Amish Acres

Violent storms all night give way to a compensatory drizzle at dawn. And yoga beneath the white noise of a million leaves catching and releasing rain. An awareness further. Deeper.

The poetry is gone. Those aching moments branching outward from the chest into the center of the throat have diffused into some sort of vacuous condemnation. To mourn words only highlights the foolishness of their play in the first place. At least, one tells you that in order to proselytize.

Even sentences are some sort of open window, catching a current heading somewhere else. My selfishness is tempered by the other, and I think that's why I was born a Libra. I want to go. I have to stay. October stars anchor what I mean to loose.

At the wedding we slow-danced to one of those timeless songs that always makes you feel like you can be tucked into each other's chest forever. The old Amish barn, a heavy harvest moon, the smell of hay and bundled corn stalks mingling with peachiest pie I've ever tasted . . . why not celebrate vows and commitment and two young hearts choosing to farm the land together? No one's asking, but is the marriage form something to believe in? White dress, best man speeches, tossing the bouquet; we keep it all on repeat. Partners hold fast to an institution that resists change and infiltration. Yet every moment in life is new, pressing against expectation and boundary.

Balance. Weighing the means. Libra bones rattling the cage in the name of Love.

October bears down on the core, and she honestly cannot tell you what is going to happen.

Starry-eyed Tea

Four a.m. melted under the last of summer's creamsicle moon. In a way, you kneel under the stars whether you mean to or not. Untouchable yet there. In utter darkness, we cannot live. So this gratitude for even the tiniest pinpoints of light gushes forward, first as awe, then acknowledgement of being. My words play in the romance of tip-toeing from one starlit tide pool to the next, but I assure you, my deepest desire is to meet light mouth-to-mouth.

Morning lags behind the air breaks of school buses and the competing conversations of dogs outside before their breakfast. How hunger breeds intensity. The day presents itself as steadfast, so I get on board with that which cannot die.

Thursday / tick-tock / the train's conductor / taking tea / on hiatus

I think I just want to speak plainly now. The simple easiness of what is really here. And there? The storytellers weave and bob, but please tell me the truth with an impoverished tongue.

On the way towards noon, a Cooper's Hawk watches from the depressed telephone pole, a sinking reminder of the futility planting anything but vegetables in the muck fields. We see each other and it matters. I think we want the same thing.  

Tonight promises to be clear from here to there. Meet me for starry-eyed tea on the back porch, okay? I don't want to kneel alone.

Gravel and Grain

Crickets and katydids rattling the residue of predawn's fog. A singular sound wielding power that rises above utterance, beyond observance. The physics of being present and gone are not so hard to consider anymore.

Tree bark holds the dampness after everything else has cleared. The day takes a flow I didn't orchestrate and as always, a feeling of insignificance rudders the tide. Though incidental, peace. And happiness these days.

I wouldn't have chosen Joe Cocker crooning in moonlight but the evolution of his rise and fall made a difference. An ongoing lunar affair means my breath is stolen and I am not the only one.

Punctuality as a fetish. The moon, a maple in quiet flush, the forced hibernation of those beholden to the rhythms around them.

Bees in the chive bloom, but also, ants. It's still warm enough to be barefoot, you know. Walking the pavers warmed by September's generosity – small stones collected into one rounder. Real gravel and grain in a fabricated form, yet no matter how it comes together or why, it is both false and true. I think that's how I see it all.

Acorn rain. Expected yet startling. The lessons of embracing what is, while letting go. Always a winter to follow.

When October arrives, embrace her for me; she'll be carrying a love I can only write about from here.

Passing Through

Hummingbirds in the hibiscus under a stained glass morning. Focused, or seemingly so. How bizarre that one's day-to-day nothingness leads to the accomplishment of being! Days drain from one smeary landscape to another. More than ever, I am merely passing through. Everything thinner.

October asks and Love answers. When the unbeatable cancer was looming, only one sorrow collected into a pulsing nerve center around the heart. One syllable sinking into the river, racing. Now distanced from death, on the embankment of safety, why not give thanks for the dry feet before the winter sets?  And yet . . . 

Clouds collect and turn green; a storm is unavoidable. An oppressive heat fogs the glass and causes my lungs to faint. Wilting is a problem, but not at 4 a.m. Everyday for the last two weeks I make use of my camouflage, working hard undetected in the early dark. What happens when I get away with it all?

The female hummer hovers long enough for us to recognize each other. Here and gone. Repeat. The earth finds a way to let us through.

Second Hand Stars

Hours before indigo gives way, the stars exalt a sort of bewilderment. Stunning silence. Untouchable extension. A happiness settles one's place in the labyrinth. How does any sentence compare to this?

I wait on dawn's busy hands. The constellations thin into the elongated light of summer's last stand.

