Maybe you could be my Maria
But maybe my Maria is all you'll ever be
Am I alive or is this just a vivid dream?
Or am I just making up stories?

If I grew wings I'd stay out of the air
'Cuz I've knocked on Heaven's door but nobody seems to be there

Sleepwalker, I've been chasing you for days
Its been 'round twenty two years since I've seen your face
I want to dance with a question, I'm through with talking straight
Sleepwalker, I want to change your name

All the highway signs are painted with your name
Oh, the way you love me could be just a car up in flames
But as white as my knuckles get
I'm pushing down, I'm flooring it

And the streets howl of lost love caution underneath my wheels
But these cold streets couldn't ever understand what I feel

Sleepwalker, you're no dead end avenue
A morphine dream from a concrete point of view
I follow the chalk outline of a kiss to your castle in the air
My salvation found in the tangles of your hair

Oh, I've been chasing you for days
Sleepwalker, are you finally awake?

Forty Days

A Season of Grief, a Season of Rejoicing

November 9-December 20, 2014

For Barbara Beach Alter 
It is Christmas morning in Saco, Maine, where today Bett, Aaron, Emily, Thomasin and our beloved cousin Marie find ourselves gathered to celebrate our first Christmas without dadima (our name for Barbara Beach Alter).  Brother Tom writes that already in India he and Carol with Jamie, Meha and Cayden (the only of her seven greatgrandchildren Barry never held) have celebrated.  Today Marty and Lincoln join us in Maine.

This gathering of documents—notes, drafts of memorial services, poems, homilies—is my christmas present to each of you.  It is a record, certainly subjective, of grief and rejoicing.

John Copley Alter
1:14 a.m.
Saco, Maine 
November 9

Loved ones,
Barbara Beach Alter died peacefully at 2:55 Sunday morning (today).  Bett and I had the good fortune to be there for the final beating of her good strong heart.  She murmured charcoal.  The nurse who was bathing her afterwards noted how few wrinkles there were, and it is true.
For those of you nearby you may if you want visit Mom in her room at hospice this morning (until noon).  Visit? Darshan? Paying respects?
Bett and I plan to be there around 11:00.
Much love to all. A blessed occasion.
John

 
November 10

Matthew 5:13-19
Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
"You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

yesterday in the early hours my mother died her saltiness
restored all that had through the months of her old
age and convalescence obscured the lens of her life cleaned
away so that for us now more and more clearly
as we hear about her through the memory and love
of so many people her good works shine forth in
their glory but it is to the days of her
convalescence the days of her dementia I would turn our
minds those of us who spent time with her at
Wingate long-term care facility remember that Barbara Beach Alter became
at times fierce in her commanding us that ‘not one
letter, not one stroke of a letter’ of the commandments
should be altered do you remember that those of you
and us who were given the work and gift of
spending time with Barry in those days in that condition

remember for instance how fussy she became about the sequence
of food on her tray how impatient with us for
our trespasses and violations how adamant that we look forward
for instance and not back at her how she would
say stop holding my hand and saying you love me
you have work to do o she was almost impossible
and certainly incoherent and demented in her obsession with law
and procedure fussy impatient imperious I do not forget being
scolded reamed out put in my place for having somehow
failed to do what the ‘law and the prophets’ demand

Barbara beach alter in the days before hospice in the
nursing home and hospital and even if we are honest
in the final years of her life found herself caught
up in the rigidity of her anxious desire to be
faithful to the laws and commandments of her life and
that made her at times extremely demanding to be with

amen and the epistemological confusion of course the clash between
her reality and ours it was all an ordeal for
her and for those of us who kept her company

and yet and yet through it all and now as
that ordeal for her is no longer paramount as she
dances in heaven all the wrinkles and discomfort of her
life removed and forgiven Barbara Beach Alter kept the faith
living in the midst such that those who cared for
her most intimately the strangers all professed your mother blessed
us


Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.



So, brother and sister, here are my thoughts about the memorial service(s).
Let’s find a time when we three can be present; that’s the most important thing.  My life is currently the least constrained by agenda and schedule.  And then the grandchildren, recognizing that Jamie may not be able to come.  So, our work is to find our when our kids are able to come. Bett and I are exploring that with our three, each of whom has some constraint: Emily, the cost; Thomasin, the piebaking demands, Aaron school.  But we are flexible.

