There is a sinister wind

Everywhere.

Like a rippling black sheet,
It slinks beneath the currents of the air

And wants in.

It wants in my lungs.

It wants in my heart.

It wants in the very molecules that bind us together

And tear us apart

And it will consume the soul of the world
And it will destroy the spirit of the poet
And render our warm palms

Cold.

A frigid wind that inflames and then

Decays;

That whips the corners of the earth
And rips apart
The hands that pray.

I want to cast it out like a bad omen
I want to burn this sage and scream

Leave us alone!

Leave us alone!

Leave us alone!

Surely we are bad and we have sinned
And there are those who live in greed and let arrogance win,
But these ones with the kind eyes
And a lifetime of good deeds left behind,

What have they done?

What have we done?

We are just trying to love
We are just trying to live.

Forgive us and be done with this

Madness.

Be done with this black wind!
Let the darkest recesses of the universe breathe and draw it back from whence it came

Never to exhale again.


Please, God,

Please,

Let us live
Let us redeem

Everything.

Holiness is there where the druidic
Shadows of the pines rise straight and tall and dark against
The languishing light of day

Fire streaked across the sky
And all the peaks beneath
Graying into the silence of the night

Treading the needles underneath
And how the orange-red remnants of the sun push through the
Empty spaces recessed within the forest's soul,
Motionless bodies of the conifers solemn like
The standing stones of old

And dusk comes in quiet through the timber now

And there is no more hiding,
No more striving and trying,
Just the gentle truth that

We are all dying

And this forest,
Climbing wide across the ravines into the mountains
Holds me without possession

And it would let me go
Like the yellowed leaves that scatter on the earthen floor
Like the last glow of the evening sun
Touching canopies of crimson and gold

And there is this letting go that feels like home.

Like I could reach across this void and hold my mother’s hand
Like these cliffs might drop to the open moorland of the Isles

Where the ghost of my father stands

Like I am pulled back to where I began,

Like the way that it feels

Each time I lay down in your arms.

With such cold rigidity some are able to carefully build these walls
And I try to imitate the craft,
But alas, my heart is far too soft.

When darkness falls, gently, across these open plains of
Windswept grass
It takes nothing but a single breath to
Lay my spirit bare,
Fingers of the starlit night reaching into the wild
Tangles of my hair.

And how easily I let these barriers
Fall all the way
Down

All the weight I’ve carried upon my shoulders dropped,
Just like that,
Just like a soft and silken gown
Strewn across the cooling evening ground.

And how I also crumble and fold,
How these painted walls
They do not hold

Because I am not afraid of love
And I beg the floodwaters to roll like raging
Oceans whipped by cyclonic storms
And I bend into the breaking of the stones
And my heart is screaming
Let them fall!

No, I do not try to cage this eternal seeking of my soul, so

Let them fall

Let them fall

I will always turn towards the sunlit warmth of love,
Arms reaching forever out
Though it may be better to arm these walls,

I will always let them fall.


I live breathless and free in the breaking.

By the shores of an alpine lake
Newly thawed
Sun bright and full of an early summer’s
Hopefulness
I watch the goslings waddle
To the lapping edge of the water.

Their mother eyes me, but
Notes that I am
Not a threat.

And I am not a threat.

I tell her softly that she should pass
And I will not throw rocks
Or chase her off
Like so many do
As if we have some greater claim to this
Blue lake
And the evergreen forests
That surround it
Than all of the wild things that quietly adjust their days,
Trace a slightly wider arc,
Around the cacophonous noise we make,

Before slipping quickly up, up and away
Into the thickness of a wilderness
Rife with ponderosa pines
And a crisp silence
Broken only by the wind
And the bird songs
That are the first to speak
Of the winter’s end.

And I prefer to listen
And look often
To the farthest contours of the foothills against the sky,
Borne away from even my own voice that
Seems to demean the purity of things
Free and
Wild.

