"... in the end, all our journeys have to bring us home." -from "The Art of Stillness" by Pico Iyer

Making home
written June 19th, 2020

For some home is the place they start
The place in their hearts
That was love safety comfort
And so they spend their lives
Trying to get back there.

For others of us
That place we were born
Is something to be survived
Escaped from as soon as possible.

So we journey through life
Finding people
and places
and treasures
and memories
To build our home of.

Making for ourselves
This thing called home.

~Jane Kenyon lived and wrote poems from 1947 to 1995.

Jane Kenyon
written April 17th, 2021

I want to ask her
so many questions,
like why she chose
to put that one
word
alone on that line.

But she has gone
where I can not ask
so I will have to find my answers
in the spaces between her words
in the pauses at the ends of lines
and in the silences between her stanzas.

Just write
written April 25th, 2021

The first
is relatively easy
just get thoughts on the page.
I repeat to myself - no past -
no future - no pressure -
just write.

Coming back
can be more challenging
to words that flow and stumble
down one side and up the other.
I reassure myself - it is ok -
it will be ok - there is time -
just write.

Some poems
seem so weighty
I don't want to start them
or work on them once started.
I tell myself that
one day will be the right day
to work on that poem
but for today -
just write.

Many days
I want to make excuses.
I say I just wrote yesterday,
or I will write tomorrow,
or I will read someone else's poems,
but my work is my self
and I find my self writing poems, so -
just write.

It doesn't have to be right -
just write.

together again
written November 9th, 2021

the terrifying silence
crashes around me
I'm afraid I will
be broken into pieces
that can't be put back
together again

I've done this before
pieced myself
together again
but I get so tired
of the fear that the
breaking will never end

~I wanted to find out in what way the specialness of my experience could be made to connect me with other people instead of dividing me from them.
—James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

Alone together
started November 30th, 2020

We all at times
feel alienated.
Tell me about it,
that thing that
makes you feel
so different and alone.

I might understand
or at least I can listen
and for a brief moment
we can be alone together.

Have you been
   a stranger in the only home
   you ever knew?
I have.

Do you feel
   anger shame fear
   all the time?
I do.

Have you silently screamed
   for fear if you let the sound loose
   you and your world would shatter?
I have.

Did you find your people on a psych ward
   and know it was the only time
   you would be surrounded by those like you?
I did.

Have you ever felt so uniquely formed
   you are sure others
   wouldn't recognize you as human?
I have.

Do you fall in love with words
   shaping them into poems
   to show yourself and others
  that silence is not the only option?
I do.

Hear my words
find yourself in them
find your own words
and for a brief moment
we can be alone together.

Moments in my day
written August 7th, 2021

1.
I wake up
and look out the window
at the morning sun
shining through the leaves.

I look out the window again
and it is the dusk sky of day's end.
The day has gone somewhere
to someone.

2.
I sit and stare out the
half-circle window.
Somehow I
have arrived here
so I stay.
I'm not sure
where or when I am.
I don't move.
I wait for someone
to say it is ok
and hope
they don't notice me
if it is not.

3.
I am writing
about touching a man.
I write: "I grab him by the...."
and stop to think about what word to write.
One of the others inside boisterously says
It's an ***, grab him by the ***
it can't be those other words,
grab him by the ***!
I blush and don't write
"bottom" or "*****" or "buttocks"
I write: "I grab him by the ***."
The other is satisfied
and lets me continue on my own.

4.
I am suddenly in the body.
I am in bed with a man.
The others don't let me out
if it is dangerous,
so I smile and say "Hi."
He does *** things to me
and it does feel good, I think.
He has learned to say,
"Are you ok?" every few minutes.
I say, "Yes, I'm ok."

5.
I look through my binder of poems.
I know it is me writing here every single time.
I recognize the handwriting,
but even if it is dated yesterday
I don't remember writing the words.

6.
I am inside and hear
one of the others
I share this body with
giggle.
I come out to note
that I do not giggle,
because I do not giggle!
Then I go back inside
letting the one who giggles
giggle and be herself
in the body we share.

Of me—Being
written August 15th, 2021

Usually I have
no time or place
floating in the ether
until I whisper
my name
in your ear.

For a brief moment I am
here and now
known
anchored to this
time and place
with you.

In the index of my life
this moment will be listed
as one of the rare
occurrences
of me—
Being.

