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Maya Grela Jul 2015
A wild man is not a boyfriend, he is a force.
Can you love me in the blinding heat of a birthing star, when I shower warmth on distant moons?
Can you love me in the hole of the cosmic Black, where no one can reach me? Not even you?
Can you love me then too?
Can you love me when I drag buffalo skulls through the dirt for days, to the rhythm of an ancient drum?
Will you love me if my beard hides the scars in my heart, from battles I cannot explain?
WIll you love me when I lack courage, when I am defeated, when I won’t let you patch my wounds?
WIll you trust me when I smell of sweetgrass and sage, and when I stink of whiskey and sweat?
When I drink from the cup and play in astral light, will you anchor me to Home?
What happens when my words don’t work, and I can speak with only my eyes?
Can you love me enough to let me go, without asking me where I’ll be?
I am no poodle to lay groomed on a leash at your feet. I am the wolf that fetches the bones of truth.
A wild man is not a boyfriend. He’s not built for animal husbandry. He is a force. He is a cause for an effect. He is a mission.
Are you afraid to let me inside you? Not just my flesh, but my soul. The wild man is neither burglar or vandal. I will not take anything from you. I will not trample on sprouting seeds or pick flowers as a trophy. I am the sun on flooded fields and the fire for tangled webs.
Don’t be scared, lover, mother, maiden, crone. Take me as I am.
Even if I have the power to destroy worlds, I will not destroy you.
A wild man is a protector. A father. A warrior for all that is good.
When the chaos seeks to obliterate you, sheering your flesh from bone, I will hold all the pieces together in love, until you are ready to reassemble.
When your seas boil, and your winds throw cars at corn fields, I will wait patiently for you to catch my eye, so that both of us can laugh.
When Hell opens up the fiery gates, and sends all the cosmos against you… I plant my heels deep in the ground. I lay my shield low. My sword is sharp then, my love. The steel sings sweetly. With a smile, Hoka Hey! My last breath a farewell kiss. Today is a good day to die.
For ours is the oldest love affair. The greatest story ever told. Cupid and Psyche, Shiva and Shakti, You and I.
Same same but different. Would we have it any other way?
A wild man is not a boyfriend. He is a force.
Source http://aubreymarcus.com/blog/poetry/a-wild-man-is-not-a-boyfriend-he-is-a-force/
Its a sweetgrass serenade
singing up serotonin
through the cavalcades
and ramparts
that I have been using to
barricade my heart

It's a sweetgrass serenade
when I let those sweet words
slip off my tongue
just like syncopated honey
into the three-stranded braid
of me and you and Him
taking us into those outer places
where we can occupy other spaces

It's a sweetgrass serenade
on our journey to the moon
where I wonder who
is following me cause
on our way back

I'm feeling the exodus
of my past, you know
the part that
no longer serves me.

And in its place...

It's a sweetgrass serenade
singing up serotonin
filling up that empty pocket
with a force of positivity.

Looks like I found a Lifeway
time to let it shine and
step into deep play
Written in August 2019. Performed at open mic night at the Owl with the Lethbridge Poetry crew on August 29, 2019.
I tromped across North America a few years back
Following the Mayan Elders
Listening to the powerful Lakota Brothers sing songs of mourning and joy
Building community

I was following a White Cherokee
We created clan
I was motivated by the teachings of the Anishinaabe
And represented Thunderbird Clan

We stopped in sacred spaces such as Serpent's Mound
And Cahokia Mounds
We peered briefly through the veil; Samhain
I followed the red path and eventually found I had always been on it

I met Hopi and Navajo elder's
And my friend Sea, a pipe carrier brewed a special tea
I was gifted tobacco that had been grown from seeds
Recovered from an iceman's medicine bag

She transmuted the ancient tobacco into a tea
By folding it into a sweetgrass and cedar brew
Sea gave it to me in a basic stainless steel carafe
Every time we drained the carafe
I refilled it and the essence was just as powerful as the previous brew

When I finally caught up with the Lakota brother's in Sedona
Their voices were raw
We all were
I shared the tea with them

So much magic on that journey
The joy on those brothers faces as the tea reached their throats
I gave them the carafe and told them
It was the gift that keeps on giving

