The only thing brighter than hope
is loss
it chews into the goldsmith
that makes the soul
and gnaws me into colors
each part of me flying down
into the wilderness I am fluttering
as the farmer ploughs me into earth
where my intensity can rest.

In full dress once
I left an economy of boughs,
the candle isn't lit, a wick without its crown
I leave the world schooled in lean and lithe, a yogi,
I am here to study my own neglect.
The rest of the world, lion bodied,
glances at my century of rough.

But I robed the ground with my convictions
I couldn’t keep them
seasons burst out of me
even if I wanted to hoard my greedy treasures for myself
I couldn't
thus robbed of my enfranchisement
I mutter in time to the wind
sorrow gave me this reason-flayed second purpose

Which is to feed others, my body now a spilled nut
I am birded by the sowing belly of earth
my bells are rained and pinched
by this tapering
I am being shrunk to get through the door to death
only snow will enter in the end
when I am covered white and immaculate
together we give up color for the season of bones.

I have been too long in the world.

I am frayed at my edges
chipped
cracked and broken in places

I have been too long in the world.

Have listened too long to the
THOU SHALT NOTs
the
I WANT IT ALL MY WAYs
the
IT'S MY RIGHTs
and I have let them dry the lake of my soul
with their drains and siphons

I have been too long in the world.

I shall use the golden joinery
of the Japanese art
to honor my frayed edges
weave a golden, or silver, or platinum
thread through them
fill my cracks and broken places with lacquered metals

I have been too long in the world.

other edges, smashed to smithereens,
will be left as they lay
jutted, stiff
while the softened, smashed powder from them
I'll keep in a medicine bag
and mix it, as needed, with my blood
stirred into a salve, a queen of healing

I have been too long in the world.

my thousand-times-broken heart
repaired and repaired and repaired
and re-paired
I will wrap like the gift it is
with the gold of Love
while laughter falls from it
salve regina


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

in this
pocketful
        of limbo
          the distance rises
               in curls of smoke
        a prairie fire
siphoning into
crisp edge
           of forest
          Inside my
uncloaked ventricle
primeval forces
turn my blood into
dusted gold
as they pump
        sacred texts
into my oxygen
      They roll your quintessence
upon my fingers,
            playing inside
     my psyche's  
wild ache
a spread of orifice
in spellbound mantra,
       as I spit out
          the
            hairy thorns,
a holy purge of
   internal
        engravings
    
Somehow ---
like a miracle,
I grow ripe seedlings
from deep within
            my womb
as I trip into
a universe rising
I take wisps
of your grace
as it brushes
the jut of my
astral collarbone
You are always
         grounding me
                    like this,
               my tongue
              tripping
         over velvet
stance of warrior
        assuaged into silk
    
        Without you,
I might be
whisked off into
the periphery
of chaos
but instead
       I am simply
tied to
      the urgency
of the little novas
about to
        explode

While I wait
            I tend to
              the wildfires.
     to make sure they
                   are still burning
I keep my honey
wet and fresh
upon your
                   lips,
let my pores
drip moonpools
    into your glistening
wet of mouth
and only when
          it is time
I let the whole of
           me burst
into the
      fire -wrapped
tips of
   stars

said a something
           to myself
it was a reminder
           to make a better life
somehow someday
          want to make something
a day soon change
          stop all this lying
to myself

take a day to change or a year
           anyway
I have the incentive
             and mean to
soon

We are living memory
Our words are our saviors
For they will remember
Us