~I want to eat my life
—Olga Broumas, "If I Yes", Gift of Tongues

I want to eat my life
written June 11th, 2021

I
me, us, we
he, she, they
singular
plural
all of us
all of me.
I

want
that aching sensual word
not the bare factualness of need
something born in the soul
it takes hope to want
and incredible bravery.
I want

to eat
slowly like little bites of chocolate
then voraciously like melting ice cream
all of it - every last bite
because it is my favorite thing in the world.
I want to eat

my
mine - not borrowed -
not shared - not apologized for -
not stolen - not ashamed of -
not asked for - begged for - pleaded for
mine.
I want to eat my

life
I want to love it - build it -
want it - claim it - live it fully
from top to bottom and side to side
every inch of it known, explored and claimed.
I want to eat my life.

Definitions of hurt
written March 14th, 2021

My story is not
of physical violence and love withheld.
My story
is of violation and love mixed together.

When love is defined that way
with things that don't leave marks
on a child afraid to cry
different definitions of hurt
are learned by the body - by my body.

You reach out to touch my *****
I say, "Please don't hurt me"
you say, "I would never hurt you"
and then you touch me
pushing things into me
not understanding
that my body learned
my body knows
my body screams in pain
at that intimate touch that
the world defines as pleasure

"Don't hurt me?" I ask
you don't understand
my definition of hurt
my inability to say
I know you would want me to say
certainly any sane adult would say

"No. That hurts. Stop. I don't want this."

The real me
written July 1st, 2021

I sit on a low bluff
looking out at the ocean in Goa
age 18 and away from home
for the first time.

I can see sitting beside me
a version of me who is
female - compassionate - loving
my skirts and my bangles
the anklets Shankar and Ana gave me
soft and round and surprised
I want to be intimate with a boy.
This is the real me.

I see sitting on the other side of me
another version of me
who is sure they are the real me
male - logical - unemotional
calm under pressure.
My life is planned out
I will be an engineer like my uncle
interested in ideas and not people.
This is the real me.

Some "I"
sits on that low bluff
and sees both of us
for the first time
and it is a wonder.
There are no words for this yet
but these both are
the real me and in time
we will find more
of us.

This is the real me.

Solitude
written January 30th, 2021

The writing prompt says
to describe someone
you wish to tell something.

It sounds so easy
except I have cultivated distance
and silence
even within myself.

The conversations I have
are of trauma and pain
and the crying for comfort
which even
the conversations with myself
rarely provide.

I plant and tend
these silent days
and silent years
that make this
silent solitary life.

If silence were currency
I would be rich
beyond imagining.

Perhaps one day
something or someone
will grow in these
well tended
fallow fields.

One of these
written March 7th, 2021

One of these
is not like the others.

That one flower off to the right
in the field of flowers.
Do you see her
aglow with a quiet intensity
among all the others?

Always different-alone-apart
holding so many secrets.
What can she say?
What should she not say?
Can she really say
anything at all?

So she holds inside
all the things that burn
in the sunlight and the starlight,
buried so deep in her soul
even she doesn't know
some of them.

One of these
is not like the others.

With wings made strong
written April 15th, 2021

I sit in the back
while you sit in the front
the favored seat
next to your father

you so icy and cold
he could have reached out
and touched your body
but not your soul

which was flying out over
the fields we drove by
desperately straining
to get as far away as possible
with wings made strong

before having to return
to this body of yours
to walk down halls
filled with students and teachers
who did not see

you or the others
with wings made strong.

Today do you still
fly out over the fields
wondering if
you will ever
take residence in
this body of yours.

~Life looks like a white desert, a blaze of today in which nothing distinct can be made out, seen.
—Marvin Bell, "1. About the dead man", Gift of Tongues

Blaze
written May 2nd, 2021

I long to blaze
to be white hot fire
burning fiercely
without limit or restraint

take as kindling
all these collected seconds of tedium
the moments of curling into myself in pain
the flares of white hot passion
the kisses of comfort on the forehead

spark my soul
start the fire
watch me blaze so bright
you have to look away

wait until the coals cool
so you can sift through
the ashes that were me
looking for treasure

I am no longer there.
I have moved on and am
collecting the kindling
for the next
glorious
blaze.

What can I share?
written March 29th, 2021

I talk to people
   who have done so much
   and traveled so far

I wonder what do I have
   to share with the world
   that is unique and worth sharing?