Their thankfulness has been the gift that keeps on giving
Je tricote avec de la laine rouge (the ember from my daugther, Noelle)
sweetgrass encasing your soul
salvaged by streetwalkers barren as the road we came on
we broke the speed limit for pedestrians
as ****** equestrians chased our shadows home
joking, we laughed at the bones that framed our photographs
i see elephants in your tone
honorary delegates to the symphony’s throne
violins voicing interludes that are out of tune with young mermaids
who create splashing inversions upon musical modes
your composition sheets hold my soul in throes of solitude
resplendent hues on the emptiness of nocturnes, etudes and poems
Dorian Apr 2015
Dawn lights the seventh day in June
and darling look how you've grown
Harvest the life inside of you
It's time to reap what we've sown

Now I've got my honey
suckled on the supple breast
of my lover in our quiet nest
I'll spark a fire to keep us warm at night
and offer long arms to hold you tight
Oh, my flower child
you've got the sky in your crystal eyes
You are soft like the moon
and then blazing like the sunlight

Let's go to the whisky springs
Where I've been given joy like no other
Living inside a dream
Close your eyes and feel your face
kissed by the southern breeze
Let me inhale with you
The aroma of the sweetgrass
Laying in the pool
Of the cool whisky waters
with my wife and my daughter

Take me back to whisky springs..
I wanna go back to whisky springs..
I was playing a game with my kids the other day

I asked:
What do you use to see?
She said 'your eyes'
He said 'your brain'
Both right
Next I asked what do you use to hear?
She said 'your ears'
He said 'your brain'
Both right, again

The wisdom of children!

The game ended there but it got me thinking about what we use to feel
The most straight forward answer is our skin
Your brain is what processes the sense of touch so that has to be included
What about your heart?
Where does it fit into the big scheme of things?
Isn't the heart the space where we process feelings?

I have to loosely define things and often turn them upside down
ruminate
reorder my worldview to make it copacetic
I'm pretty sure that I often walk in two worlds
If my mind is simply locked in the western paradigm then people look at me like I'm bizarre
I'm not joking when I say they've wanted to lock me up because of my views
When I allow my mind to get locked into this western paradigm,
I sometimes even feel like I belong in lockup.

That's even worse than being held against your will
You're being held because you've lost your will

So I play with definitions to better suit my needs

When you do this however, there is a risk
Last summer I unlocked a spectre as I drank deeply and greedily from Crypt Lake

Crypt Lake is a real place on this planet
How did it get it's name (you might ask)?
According to the Blackfoot, placenames aren't given,
they come from place

Let's contextualize ~ this is all part of the journey
The physical leads to the spiritual and vice versa
To get to Crypt Lake you have to enter Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
Found in the southwest corner of Alberta and the northwest corner of Montana
Once through the gates you have to catch a boat at a certain time
You have to be in the physical plane of existence at this point otherwise you're not getting on that boat
Once you get to the trailhead, then you can start to drift

That's what I did
As I walked, I let the stories come into me
I let them flow through me
They were sitting there waiting to be told
A spruce, arm in arm, with a pine
Hawks circling overhead
An ever present alertness for our bear brethren
Always open to the wildflowers
Indian paintbrush (I have red hair could I be considered an indian paintbrush?)
Pollinators flitting about
Oh, the water

Listen to the stories the water told:
First we come to Hell Roaring Falls
Next Twin Falls
Next Burnt Rock Falls
And to reach the Crypt, we have to pass through a mountain tunnel
Opening up to Crypt Falls
and finally Crypt Lake

This is a regular heroes journey if you allow it to be
I was in that place in my mind where I allowed it to unfold as it may

This is a place that's also known as the Crown of the Continent
Not far away is Chief Mountain, Turtle Mountain, and Crowsnest Mountain
Also Writing-On-Stone and the Milk River and Sweetgrass
These are holy names, this is a holy land

What I saw at Crypt Falls was the backbone of the continent
I saw the backbone of Turtle Island

I was floored
I had been on a continent wide spirit quest a few years previously
There was talk that the Deed for Turtle Island was coming due
And maybe it would be produced at one of these gatherings
We all waited but nobody produced it