Much love.

John



Walking in my mother’s wake today some trees
a gentle breeze some dogs a little boy
the neighborhood and I took joy from interaction

we are at best a fraction in love’s
calculation after all heaven I realize is not
above or below cannot be taught comes naturally

as death does walking in my mother’s wake
I found new allies learned yet again not
to take myself too seriously to be caught

off guard as a matter of principle and
not to insist that I understand but live
in the midst of forgiveness


in my mother’s wake I am reading these books for
some way to continue to knock on her door Wendell
Berry he can tell me some things and William Blake
he can take me closer and I remember she described
me once as an unused Jewish liberal so I am
reading about protestant liberalism but ham that I am also
reading Carl Hiassen’s Bad Monkey and Quo Vadimus that my
daughter left behind and mythologically Reflections from yale divinity school
no fooling Denise Levertov David Sobel Galway Kinnell’s translation of
Rilke some wake
 
November 11

Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

this morning in the wee hours my mother died one
of the wise bridesmaids whose lamp to the end was
full she carried always the flask of oil that is
joy that is the love of the kingdom of heaven
and of the bridegroom a flask always replenished by prayer
by devotion by a humble courageous living in the midst

she expected every day the bridegroom to come in other
words and she was also one who would never refuse
to share even the last drop with somebody in need

and at the end it is so clear the door
into the banquet hall was not closed to her as
it is not closed to any one of us foolishness
is to believe otherwise to believe that the bridegroom will
not come today in the early morning in the wee
hours that is when he comes in the midst of
other plans is when he comes even when we are
doing what we assume to be good work when we
are doing what gives us pleasure our duty joy comes
then unsummoned unpredictable random even according to all our best
laid plans my mother loved so many things her pleasure
included dancing late in her life terminally unsteady she invented
what we loved to urge her to do namely the
sitting jig and we grew up with images of her
Isadora Duncan dancing with white scarves in an enchanted forest

Barbara Beach Alter aka Barry aka dadima bari nani aunt
and daughter wife missionary is now I know dancing a
rollicking boisterous jig on the shores of a lake that
is as her grandson once confided to her god in
liquid form spilly Beach of course also dyslexic executive function
compromised she was but one who loved to be always
in the midst surrounded by loved ones some of them
absolute strangers she shared her oil because for her it
came welling up from an inexhaustible source a deep eternal
well of such illumination and laughter such giddy divine chuckles

for her there was to be no exclusion she would
not find the awful idea of being one of the
foolish applicable to anybody but happily she welcomed into her
midst so many it is hard to imagine how many

so there she is now a bridesmaid dancing for joy
in such elegant clothing with such perpetual brightness

amen hallelujah rejoice


sometimes I think she pulled us all out of the
magic hat sometimes I think she knit us all into
one of her theologically impossible sweaters and then with a
wink she passes through the eye of the needle and
is gone and we are left to play in her
honor endless hands of solitaire sometimes I think we are
no more than the hermeneutics of her life the epistemology
artless she was not her heart like one of those
magical meals for her then a doxology praise then praise
she knows salvation

what is a life’s work it is like a landscape
dotted with oases and gardens for the thirsty and the
lost it is like scraping through dry barren ground and
finding there suddenly not only the theology of paradise but
such seeds your hands ache to begin the planting what
is a life’s work what has been shut for too
long opens what has been shut for too long opens

a life’s work renews itself then with death the kernel
of hope that dies in springtime sprouting is what a
life’s work becomes
 