I can share the view
   outside my window
   of old trees growing wild

I can share the sound
   of my pen scratching
   across the paper

I can share the blue sky
   now always shining
   in this poem

I can share a welcoming silence
   that wraps itself around you
   healing protecting and comforting

I can share coolness in the heat of summer
   warmth from my flannel quilt in winter
   and a moment of home when you feel bereft

I can share the depth of my heart
   the world seen through my eyes
   the words that only I can write.

How oceans came to be
written March 15th, 2021

Tears fall
from eyes
wetting cheeks
running in rivulets
down bodies
drenching the earth
until it can hold no more
so the waters rise
becoming a salt water ocean
created from tears
that fell
from eyes.

the trees watching us
written December 29th, 2020
for Thomas

we walk down the old logging road
the trees watch us pass
noting our presence
our comfort with each other

we make our way to the small stream
and sit on its banks
listening to the sound as it flows past
bouncing over rocks and roots as it goes

i sit with you and listen
to the sounds all around us
and if i listen closely enough
i can hear the trees watching us

whispering to each other about their day
wondering what we will bring
as we pass through their stationary world
their roots entwined under the ground

i feel you beside me
my leg resting against yours
i take ahold of your arm
and lean against you

with you, here
i am at peace
watching the trees
watching us.

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.

~In the song of the man in his room in his house in his head remembering
And then no more?
—Thomas McGrath, "Ordonnance", The Gift of Tongues

This poem has a soundtrack. 2 songs that play along with it are "The Knife Feels Like Justice" by Brian Setzer, and "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" by Meat Loaf.

Until there is no more
started January 31st, 2021

I remember the songs
crying from the radio
the words I couldn't say
giving expression to the searing pain
helping my soul fly away
until there was no more

I remember my room that was light pink
the color my fear still is today
the secrets in there breaking open
like the stains on the carpet
that everyone must have seen
the tears in your broken eyes
that could not be cried
until there was no more

I remember the house that room was in
a house that was no home
me a hermit crab without a shell
war without and war within
until there was no more

I remember what was in his head
the self-loathing, isolation
paranoia and bitterness
that were his gift to me
from father to beloved child
until there was no more

What remains
is the remembering
and the not remembering
reality shimmering
into and out of existence
until there is no more.

Breathing space
written November 3rd, 2021

Space stretches
into the distance
I send my breath
towards you

soft like a breeze
tickling your hair
embracing you
pooling around you
making this space

for you
to be
to rest
to feel peace
a breathing space.

~You hear
yourselves in them
self after self
     ...
when I leave, I leave
alone, as I came.
—Denise Levertov, "Poet and Person", Gift of Tongues

Poems and people
started January 30th, 2021

Each morning I arrive
into this world anew
with a sigh and a memory
of day before day
self before self
that has tried to take up
permanent residence in this body
each one feeling right
until one morning it isn't.

This is my record of
poems and people
page after page after page.

At the end of the day
each one perches
on the edge of the night
to fly away alone into the dark.

I sleep and wait
to see who will arrive
with the morning.

They want
written February 6th, 2021

They think they want
the body
the ***
the words

but it's not my words they want
the words in me
waiting to spill out

some listen for a while
but they know what they want
and it isn't
this body
this ***
these words
me.

If someone was looking
13 March 2020

If someone was looking
they would see me seated
at my dining room table
hurriedly scribbling down words
chasing a line from a dream
aching and exposed and raw
before it is gone forever

If someone was looking
they would see a person
seated in meditation
taking on different postures
taking on myriad forms
coming back to my breath
aching and exposed and raw
after chasing everyone else's breaths

If someone was looking
they would see my body
slighter than it used to be
walking on new knees with new shoes
standing in line among people
aching and exposed and raw
vulnerable to people's piercing glances

If someone was looking
they would see my life
composed of
husband and home
cats and books
aching and exposed and raw
the watcher watching

If someone was looking
aching and exposed and raw
they would see.... ?

What substance do I have?
bone muscle blood skin.

I know there is more to me
than these.

But it is so fleeting
slipping through these mortal fingers
squishing up between my toes as I walk
wetting my hair as the sky falls on me.

So I write
thinking that maybe
I can catch something by surprise
pin it to this paper with my pen
some fluttering gossamer wing
that tells me what am I?