I ruminated on that idea for a few years
I'm pretty sure that the Deed was there
Those who held it, just didn't realize

I learned something at the Crypt
I wanted answers and I made an assumption
I assumed that the water held the answers
So I drank deeply, even greedily from the Crypt

Right there in the international peace park, on the crown of the continent
With the Old Chief and the Crowsnest not far away
Writing-On-Stone just a sashay away
What about writing in calcium?
If I were the earth, I would encode important information in something
Transmutable

Not blood.
Bones

What I learned up there on the mountain as I gulped down knowledge from the Crypt was that the deed is written into the bones of the land and into the bones of those borne of that land

This is indigenous knowledge

It's in the water, the water is the medium for the message
The bones are the stock
But just like a double helix
A genetic sequence is an expression of time and place
On a certain spacetime continuum this innocuous looking structure
(take a look in the mirror)
Has all the necessary answers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypt_Lake_Trail

http://www.crownofthecontinent.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mountain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Mountain_%28Alberta%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowsnest_Mountain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing-on-Stone_Provincial_Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_River_%28Alberta%E2%80%93Montana%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Grass,_Montana

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Island_%28North_America%29
KE Filtar Sep 2011
The peaceful shepherd
dozing against warm
wood of a pasture
fence.

Where sheep live like kings
in a peasant's square
protected and fed
and led.

The shepherd's kin
cries weakly - but why
are you not in the
world, living?

A crinoline reply
floats above the sweetgrass.
Where would I
be without them?
religious, shepherd, sheep, devotion
Hope E Jan 2017
Mother, forgive me
I have not been reverent
Burned your sage without ceremony
Tore your sweetgrass in haste
Greedily spread my roots
and drank your water
without giving thanks
I am both the feet that touch the earth
and the earth itself
Mother forgive me for not remembering
Forgive me for straying
Andrew Dunham Jul 2015
nestled in its comfortable corner of the marsh,
lays nine-thousand acres of soggy southern soil and sweetgrass.
here the hands of the clock carelessly play a lazy leapfrog
as tranquil transformations of pidgin make for musing murmurs.
the clangor of crickets lulling the weary ears to sleep,
as nocturnal creatures nimbly parade over placid, brackish water.
rotting wood stilts sink softly into the not-exactly-quicksand,
the last ferry makes a wake while winding to the next *******,
father time is in no hurry here.
google: Sandy Island, South Carolina.
substitute your mind for the divine presence
open you eyes and gaze upon the unknown
I speak for a plethora of overgrown gardens
are we cartons of cigarettes or bundles of sweetgrass
answers like these are never necessary
yet we borrow everything from life's apothecary
i am among the tired lions
who offer their music to your dynasties
its a weekend campaign finance escapade
to bring farms to your table and then go back to the basics
i wish you could see the benefits
that only exist beyond these earthly dimensions
for limits expand whenever we question them

I give thanks for the earth
i give thanks for the trees
i give thanks for the mother
i give thanks for the bees
i give thanks for the soil
i give thanks for the work
i give thanks for the passion
i give thanks for the hurt
i give thanks for the smiles
i give thanks for the children
i give thanks for the flowers
i give thanks for the silence
i give thanks for the power
i give thanks for the rain
i give thanks for the sunshine
i give thanks for the pain
i give thanks for the anger
i give thanks for the rage
i give thanks for the strength
to never separate myself from you
Wade Redfearn Nov 2010
There is no God
If there were, every smell would be sweetgrass
and lemon.

and

If there were not,
we wouldn't have noses.
So there it is.

It must be that
I failed to notice the shrinking days,
the ever smaller liaisons,
the patches of silence.

Then there came the equinox.
Everything was eight hours long,
and you were nowhere in sight.
Who is responsible for that?

If my skin is soft to the touch
and unwrinkled
if my hands work faithfully
and my heart also,
then I must be blessed.

If I have my heirloom ring,
if I have a blightless history,
if our galaxy is still cold in the
right places, and hot in the
right places, then I must be blessed.

And if I remain troubled
with all those gifts -
then I am doubtful, sour, ragged.
Not worth the love I crave.