November 12

John 21:15-17
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

I know my mother very much enjoyed having breakfast with
god and that the meals of her nursing home drove
her nearly crazy and that when at last she found
hospice o she again could imagine the feast of heaven
at which Jesus breaks bread with us and speaks with
such clarity do you love me more than these I
know it was questions as simple and overwhelming as this
that dominated her final days do you love me love
being  one of the last five words she attempted to
speak do you love me she wrestled in her last
months with epistemology and psychology and theology and all had
to do with whether she could answer unequivocally you know
that I love you and that she could say of
her life that she had broken bread with god we
all remember in her life those moments when there was
a great gladness an innocent acceptance of what lay immediately
in her presence now those months in the nursing home
tormented her in precisely this fashion that it was hard
to accept to be in the midst of such mediocrity
and woe to be innocent and accepting but now praise
god there she is a happy guest at the great
feast and we left behind bereft can acknowledge that she
loved god in her own fashion as best she possibly
could and do you remember being with her there in
hospital or nursing home and she commanding us to move
beyond holding her hand and saying we loved her and
to feed the sheep to do that work which will
make of this earth this here and now an outstation
of heaven Barbara Beach Alter loved god in her own
fashion as best she possibly could we remember that and
that memory is today like a great network a web
of love and inspiration o we would gladly one more
time hold her hand and say I love you but
we know also clearly I think today what the work
is to love our neighbor as ourselves to work for
peace and justice I think of my sister with her
colleagues in WEIGO and how her sisters have understood her
grief  let us break our fast together then glad for
the worldwide web that in these days is reading the
gospel of the life of Barbara Beach Alter praise god


feed
tend
feed
in exchange for his three denials Peter is given three imperative verbs
feed
tend
feed
this is the commission Jesus after breakfast on the shore of the sea of Galilee gives to Peter
twice he says feed
in the commonwealth of Massachusetts 700,000 people are hungry
1 in 6 americans are hungry
living in uncertainty about their daily bread
more than 18,000,000 in Africa
842,000,000 around the world go to bed hungry


Marty and Tom
The thinking about the memorial service is taking this slow and cautious turn, namely that we have three services (at least), one in Sudbury, one in New Haven (allowing Stan and Chuck and others to come) at First Presbyterian (with Blair Moffett we hope), and of course one in India.
The date frame appears to be somewhere between December 17 and 20, unless you have other thoughts.
The actual cremation happens tomorrow.  Lincoln, Bett, Alexis and I will attend, and then of course there is In the Midst on Friday.
Love you more than tongue can tell.
John


the thing with a life well lived is that many
people have partaken the way let’s say a river moves
down through any number of different lives all the time
sedulously seeking the shortest path to the sea to steal
a line from somebody or other meandering a watershed within
which so many of us find a way to live
our own lives nourished and for each of us the
river distinct and different white water the slow fertile meander
the delta and we say to each other this is
the composite river


sometimes I feel like a sleepwalker trying to run a
marathon sometimes I feel like a speedbump in a blizzard

an arrow in a wind tunnel sometimes I feel like

a hazard sign in an old age home sometimes I
feel like a tyrannosaurus rex trying to ride a tricycle

and sometimes those are the good days when identity is
strong like an icicle in a heat wave is strong

I try to read wisdom literature at happy hour scotch
and Solomon can’t go wrong I think and sometimes I

feel like crying
 
November 13

four days ago we were left alone there with your
body after your breathing ceased and the proud stubborn beating
of your heart and in those four days beloved mother
so much I would love to say to you and
share the antics of the squirrel late leaves on the
neighborhood trees music Orion the network the atlas of love
your life has left behind and all the words we
are the gospel of today and I would sit with
you there then in silence as I sit now four
days later vigilant insomniac aware that the kingdom of heaven
is not more complicated than singing than love than dancing

we are all dancing the dance lord siva teaches and
the s

These marks upon my hands from clinging on too tight
Whilst I clutched onto the lamp I held that lonely night
As I saw lines upon your face and knew you as tired
Your senses lost as you walked blindly past lamp fire

You walked slowly, eyes open, but closed
Pale cheeks replacing the ones that were rose
All things done awake, but asleep
My trembling fingers and heavy feet daring to creep

Wood floor creaking with each step you took
Turning as if memory with glazed, unflinching look
Into the kitchen, as in sleep, you took the knife
And with a plunge of a knife and the crash of a lamp, I bade my last goodnight

Some of these books
I wouldn't remember reading
If they weren't on my bookshelf

They say you're not supposed
To wake up
A sleepwalker
But more often than not
I want to remember in the morning
The moments I fell in love with
The night before

I want to really remember
All the books on my bookshelf
And some of them
I haven't even read yet

Wake me up.