And time,
A gentle drifting
Like a body on the surface of the lake
Drawn out to the center when
The tide is just right
Pulls me away from these cities we make
Inside our minds
To justify the way we think our lives
Mean more than hers;

Just a mother leading her young ones to take a drink,

And I will never stop her;

The spirit of honest things.

No, I hand her my heart to take to the center of this blue lake
And let it sink like a rock to the dark,
Cool depths where it belongs,

From whence it came.

Like the banks of the Colorado River eroded by the wind and the water and the whipping rain of the western skies,

All temporal things slip

Away

We hold what we can.
Resolute boulders break the flow,
Try to arrest the water as it goes
Rushing on towards the eternity

Of the sea

Only temporarily are these tangible things owned
Bodies clutched close
As if we could hold back the wind with our fingers,
But as the storm gathers and lifts the sand from the cliffs

Only the memories linger

The sunset falls outside my window
And all that was
Is left to dwindle to a trickle of a feeling
Of a ghost against the redness of the sky.

One must learn to look inwards

Because these outward landscapes of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters

They fly

And these moments are like the shadows of birds
Across the waters of the western plains;

Here, while the dying sun remains,

And gone.

Leave.

Toss clothes like fluttered wings
In this bag.
Throw just one ******* my shoulder and
Go.  

Roll the windows down and amp up the music so loud I drown
Out the static of sadness that never ends.

Find the narrow path that no one takes
In the valley by the headwaters of the lake

Won’t even scan the brushland for snakes,

Just walk

Away

Can’t make it right anyway
Can’t make anyone stay
Can’t fill up their world with what they deserve
Tried to play every role but I’m really

Just
One
Girl.

Wonder what it would feel like to find the serrated edges of the rock on the top of the highest cliffs and just

Step off

Wonder what it would feel like to tell the world to *******?

Wonder if I can walk high enough to leave half of myself
Underneath the glory of the ridgeline
Stamp her shadow down with these boots and

Rise lighter

Less encumbered by the pitiful way she cries
Walk the rough trail that cuts straight up the rocks
Stand on the top
And let the sun
Burn the guilt off
Melt my heart right there on the mountain

Let it go

In the currents across the river washed rocks
Carried away to the nadirs of the sea
Where there is no special place for tears

And the whales leap up and breach the waves

And everything that ever mattered lifts in the arching spray and

Evaporates.

But I am just a girl
Knees in the cool dirt
By the forest’s edge
And I’m not dumb enough to give it all up
Yet

And there isn’t really any blade to this hurt
Just a dull ache
That falls away the further I follow the river
Through the quaking aspens
Along the pine framed cliffs
Into the sky.

I can leave it all behind
For a little while
Toss this canvas bag onto the rough ground
Turn around

And walk into your waiting arms.

And there is the stillness of the endless sleep
Tucked deep beneath the winter’s snow
Curled within the thickness of the earth
Released from sadness
Released from pain

Released

Released

Released

A consciousness freed to slip
Back into that vast ocean from whence it came,
Just like the way that stars exchange their lives in one,
Final dispersal of glorious light,
For the welcoming silence of a galactic night.

But then there is this cry
That falls and cuts hard and long right down the inner backbone of
My soul
And how it screams,
“No!”

And how in one, single moment, I know with such clarity that

I don't want to go.

And I can barely hold all of this love
In my hands
And I grasp at it while it overflows like a raging river and I am
Clutching at
Each precious memory,
Soaked in the undeniable surety

That I love all of this more than I could ever say

And I want to save each fractured second of it all;
Tiny arms around my neck
Mommy goodnight
The way the snow glints off the distant, highest peaks
As the new Dakota sun begins to climb
And the way I can snake my steps along ridges lined with conifers
And find the highest rocks,
Climbing to where the hawks glide below
In the open spaces above the cliffs
Where the alpine slopes roll and roll
To horizons made of crimson sunset and gold.