I am a child at a magic show,
second-guessing the theatrics -
There he is, behind that screen,
with a dove and dowsing rod.
With a tiger, and a cage, and a key.

So I am troubled-
it seems that everything came
in the lapse after a kiss,
where everything which could be touched
could be ignored.
Then the kiss was gone -
and there was the world again
stark and unholy,
bright and blue as a bruise.

How brutal it is to live
on that third planet under the
sun, behaving poorly. How failure
meant nothing, in that orbit.

How brutal it is!
never to face the thing that sustained us
(not even to thank it)
Just ask me if you need to.
crystal rondeaux Mar 2013
We know this table has been a fire pit in days long past,
a flat-topped boulder, a grassy river bank,
a row of seats along side a highschool ball game.
It is the gathering place of women who
know their history and the names of their ancestors,
who tell one another in stories that live
among the words they use.  Stories that keep them breathing.
This table, with it's polished oak surface, kept shining
with canned wax has been the heart-place home of the
people through ages.  It is the place
where the circle is widened, children are raised
and  Warriors seek council, leave reverent.
This table has woven whole societies, birthed legends;
dreaming the life of family/clan/band/tribe
into beads, quills and brain-tanned hides, sewing
them into the skins of daughters with the sinew of survival.
This place is strong like the August sun on the high plains,
and January winds on the prairie, enduring as the work of knives,
awls and the love that are used as tools here in this sacred place.
Here divinity smells of new sage bundles, green braids of
sweetgrass, fry-bread and venison stew.  It is warm
as a summer thunderstorm, a mother's arms or a lover's
lingering kiss.  This table has existed in a thousand
forms through centuries of stories.  This table, this
talk, this knowledge, this way of keeping real history.
Ma Cherie Aug 2016
Oh...how I long to go home
where the crickets sing me
and the sweetgrass in Praries
smells freshly cut
barns weather on
and I feel the sun upon my skin
and autumn crisp apple air...
leaves me drunken
crystalline formations dance on the windows in a deeply frozen nest
and long burning logs rage
as patterned snowflakes dance outside
a fire of comfortable blanketed walls burns as
spring birds call me back

where faded country music plays
a sad and aesthetically pleasing tune
the smells of generations cooking
I am invited in ...
to dream
dancing on Daddy's boots
in the living room

I dream of a love-strong home
where you can be high and deep
tough and sinewy like the thread
holding us together
weaved by my Native American Grandmother

So sweet and energizing
a place of refuge from waning storms
Where I can be
the person
that I promised myself I could be

as I cook a gourmet meal
from fresh and simple ingredients
I use my senses to taste in my mind
then with my mouth
creating masterpieces
with a magical gift , handed down
of composition
sipping a glass of perfectly chosen wine
and palate cleansing fresh sorbet
a calm, appreciative natural high

Oh, how I adore the tender
domestic bliss
feeding roots
cherishing moments
lavishly on tight purse strings
making MAGIC in hearts
and in my kitchen
poetic recipes for life...
bread from necessity
inked in a passed down book called
....HOME.
Okay really going in a different direction here would appreciate any comments this felt like it was good but I don't really know!
And there is something to be said about stretching a dollar and living on a budget being creative.
CarolineSD Nov 2021
Them **** beasts
Hunt our cattle
Picking out the weak.
Go get your rifle, son.
Go fetch your boots.
Those *******
Look best skinned
And ******
Across the bed
Of this old truck.

I nod along with them.
I plod along with them to get the guns;
Isn't this necessary,
After all?

But inside my soul
I feel a dark night spreading
No, not sinister
But sweet.
The stars above like scattered drifts
Of snow spilled in the wind and crunching under
Loping feet.


And I am standing on a narrow ridge
And listening.
Hidden like some ephemeral thing,
Like sweetgrass burning in the wind;
Listening.

And I can feel them rising.
I can hear them crying,
A ghostly sobbing.
Falling on my knees
I call them.

To the draw they run!
Run!
Like so many mothers clutch their young
And all the warriors toss their guns
And still the cavalry descends,
Run!

Across the creek and trailing blood, she runs.
Singing her howling song, she runs.
Howling her death song, she runs.  