She was a fiction
of his imagination
and when she
beckoned he
would step out
sleepwalking

Destined for a fall
but not before
she vanished
in the waking hours

And then appeared
after the sun
before the moon
to catch him as
they lay down
beneath a blanket

of stars

i woke up this morning
with a snowflake on the tip of my nose
and i thought i became a sleepwalker.
its the first time that im haunting
the dreamworld
with my eyes wide open
and i believe.

i was sleeping actually. and it was
fog
and hoarfrost
and everything smelled of oranges.
mom says it smells like Christmas
but i dont sense any pine-tree.
so no.

the snowflake melted and i still did not wake up and i almost had a panick attack because i was not sleeping, i was not awake either and i was home, where it is impossible for snowflakes to fall.

tangerines. yes. not oranges.

Cruel saints
Spoke like whimper dolls
And wished the world more
Than what it was

Loft and mind
Comes crumbling every dawn
When the bell tolls morn
Reality shakes our walls

Those hands of a dreamer
Calloused wrists or fitful lids
Fit in that hollow
Of your chest so easily
And warm breath rather suits
Cold air, rather than lips
Tender sleeves never could
Keep our fingers from wandering
. . .
The pages of your soul

Decipher
And fall apart
What terror
Lies in our hearts

Decipher
And fall apart
What terror
Lies in our hearts

At night rise, to the buzz of my son’s blood,
I wake and blow aboriginal dust from my lungs,
Get up and take a turn around the house.

The place has gotten cold.
This ****-eyed family – good God, they are helpless.
I tried to help by leaving things behind,
Like this prayer on the wall
About the timelessness of beauty.
And did you find the poem
About Freud and mountain climbing?
All they do is wail privately
And try to pass it off as singing.

My son sleeps like a chessmaster,
Shocked into resignation.
He dreams about me,
And his dreams are riddled with light
And longing for the past.
Such nocturnal naiveté.

But he knows the stars
And because, like the ancient Greeks,
He can follow them home,
He will leave this place before it leaves him.

This house gets smaller all the time.
Still, the furniture breathes quietly,
And the dancers in the tapestry sway
Though faded by the sun.

The dust from my breath settles down in layers.
Pale light silvers the living room mirror.
My steps leave footprints before each foot falls.
The footprints lead back to my door.

It is time to lie down.
Soon my son will wake up,
And shake off the ashes of sleep.
I don't live here any more.
My death will begin again.

Oh my peaceful dreamer
how have I gotten here?
My legs will do the walking
when my dreams are all I fear.

Oh my restful darling
the sun is growing near,
all I ask is stay with me
and whisper in my ear.

Oh my sleeping sweetheart
the cliff I stand is sheer.
At the base I shall remain
when pain begins to sear.

Oh my peaceful dreamer
how have I gotten here?
I feel the darkness calling
so I must disappear.

Outside,
A storm is brewing.
Clouds collide as wind unfolds.
Lighting
Strikes a fire in heart,
Burning desires of truth untold.

Inside,
She peers out through fog.
She presses her hand to hardened chill.
Longing,
Frustration forms the mask
Where warm satisfaction used to fill.

Venture
Into dark, raging night,
And hear the drops as they crash to the ground.
Listen,
Spread her arms open wide
But no cold, no drop, no sight, no sound.

Solid,
She stands like a rock.
She stands in the wind and the rain through the storm.
Confused,
She feels no drops on her skin,
No light in her eyes, just sound of the scorn.

Sitting,
She braves the rest of night,
Her only action of blank, empty stares.
Gone,
The feeling, her heart – home –
So nothing she is, and for nothing she cares.

Often times I find myself
wandering in an empty field.
I am alone, and I can feel
the grass caressing my ankles.
It was familiar

the first time I have done this,
since that origami swan took you,
flew you off in a distance where
even  eight minutes of light isn’t enough.
Familiar

like lying is always the only fun
I can ever have. Though
the place is dim,
the sky is not an empty
space. Salt sprinkled,

I see the stars sparkle,
the way your eyes do.

I trace your name, connecting
each dot of light, and, yes,
this has to be the last letter, hoping
that you’ll see it this time—

even when eight minutes
of light travel isn’t even

enough.

I walked slowly

Only stopping for you

Maybe you can wake me

Maybe you can save me



“Oh, dear Sleepwalker,”

You said calmly,

“How long do you walk for?”



