Precious gems
started January 14th, 2021

Sometimes I think of
poems and people
misplaced lost missing gone

they live on
as gems in
my heart

tumbled smooth
by the turbulence
of my frantic love

each a precious
polished stone
ruby labradorite jade peridot

nightly before I sleep
I kiss them each one
so they will have sweet dreams.

Turn on the lamp
started January 13th, 2021

Turn on the lamp
for the end of the day
is near

Turn on the lamp
let the light
warm this page

Turn on the lamp
and let go
the worries of the day

Turn on the lamp
there is nothing to fear
from the coming night

Turn on the lamp
that is your heart
tonight you are enough.

Planting words
written December 26th, 2020

Each day
I plant words
eager to see
what they will grow into.

Some sit as seeds
buried at the back of my notebook
jostling against each other
drunk on their own potential.

Some get lost in the wind
gone before they can be grasped,
someone else will catch them
and plant them deep in distant soil.

Some are so bitter
they burn through the page
leaving ash as their only record.

Some form themselves sweet
into orderly patterns
ready to be released
into the world.

Some days it seems right
to polish those planted before
that only now
have started to sprout.

Today what will you plant
with your words? love? attention?
I watch to see
what you will grow.

~Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us, tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
—T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton", Collected Poems 1909-1962

Tendrils Twining
written January 21st, 2021

Tendrils twining
tightly around
pulling me towards?
or is it away?
or apart into pieces?
wrapped tightly
by tendrils twining
these cherished treasures
I have been pulled into
resting here held safe
while the world builds around
over them and me and us
until we are seen no more
known no more
remembered no more
tendrils twining
tightly around.

~but you dart through the future
which is memory
your boys voice shouting out
the remainder of poems
of which I know
simply beginnings
   —Carolyn Kizer, "For Sappho/After Sappho," Gift of Tongues

For you
written January 18th, 2021

My future self
I want you to have
songs in your heart
and words on your tongue.

I need to see you
darting through the future
boldly singing chanting screaming crying
words that today are unimagined and unborn.

Beginnings are anything but simple
but for you to be comfortable
having a voice
I have to start today.

So I write these words
which feel so inadequate
forcing myself
to not be mute

for you.

"Silence is the only common language." - James Baldwin

This silence
started December 26th, 2020

Our days are filled with words
words around us and on us
words that embrace and pierce
words comprehensible and strangely made.

Among all this chaotic cacophony
sits each of us with our own words
spoken and unspoken
understood and not understood.

Now it is the frayed evening
and the one thing I can offer
is to listen to your words,
to bless them in my own way
like the abbot at compline
in the monastery dark and deep.

Then we both will part
into the silence of the night
the silence that surrounds us in the womb
and greets us when we cross over at our ending

this silence which is
our only common language.