And in one last act of desperation falls.

I see them drag her carcass up the draw.

And in the truck, they’re laughing,
Humming, slapping knees, and spitting,
Like some celebratory release.  

In my head, a single phrase:
Them **** beasts.
Bringing this one back How we slaughter beautiful things for our own security.
Christine Sep 2010
we
You
and
I

become sweetgrass
become riverwater
become cryogenics

Not
Frozen in time
Not
Slowed, stopped, surrendered.

A new field
With hope.
Timeless.

You? And me?
Yes.
Geno Cattouse May 2013
My dreams.They come to me like midnight jasmine.

Treacle sweet as I walk in heavens garden.
Leaves brush my cheek
In passing.

As I srroll through heavens garden.

My days are spent in reverie of blissfull
Oceans lapping distant shores.
Misty breezes take me deep

As I walk in heavens garden

She holds my hand and thrills my heart.
Long and winding paths take me up counry roads.
Birds urge me forward with sweet song.
To the place where I belong.

As I stroll through heavens garden.

Sunshine opens my soul. Eternal joy from afar.

Stars await their turn. To burn and glow from a million miles
To light the way for my footfall . Sweetgrass s is my bed.

Crickets serenade

as I drift through heaven's garden.
The crying sky with heavy afternoon crystal
drops of heartache tickling
sweetgrass mingled with newfound sunshine
With piedmont wine forming perfect pools ,
ushering streams to awaiting seas
A place to bathe for romantics like me
A home for springtide antics ,
for polka dot bullfrogs , singing daisies ,
red grass blankets and apple tree sergeants
Windemere spiderlings , crooning wood larks ,
hereford dancers crossing purple clover parks* ..
Copyright April 20 , 2017 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Sarah Writes Jan 2015
When I go I will go far
I'll follow the sun from the riverbed of my childhood home
To places where the mountains hold no snow
I will sing my freedom song to the birds along the road
I'll braid sweetgrass through my hair
Cup my hands around the moonbeams
And sleep out in the air
When I go I will be
The stars in my own eyes
Wool blankets, blue crickets, battered books, tall trees
I will be strong legs and bitter tea
The climbing of the mountain for the diving to the spring
I will be art out on a blanket and poetry sold for free
Abandoned cabins and agates on the beach
Cold water in the morning, apples eaten to the core
I will be anywhere I need
I will be everything I see, and then a little bit more
When I go, I will be
The sun in my own eyes, the sand beneath my feet
The ocean in a cup, for it takes salt to make me clean
I'll be the moss on every tree, a moving prayer on folded knees
Whispering bliss, singing praise, thank you for this day
Thank you for the sun, my heart, the sea
When I go, I will go free
Little yellow butterflies
Smaller than a dime
I wanted conversation
But you didn’t have the time

I saw you in the meadow
Tasting clover and sweetgrass
Your paper wings beat faster
As you flew from my harass

I watched you half an hour
‘Cause I had nowhere to go
While the sun beat down around us
In the midday ever glow

Then I chased you to the sidewalk
Where my afternoon began
And I said "Let Peace be with you"
As I waved a goodbye hand

Written by Sara Fielder © Oct 2012
Ken Pepiton Jul 2021
We all get rich, it fixes every thing, c'mon

Initial Public Offering.
Made inclusively to
all the children of all the wombed men,
but one,
by now, none else, for eons, unmarked
save in ashes under ancient tells,
none of these people, these *** of the gods,
and the one,
daughter of man who signed off on this story.

-live forever-

Thinking attracting needs,
deeds done that send funds, to wipe debt from mind.
Bring the wizard,
strip him bare, grind him  to gore and gristle,
bone blood and all the biles, shake it up,
jiggle in the sack of skin, watchit
burst and puddle
in the flame,

is this pyrex? See

Bunsen burning in my brain, a mixture now,
oh wow
Schmachten-burger, cheese, *** of enlightened
hippie jews, shapers shaped in common fashion,
after the sixties finished, there arose guides to the goy
who knew nothing of the mystery,
save that Alice Toklas was not gay, in the Nineties way

