brain seldom penetrated through
Our domineering eyes planted Firmly in front
Of the gray dross from an eternal Fire

We spend our given time on
This planet trying to douse when The rest
Of creation knows the need for Its
Purification and leaps willingly Into its
All-consuming heart as we
Live in fear of the unknown
And of fear itself

Keeping us estranged from the Cosmic mysterium which Provokes us to awaken
To the wondrous eternal
Which will
Alter our deluded consciousness
To see what has been seen Through the
Unknown eons to help us take to The fire

We only catch a whiff of in the Twilight
Of our hopes and selfless dreams
So we will rise through the
Dry brown leaves of our once Tender
Green vision of an ever-changing Universe
Which whispers louder and Louder in our darkness
Until we cease our chatter and
Learn to listen to the serene Silence
Of an eternal vibration Heightening
Morphing

Less organic much more
Ethereal
spiritual

Crawling further and further
From the pulse of the earth
As we shed thickened skin which
Once replaced thin soft Unprotected flesh
Needing protection from Extraneous
Sources to cover what should Have been

Eternally naked bare to the Elements
Not limited to a frail carcass Which
Will ultimately be left behind as We
Transform into our individual Eternal temples to
Join in worship with the rest of Creation
To be the living offering
At the foot of the
Eternal voice ineffable
Not waiting to be obeyed
In mass procession but

As individual as one spark Igniting
A plot of trees newly released as Mystery
Revealed ever so slightly in the Wake of
The burial of earthbound mind Steeped in
Temporal ancient tradition Fermented in
Oak casks which were made to Remain
And grow in their ****** state

As we hear distant yet distinct Whispers of
The origin of our human calling Above and beyond
Thoreau's distant drummer’s Near silent tremors of the
Most ancient rhythms Now mostly echoes as we
March to
And follow our own drummer
Leading the way back home

As we at times seem to distinctly
Hear original rhythm's calling
As we try so earnestly to
Respond like a dying sea
Longing to once again sway
To the beckoning moon

Often keeping in step
With our
Own inner drummer who
Is always trying to keep
Time by asking

"Are we prepared to give
In to what we will
Inevitably meet in the end?"