Get quiet
         No, more quiet than that
Be small town back road
At 3am
Get still
         No, more still than that
Be tree that cuts through breeze
See change centuries away
But stop your trembling leaves
Let sap cry but don’t move to leave
Or brush away the tears
The world is healing
   And breaking at the same time

Get quiet
Enough to hear rifts under seas
Still
Enough to feel the shattering of cycles
The process through is not easy
Urges to relapse yell loudest
When siloed
Misery loves itself
Do you love yourself?



Don’t answer-
     Be quiet enough to hear the answer
Still enough to taste your fears
  And insecurities
Savor them before
Spitting out
Versions of you have                  -                must
Die to make way
Make a friend of grief
Hold its hand
And when you feel ready
     Move forward

he met his mortality with trembling limbs
    and gnashing words
            fiercely independent
    and clutching at every loose strand
nothing was in his control

he cursed life and death
  in the same breath
because opportunity had never proven itself
         to him
and so he asked more of time

     demanded it
to bribe regret away
he lived a life unlived
but this was invisible to him
                                                   until the end

it all lay behind him now
flatlands and an apathetic sky

Blue marble,
lifeless eye.
Rotten cherry scented earth.

Nuisances poking up,
being pulled out -
composted for new dirt.

Don't you go getting sedimental on me.
Grains of insignificance ingratiating themselves in want of new life.

Rotten blueberry orb.
Fermented fungal stink.
A world in full decay.
Eyes that cannot blink.

in the same room as a baby
and a great grandmother
wondering
how to be like both

eager yet slow
curious and wise

eyes don't know how to focus
      or what to focus on
perhaps it's a sign of the times
a signal that I am seeing things anew

what came first:
          the inhale      or      the exhale
is the moment of transition
a peak or a valley

this is the question of birth and death
    of rebirth and culmination
the leaf whispered to the seedling
yet neither remembered first touch
  a mother's womb is its own ecosystem
       a dark moist vacuum

           regalia regalia

she wants to lie down
and stop feeding but everything
relies on her
   even if she is just a link
she must be the strongest one
stand up when others sit
spit conviction while others question
        in the endless spinning
    she must have her own orbit
          she has always held tight to what she needs

needless to say
she has been both twig and tree
and she came first waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
before any man

the kitchen table is set
     is perpetually set
with glued on utensils and fine China
bowls poured into with empty calories
and                    emptier words
we are accustomed to paper plates
and one off exchanges
        to using things and
          throwing them away