Oy-vey, cultural appropriation, Jah, Jah is ours, as you
well know, we have esoterica galore, here buy
a mezuzah, ya, gutglück - all ah, ala phylacteries
raditional-rootish,
and these use that same parchment, goat skin,
very kosher halal and all, done
under strictest supervision, seeing super see, is
something the literate,
Phoenicians, Shem shah-mans, and their accountants,
first
discovered the territory within the skull of man,
was open to other minds,
in matters of wit
inventions'nshit, set a will to a way, watch,

come the future, we are famous…
who invented the wheel?

watch, watch, it winds around, a motion, anchored
to a plain truth in the left cerebral sorting station,
reflecting back,
******-rectumly linearly right co- oh, I see

cor-rect or co-recht, co-right, if nobody's wrong.

But there is no hateful god who made hell for those
who,
honed as honed may be, in punctual efforting
so
sharp, even on thorny issues,
motes
floating in the occular consomme,
slightly briney aqueous humor,

ha

to make a point in time to pierce anything
in my way

see clear,  plumb the depths truth's base idea,
some things wish vehemently to be known,
must-er-ion, quest, ionic tipping
point whence the ring of eight
slips a point, and specs call
ion ion whither went thee?
ion, zion sion, see the gleam,
golden oil,
yes,
yes indeed, I did, I did pray
for this,
or something sorta like it,

peace on earth, good will toward man,
reconciliation complete perceived as done.

Can you hear me?
Did I lose loose links to long lies, left tied
to the stakeholders souls?

When did we realize the difference?
It must have taken years, and now, we see, match
the noses,
the eyes, or deeper even, look into the whites
of their mother's eggs…

see and know, or trust me, I know,
one wombed man's children, one,
the officially loneliest number. One
wom'man, woe,
science,
not Genesis, or Enuma Elish,
or the story from Braiding Sweetgrass,

but, old, old stories, told, once, at least,
by a witness,
-- it was as if the bone and all it was,
was altered, by a bit, a Y got a leg, or lost one,
I do not know, but bone of my bone,
was that one little bit,
more in one way, at the stem, and as branching
began, the one had daughters, who bhor daughters,
while from that generation forward,
the many others,
bore no children of any breathing form,
soon,
for this was not so long ago, mitomom, you know,
she had sisters and cousins and aunts
and a mother who had a mother
and a father who had a mother.
None
of the eggs in those wombs, ever lived to now,
but the eggs of the one wombed man we must
accept, she who shaped all after ever began
that instant when,
only one line remained, and there was no war.
No reason, at the time, but soon
in geo time,
we grew apart, branching on rivers
when we found them on our journeys from the east

- I think she
was likely deep dark brown, she links me to you,
stem cell level
and below,
logos in touch,
the code of silence. A cone, yes, the cone
of silence,
rolled from fool'scap, common in the great leaps
forward,
through the ages, as sons and daughters were born,
but
once,
something occurred,
a virus, or a leaven, or fish, perhaps,
rancid oil while the child waited for its form
to form in the wombed man, now known
as mom. She,
Mitochondrial source of the code that keeps us alive.
The same basic way batteries in blood
have been made since knowing
clickt.

Universes, realms of human reasons, piled in
lattice work bits and pieces,
joints and joiners,
that fit in particular places to form certain shapes
of things to come,
it is all very miniaturized, nano nano scale…

yes, did you know him, Mork?
I never did.

_ he does that so you don't think him arrogant,
ashamed to admit the use of the mind of christ
in a secular win the game way.

But what the hell, knowing ain't cheating, if you know
what's right,

wanna place a wager on the Robinhood IPO?
I gotta plan, see…
we go into such and such a city, we buy, we sell,
---intshallah
but this is the secret,
we sell debt,
you owe me, right, it works, it always works,
give and it is given unto you,
pressed down,
running over -- goods and services, nothing taxable
or tithe-able,
riches with no sorrow, added.

