“A groan of tedium escapes me, startling the fearful
Is this a test? It has to be, otherwise I can't go on.
Haven't written a word in three and a half years.
Time to take the broom out to this shallow grave”
Middlesteps

~~~~(|)~~~~

For
deep is the fear, coated in thickening veneer
of might-be-bravery,
the weight, Oh, the weight!
of that writing utensil that both
bears and bares all,
an uncomfortable unconscious,
uncontrollable surrender
that sweeps down upon us,
when first we seek the unwieldy unwinding
of our proactive fist of a first step,
the unclenching, the open face palm,
seeing our lifeline’s revelation, the shame,
the lines we thought that faded away,
upended, open ended, that the worst
un-finishing, but here I am, my taking, the
baby steps of Middlesteps,
only looking
back to forwards for permission,

a new looking inward
forward!

we confesses, beg for our own forgiveness
for ourselves, the years of summary silence ,
at last!
unveiled and unbound, this first step stinks of
tremors, poems never writ up, but on our mouths
and fingertips yet memorized as IF they were bespoke

this return,
“startling the fearful,”
a provocation to the mirrored images
caked on my disheartened body,
goes lightly noticed, but not by me!

daily, I ask the bay and the sky, the animals,
the query lives in almost each of my scripts,

*Where is Shelter?

today the answer is not an apparition,
but the question is rephrased,
not where! but when
the answer is now apparent,
for the seed planted, this is for you,
watering the seed, feeding the shoot,
that I know too well,
for asked and I answer,

everyday…