For you, my sweet

For you, my love

I walk for you

We are born with luck
which is to say with gold in our mouth.
As new and smooth as a grape,
as pure as a pond in Alaska,
as good as the stem of a green bean--
we are born and that ought to be enough,
we ought to be able to carry on from that
but one must learn about evil,
learn what is subhuman,
learn how the blood pops out like a scream,
one must see the night
before one can realize the day,
one must listen hard to the animal within,
one must walk like a sleepwalker
on the edge of a roof,
one must throw some part of her body
into the devil's mouth.
Odd stuff, you'd say.
But I'd say
you must die a little,
have a book of matches go off in your hand,
see your best friend copying your exam,
visit an Indian reservation and see
their plastic feathers,
the dead dream.
One must be a prisoner just once to hear
the lock twist into his gut.
After all that
one is free to grasp at the trees, the stones,
the sky, the birds that make sense out of air.
But even in a telephone booth
evil can seep out of the receiver
and we must cover it with a mattress,
and then tear it from its roots
and bury it,
bury it.

Soft bedding shielding my body
From the axis of frigid air that thrives
Off the edge of everyone's bed.
But as always my mind is
Wrapped up in something else.

The cord attaching me to
The sail of blood and bone
Tugs deep at my ankles and legs
And moves me off, and out
Into the waking world.

And when did the world wake up,
Breathe heavy and rub yesterday's dirt
Off its dry and heavy eyes?
Lifting itself from a cold pillow
To pirouette the day away 'round the sun.

I question it only because
It feels, most days, like the planet
Is sleepwalking.
Shuffling and spewing nonsense,
Just like me.

At least I got to write this down
Before I go back to bed.

Consider the coffee cup in the bitter early morning
clutched by the weary, in the hands of the sleepwalker.
A Styrofoam chimney that warms bodies to the bones.
Like a silo of potential energy that awakens and inspires.

A companion of the cigarette soft pack, as long as both are full
When empty, a ruffian of a house abandoned
or a vacant playground, a soul void of vivacity.

Sleepy fingers trace the serpentine trail of steam
escaping via vent  in the lid; gateway to wakefulness
Perched in a nest of hands guarding the sanctuary for the alert
This storehouse of caffeine must be rationed.

It’s contents dark, rich, bold, spilling
scolding and fierce and alive.
Consider the coffee cup a comrade, a loyalist
Companion of the diligent, the learning, the weary.

today i drove 3.72 miles
to buy a single 44 cent stamp
and a woman with hair
the color of a cement foundation
forgot my name,
so i pretended not to know
hers either

i stood in a line
of people with holiday
parcels under their arms
and i looked at my phone
to check the date
because i live in a world
where the days of the week
rarely flit through my mind,
much less numbers
from a grid written
on paper

(note to self:
don't worry,
you didn't miss thanksgiving)

i meandered slowly
through the zigzags,
all of us corralled
like cows gone to pasture,
or perhaps being led
to slaughter
by flimsy pieces of
polyester we don't
dare touch

the woman
behind the desk
broke my morose thoughts
with a joke about
the government robbing us
all blind

i imagined a swat team
breaking through the glass
wall behind me
and grabbing her
before we could even
blink twice

then a man
three times my age
looked me in the eye
and told me i looked much
too tired for a 20-something
and i told him, well,
that's because i am

we stood in the parking lot
for nearly an hour
and i told him of the dreams
that pull my energy away
just as i'm regaining it,
in the fitful in-between
of true rest and eyes wide open

i spoke of leaping broken stairwells,
chasing thieves on motorcycles,
finding true love only to watch
it be trampled by a crowd moshing
to the music that defines my days

i told him of my mother's theory:
that i was working out
the issues that plagued
me by day throughout
the night

and he scoffed and told me,
girl, your mother may be right,
but that brain of yours is a
gift and these dreams are
what's wrapped up within it;
if you know what's good for you
you'll figure out a way to use them