You interested? One time buy in. Two bits.
I heard the news and thought, what difference might a mote in my eye make?
rocky makesroom May 2018
I REMEMBER LOOKING FOR MY PARENTS BEFORE I WAS BORN... MY MOM AND DAD.
BEFORE I WAS BORN INTO THE WORLD OF MAN, FLOWERS, LITTLE PEOPLE LIVING ALONG CREEKS AND MAGIC...IN GOODNESS AND BAD...THE FLAWS OF HUMANNESS.
THE ABSOLUTE ANSWERS OF LIFE SELF HEALING FROM VARIABLES OF KINDNESS, SONGS, AND FEASTS OF PURE WATER… SYMBOLS GROWN IN, ON, AND THROUGHOUT MOTHER EARTHS FLESH. BEFORE I WAS BORN I WAS IN THE STARS, I WAS IN MY OWN HEAVEN.
I WOULD DANCE IN THE SKY AND SING AS LOUD AS I COULD…
IN THE FOREVER OF INFINITY’S OF STARS AND DARKNESS OF TRAILS AND PATHS.
THE GOURDS I DANCED WITH SPARKED OF COLORS AND GLITTERS LIKE SUNLIGHTS TRAPPED IN MELTING ICICLES IN APRIL SHOWERS.
STARS SHIFTING THROUGH THE UNIVERSE LIKE DRIED PLUM PITS FALLING SCATTERING IN A LONG WINTER NIGHTS GAME… LIKE BROKEN HULLS FROM WILD RICE SHIFTING WINNOWING CARRYING AWAY IN FALL BREEZES…
STAR CONSTELLATIONS, MIRRORS REFLECTING DIRECTIONS...TRAILS FOR WINDS TO FOLLOW...PROMISES OF OUR DAILY LIVES TOLD IN THE SUN'S JOURNEY.
STARS WOVEN WITHIN WEBS OF WATER DROPS LIKE ON A DREAM CATCHERS DELIGHT...LIKE SPIDERS ART WOVEN WITH DYED PORCUPINE QUILLS TIED DOWN SEWN WITH LOVE AND COMPASSION ON SOFT RABBIT SKINS.
MEDICINE SCATTERED ACROSS THE SKY..ACROSS THE FACE OF MOTHER EARTH, UNDERWATER, ON PRAIRIES, IN HOT DESERT SANDS, IN WOODS IN FAR FAR AWAY LANDS.. IN BIRCH BARK PATTERNS AND NEWBORN FINGERTIPS.
WITHIN RED SKY NIGHTS AND SHOOTING STARS I SEARCHED FOR PORTALS..
PORTALS LIKE TUNNELS THROUGH TIME..PORTALS OF CAREFULLY PLACED TWISTED TIPI POLES..PORTALS OPEN THROUGH BOWLS OF PEACE PIPES CARRIED WITH LOVE LIKE A CHILD WRAPPED IN SACRED BUNDLES...PORTALS OF PRAYER...PORTALS TO CONNECT TO CREATIONS CREATOR AND EVERYTHING THAT MIRRORS CONSTELLATIONS...PORTALS FROM THE DUST OF CORN POLLEN..PORTALS OF  WALLEYE OFFERINGS FROM DEEP LAKES WITH DEEP MONSTERS...PORTALS OF SALTY TEARS AND THE UPRISING SMOKE OF LITED SAGE AND SWEETGRASS...PORTALS IN THE SOUND OF YOUR ZIPPERS GOIN DOWN ON THOSE BADASS BOOTS...PORTALS OF HOW YOU LICK THOSE GLOSSY Pink LIPS.. AND ALL THOSE BUTTERFLIES THAT FLY WHEN YOU BLINK YOUR EYES.. PORTALS OF CRIES FROM HOMELESSNESS, ADDICTIONS, OVERDOSES..PORTALS OF FISTS AND SCRATCHES, PORTALS OF TWISTED ZIGZAG PAPERS, ORIGAMI MAGIC, SMOKE RINGS THAT FORM INTO HEARTS AND ARROWS...PORTALS FROM DESPERATE BOOTS OF SYRINGE NEEDLES...PORTALS OF BROKEN BOTTLES AND SHOTGUN TWISTED BEER CANS…
LINES OF RAILS OF CRUSHED POWDERY CRAZINESS...PORTALS OF SYNTHETIC **** AND SYNTHETIC HOPES AND SYNTHETIC REALITIES.. THEY BITE AND STING LIKE PORTALS OF SHARP BLADES...CUTTING THROUGH YOUR OH SO BEAUTIFUL SKIN...PORTALS OF YOUR OFFERING OF PAIN CUZ ITS THE ONLY THING THAT’S REALLY OURS TO OWN AND OFFER...WHIRLWINDS OF VORTEX MADNESS...PORTALS LIKE THE ONE ALICE FELL INTO… IN HER WONDERFUL BUT VERY SCARY WONDERLAND...PORTALS LIKE THE ONE WE MAY OR MAY NOT EVER FALL INTO...WAY DEEP INSIDE OURSELVES.
Home. A four lettered word found among many languages and cultures. Home a four lettered word not found in every family or friendship circle. Home a four lettered word with a plethora of meanings. Home a four lettered word that we mold and shape like clay to help make sense of our own situations. Home a four lettered word dictated by four walls. Home may not always mean windows and doors. Home a four lettered word that can make anyone’s heart beat rise or fall down to their feet. Home a four lettered word that comes with memories held closely or shaken violently. I don’t believe that home can be a physical place but rather a space in our collective imaginations that gives meaning to the five lettered word human. Human a five lettered word that is dictated by the terms civilized and barbarous. Human a five lettered word that is beyond our comprehension. Human a five lettered word that is undervalued and criticized. Human a five lettered word that today is taken for granted once it comes to error, which we are prone to. Human a five lettered word that is measured by success which in all reality means who’s imprint is deeper and not forgotten when we all return back to whence we came.