And I know that this is home;

Like the first notes plucked of the most beautiful chord,

Or the way my breathing ebbs and flows
Like a gentle river that the painted mountains hold
In a quiet grace
When I lay my face
Against your chest

Or every time I hear your voice.

And I want to hold on
To all of this
And I don’t want to let go
And how can I ever rip the very fabric of my soul
And just fade away,

Let go?

Every fiber of my being screams out “no!”

Fields of fire rage behind the veil,
A love so wild
It breaks across the rocks
Like water and falls
Away from my hands.

Always seeking that other rough land,
So beautiful
The skies glint like the edges of knives
And cut through my ribs like music,
Like chords that come alive
And bleed

Every time I breathe
Drawing in the crisp air by the gurgling creek,
Footsteps rhythmic on the snow-laden leaves,
Not quite cold enough to freeze.

It is such torture to feel

It is such torture to feel

It is such torture to feel

To always feel,

Everything.

There is beauty here but it is like a mirrored image encased in dust.

There is a kingdom of love in your eyes,
Inside the voice of
The river wild
And when the sunrise alights
The bodies of the pines against the sky,
And when your fingertips trace the contours of my spine,

I am sinking
Down in fields of fire;
And I would gladly drown in the incandescence,
Ripped apart by the knife edges
Of such a beautiful truth.

Something rages beyond the veil,
Like fire inside the mountain;

There is something holy here,
If only I knew how to find it,

Or is it
In death
That we do?

Play me like a bass guitar
With your hands
Made for music.

Brush me with your artist's touch
Along these invisible scars that used to
Hurt so much.

Just,

Hold me forever.

Draw out my smile
Like colors on skin
Like a drumbeat that tells the melody
Where to begin.

Heal me again and again
With your hands
Made for music.

You said I steady your mind and remind you of all the reasons why
You can believe in yourself.

My love, know that I
Will always lift you up,
And hold your hands
Made for music.

I am falling like the most beautiful Refrain
When you tangle your fingers
In my hair and
Whisper my name.

Every day, there is a song being written,
Chords that rush across a
Never-ending rhythm.
It is the story of a boy
With the heart of a musician
And a girl
Who will love him
Forever.

Flying on an old wooden swing set
Green paint peeling off the sides
Sunlight descending through the spaces between the leaves
Thick on the branches of the old oaks
I never thought I would
Leave behind

She’s kicking high now
With spindly legs
And tipping her face upside down
Laughing like a child
Should
Laughing though life would
Place a sadness in the world
Little by little.

I walk through the edges of the garden in a different time
My voice is hers and mine.

I will always love you
Hopeful little thing
Trusting that these ropes will hold forever
Looking back at four walls that will never crumble
But they did
And they do
And you knew, you always knew.

And if you could only hold onto one solid thing
And if you could just be bright enough to save every one

And isn’t that why you were always smiling?

Such a happy child.
Such a happy child.

And I want to tell you it is ok to stop smiling
And it is ok to let the swing fall down from the sky.
And it is ok that things die right there in the middle of the light
You try to bring.

I like you anyway
And I love you anyway
And I will swing beside you
And hold your hand and we can lay back our heads
and laugh and laugh and laugh
And maybe that will finally

Be enough

And I can forgive myself.

A dark sun pulls heavily within
These long minutes of isolation
A vortex opens
A chasm in the lungs
And it makes the abrasive air thin.

I am breathing shallowly like one
Feral thing caught in a trap
Nowhere to run
And thus forced to rest right next
To the parts of myself that I hate
The parts that can’t escape their own
Internal blankness
Though they faintly remember how to sing or

The remote and shadowed trail to Jerusalem

Call me home
There is music in the bones of the forest
And the wild reeds are dancing on

The banks of Babylon  

We should not fall and
Lay our desecrated souls across an altar of darkness;

No, if you listen very carefully at the precipice of dawn,

There, where the mountains lift the thickened fog into a brightening sky

There is still the quiet drum of hope
And the flutter of so many unbeaten hearts
Like butterflies reborn

Dancing

~