The first girl I ever apologised to
created craters in my veins and filled them with love and she didn’t even know
how beautiful she was, lying next to me face-to-face with nothing but TV reflections and an orchestra of words spoken in silence
I wanted to tell her I love her over and over again but my eyes stole any sentence I could form in my head from my mouth and did nothing but stare
They say a person’s face gets more attractive the more you look at it but I feel this is a lie; if I had only got to glance at her face for a second, she would still be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen
and we fit together like tetris blocks, building a foundation to plant the root of forever
and I want to grow beside her, watching her blossom from a caterpillar into a butterfly, from a star into the sun
and I want to be the steady trees that stand beside her, humble and proud, showing her that I meant it when I said I would never leave because I am rooted deep into our soil of forever
and I couldn’t even if I wanted to and I kept my heart chained to my ribs before I met her but she waltzed in, handed me the keys and I haven’t been the same since.
I felt her come crashing into my life like an asteroid; I am sure I was wiped out and taken to a universe where only good things happen because I can no longer see bad, only flowers where bullets should be
I can no longer only see red, but violet and magenta and mahogany too and she has opened up a world where everything does happen for a reason because it has led me to her
like a sleepwalker looking for home only to find something much better than that
like a sleepwalker waking up to find themselves immersed in golden sands and out of touch with reality but rife with the knowledge that she’s real
and her touch is there to remind me of this,
the world’s biggest mystery gracing the palm of my hand with their own fingertips, two DNA connected and the vibrations of my love for her bouncing back to whatever God introduced me to her to say thank you
and I remember the first time I held her hand. We sat in silence as I traced my fingers over hers and back again, like a visual of tentative attraction on loop.
I didn’t believe in anything until I heard my name on her lips and suddenly angels existed and
Sometimes I feel like I’m hallucinating but I don’t mind when her presence in front of me is tripled and I can see not just one of her but three and each one outstretches their hand as they morph back into one person, as if to show me that in all her various forms, I am safe
and I have never been safer
I can no longer only see red, but hues of cyan and aqua and agate blue and they merge together to form eyes I dive into searching for the very depths of her ocean and I never gasp for air
because I am safe. They merge together to form irises that look at me like I’ve never been seen before, like a rare breed of an extinct animal discovered again; irises that look at me like they could stop time with their intensity
and I want to stop time with her
I want to contort it to wrap around her and I and protect us in the promise of eternity
because the stars will set the sky on fire and everything will melt in embers and ash without her
the planets will misalign
the soil will sink the trees at their roots
and the ocean will swallow the earth it once harmonised with
and I will, simply,
cease to exist.

Take me
To our ship in the trees
Those barefoot games-
I'm dreaming in concrete.

Like a lamb led
Chasing the curse of skin.
Coal full of fire, and
A scent that burned

We were gone too far,
Limbs seduced  
A sleepwalker's dance
Of surrendered sighs.

Merest memories
Scald the touch.
Your gaze, Endless seas
Beneath crowding skies.

When I was a kid, and all of my friends were kids, and all of us kids lived down the same street that I still live on as a not kid that none of my kid friends still live on as not kids, there was a day in the summer, or the spring....
my not kid brain has a hard time conjuring up my kid thoughts, I just remember walking outside and it was so hot
And we fetched our bikes from the shed and walked them to the blacktop only to find the greatest gift nature could bring us: a thousand tiny caterpillars crawling on the road. We couldn't ride our bikes in the street or we would squish them so we dropped them where we stood and did the only thing we knew we should: ran inside and asked mama for the ziplock bags and collected as many as we could. We thought we were saving them from any cars that might need to go down our dead end road. We didn't know what to do with them so we kept them in the bag and left them in my kid friends parents living room, sealed tight so nothing could get to them.
The next morning we went to check on them and the bag was empty.

Looking back now, I realize we probably deprived them of oxygen, starved them of nutrients and space, and probably separated them from their families.

I feel bad about that, but that's not the point. The reason I am recalling this memory and putting it into words is because I've had an epiphany.
They were robbed a chrysalis, they never flew away as beautiful butterflies.
They slept overnight in a bag with many others, waiting to puddle and flutter before they chewed their way through plastic or they died.

What we did as kids to those caterpillars, it's how I love..
Sometimes I find caterpillars in the pits of people's stomachs and my intrigue is spiked like a child's with wonder, but I always pluck the caterpillars before they get too far..

Maybe I'm a secret sleepwalker and I unconciously let them go.
I sure hope so.

Like a sleepwalker
she passed through each day.
Voices chattered in her head,
Snatches of conversations
That she could not quite catch.