I found home in people, places, and parts of my imagination. I found home in my workplace which is the same place that youngins call their home. Home a feeling or sense that I bring everyday into this workplace to heal them, to heal me. I found home in stories, memories, and olfactory sense. Home a sense of belonging and returning back to our center that I bring everyday into this workplace to heal them, to heal me. Sage. Cedar. Sweetgrass and Yarrow roots to cleanse my body, mind, and soul. Sage to keep the bad medicine at bay. Cedar to keep in my shoes and wash in my hair as I think about how long I can really hold my breath for underneath this wave of colonization. Sweetgrass to honor the devine femininity that lives in all of our spirits that comes from under our feet. Yarrow to wash my body and purify my thoughts.
M Vogel Jan 2020

Untethered at times
but, only in short
spurts do you sprint.

I see you,  grazing the
sweetgrass-edges, green and lush;
such a perfect circle
you carve--

Peg, spiked in dry dirt;
the clanking hobble, has you
starved.

Dragging chain, uprooting succulents
scraping bare the dry ground
while beautiful, unfenced;  is
the grassland-  all around

You were built to be wild, love..  

    Wild.

A little Mady bird caught the sun ,
having forsaken her nest then revelled in the-
new morn
Dreams of sunflower fields and wisteria ,
bumble bees and sweet corn ...
Oak arbors sprinkled with tinsel
Pungent , turned earth laden with -
sweetgrass , kernel and lentil ...

Sing a song of powder blue ventures
Proud announcments from the tip of -
fragrant magnolias
Scolding her contemporaries draped in water oak-
sanctity                                                    ­                                            
Nestled in mistletoe
Pious morning adventures ...
Copyright Janurary 29 , 2021 byRandolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Ken Pepiton Mar 2020
find the answer, never despair, hold hope habitual

ritual

rright use learn of love of life
like cloned Poke'mons
in the movie, but rreal

first gentled by a feminine manifestion of Solomon's Jah,

that one. God. Wisdom is her domain, patience
does all her handiwork and
cares for her children,
in time.
Just in time,
each stitch,

each twist of the sweet grass, first lesson learned by
maids and lads alike,
braiding sweetgrass to tie us to the will to be a we,

I call you not servants,
but friends.

There was a wise man who saved a city, the equivalent

of saving civilisation,
these days;
and no one nor anybody knew his name,

only that he had made the peace.

"to manifest many sons, he said. I am one of them."
A me heresy, mocking a friend who warned me of not being ready for the end of time.
Not mocking, paying clown honor to one who missed the joke for lack of knowing even Pikachu, in a Poke'mon battle.

— The End —