She dropped like a stone through her emotions
And lay in silence on the bottom.

Battered and bruised
She ached at every turn,
Or floated softly among the shadows
Guarding her spirit.

It seemed she had passed
Through a threshold of pain
That held her on the edge,
Like the new born......
And the shadows nurtured her
Behind the veil of her own consciousness,
Waiting for the memory
To rise up into the light of her being.

When it came she was filled with fire,
Warming her as it spread
through her soul,
And she knew a new knowledge
That was older than she,
Older than her previous selves ,
Older than the Earth.
Slowly,she raised herself,
Taller than she'd ever been.

Filled with courage
she stepped out,
Over the edge,
And she joined all of her other selves,
Embracing them with open arms.
Sobbing,she acknowledged herself
As she flew with her shadows
Back through time,
Back to her beginning
From whence she had first set out
In the darkness of ignorance.

The light shone so brightly,
Drawing her own light towards it
In a spinning ****** so intense
That she let go of herself,
Separating into a million points
of light as she joined the pool.
Her lights bounced off each light
They touched in an ecstasy of greeting.

Looking back ,
Towards the edge,
She watched the shadows
Nod their satisfaction
Before they turned away,
Fading into the darkness that was the Earth.

He woke with a dream in his head
And dreamer’s intent
Got a taste of the pace in the world
And doubled his step

He shared that old dream with the world
But no one there cared
He thought about the weight in the world
Saw the time and fell back to bed (with his dreams)

Wanted to be heard so he sang along
He sang an old song so he might belong
When the world didn’t care what he’d sing
He tore out his hair and started to scream

And he screamed:
“I’m too young to die
But I won’t always be
I tried so hard to comply
Now I’m not even me”

And he screamed:
“I’m too sad to cry
I’m a bird lost at sea
Today makes me so afraid of tonight
What does anything mean?”

And he screamed and he screamed
As if the world knew

Every **** too wants to tell it's story to us loud,
my eyes trained to span galaxies light years away
weren't good seeing the flowers,on weeds for long,
then an unexplained  lightening connecting all cells,
flashes within, I turn back and see things in a new light,
those blue and yellow flowers kept hidden by an invisible
blind,smile with a joy and it brings anew a  vision of beauty.

A flower is a flower, even if offered by a humble ****,
like the words I heard spoken from a sleepwalker's lips,
with a less emphatic tone smeared with dusts of dreams
still I hear it's heart beat, a cadence so exhilarating.

Every rice plant in the field, drooping in the heaviness
of ripened grains, is muted, the wind that caresses both
are equally cool,benign; every **** wishes to explain,
so I won't miss their music, even by some chance did misshapen.

Viva tu vida sin tristeza*

Bold statement but I tire.

Goodnight for now soft sleepwalker.

Mr. Sandman
please take my hand
Guide me through the hills and valley's*
of distant dream lands
Keep me safe from nightmares
whenever you can
If it's not to much trouble
could you bring extra sand

Can Sleepwalker
please come with me
I need a close companion
as I float through my dreams
Through the landscape
of the nights make believe
He could even carry
all my baggage for me

Could you please leave
the Boogie Man home
With his satchel of nightmares
filled with seeds he has sown
I hear that it's best
to leave well enough alone
What's the saying?
it want hurt him if he doesn't know?

Mr. Sandman
could you do this for me
Could you include
one or two fantasies
It would make it all
a bit more interesting
Mr. Sandman
*could you do all this for me

What if time just slowly slipped?
..Out of mine, and your fingertips..
What if this moment is just all it is,
how could we capture it?
And savor it?
How can I keep you longer than this?

Maybe I should break the clocks..
so there'll be more time for us
We don't need the busy streets,
or the sound from drunken towns..
Maybe I could clone the world
so this one could be our alternate..
That would be so lovely,
Oh wouldn't it?

Just a fraction of your satisfaction's enough..
So I will fight with blood and sweat and tears
But how can I keep you longer here?

What if I could guide you through this life?
I promise I will be the sun in your sky
What if I told you..
Every minute with you,
makes me feel alive..
Would you stay another minute,
one last time?

'Cause I was drifting in existence,
falling through..
Just a sleepwalker,
whose now a dreamer..
Waking up to thoughts of you <3