On the rosebush a single shoot towers over a flowerless homeland. Yet at the end of the mast, a crown of four blooms – yellow bravery signaling peace. I remember shaking the farmer's hand during mass, thick and rough. His hold was in a hurry as if it was already too much time spent away from the tasks of the farm. Peace be with you. The elderly widow's touch, always cold and translucent, seemed to ask for my other hand to come along side as to offer support and warmth or an extra moment of communion. Peace be with you. The attractive teenager's hand, always warm and moist; was he shy like me, dreading the forced recognition of our shared benediction? Peace be with you.

Our hands, a continuation of the walk we are meant to take. A paradoxical expansion of healing and murder. Violence and peace. What cannot be said flows through two hands connecting the starry intricacy of the expanding universe. What is good or bad fails to register as anything bigger than the imperceptible ghosts of atomic design.

Full daylight now and it channels the first coolness of autumn.

A time of inanition begins to recede as the body wakes to September's staccato dance. Aroused nights; jeans and covered feet; all-day soups on the stove. Can you feel the Connection shift? Stretch out your fingers and turn the soft of your wrists up towards the light; I've seen the answers in the palm of your hands.

The Jobless Gardener

Midnight and all the hours in between. Outside, a milky shroud covers everything in the dark, the weighty noose of lead about the lungs. My glasses fog and everything familiar becomes alien. The ankle isn't quite right yet so I hobble past the rabbit family, the last of the rose blooms, the dying gardens and the sleeping churches of suburbia. The hush of empty consciousness makes it better.

Love and gardens.

It is peaceful to water where a thing grows naturally; otherwise, manipulation, dishonesty, and the hard work of managing death. Love pushes through the black soil and quickly the mechanical mind adheres a label: selfish, ordained, forever, foolish, safe, thirsty. We transplant and graft according to our own design, negating the origin of birth. Love cannot be destroyed, so it ages in cultivation. Yet what of the native, wild swell that must expand and exist outside of our beliefs? The jobless gardner could only sit zazen as a conduit in front of the effortless amplification of that which must grow.

Instead, work – not altogether unhappy or meaningless. But what would happen if the plants decided? What arrangement of love would reshape our yards, our fields, our toil?

Perhaps the salvation of the world starts with a small willingness to let it grow.   

Experts at the Fall

Acorn hits bring me home from the horizon. September is here before I am there. What else can happen when one measures the truth in calendars and maps?

Apple blushes feeding on lilted light. A greater hunger wakens with ripening fruit – the kind that fully feels its peak just ahead of demise. Experts at the fall. We acknowledge all of this with eyes and mouths, yet the mind must have its way. Our birds will sing longer than we can wait. Our fruit will fold into the ground.

Sometimes that is what autumn means.

And yet . . .

Maple songs and knotty pine. Windswept hair tangles with woodsmoke and ashen leaves. Heathered scarves seducing the neck. October makes a play.

A clearing has been made, soon covered in the sodden rot of fall's debris. Winter's appetizer here and gone before any has a say.

But I shall gather this manna each day before it spoils, Beloved, in faith that you will place it on my tongue and in complete contrition whisper Body of Christ.

Tomorrow at 10

Together alone.

In summer's set, I catch a glimpse of the bedroom from outside in. Everything is recognizable yet once removed. My scarves hang from hooks behind the door. Books pile on the dresser and nightstand and ironing board. Closet doors open like an accordion drawing breath, as spacious as an arm's length.

Life is that way just now – accepting the light through tendered windows. My existence viewed (skewed?) from humidity staring inward.

It's hard getting out of bed these days. Purpose wanes to a foolish belief system. How my heavy limbs and anchored heart betray expressions of the unsaid. Everyday the goal resets: rise, avoid, descend. Yes; something must be done.

The water boils, but I cannot see its tiny eyes. In the pour I am saved. Have you considered the process instead of the result? My wrist only stirs the tea once, but in the action my soul is forever turned. Are you busy tomorrow at 10?

take tea with me / that I shall know / we are together / alone

Green Barely Holding

Twilight stolen after a long run of simply being the resting place before darkness. In this venue, the truth can unravel to reveal the reaper. Really, isn't that who is in charge? Know thy enemy. Thyself?

A little lighter now, because perhaps it is more palatable when one doesn't stare right at it.

A downy woodpecker mines the bedroom sill as I fill his cavities with sleep. Afternoon gushes but I can only stare into the western window. Green barely holding. The memory of happiness clinging to blue effusion in hushed tones. Summer pens a lessening geometry. Yet I am here. Still.

When one breaks the night, it's not so crazy to expect dawn to rise through the shattering – crisp gold highways shouldering that elusive ladder towards anything but here. Instead, grey upon grey. Rain in the ocean. Thunder in low vibrations.

Some leaves are already curling. I'm trying my best to ignore the tick-tock tap of acorns falling. Fall. And the sentence that follows.

You / named for the Sea / the wandering Dylan / gravedigger and ghost / let's be friends

Climbing Silk Walls

The waning moon on my back.

Finally night cools in the way of shared sleeping bags and crickets softening the edges of the crinkled days.

The end of lightning bugs and the end of yesterday's this.

How empty the days seem when held high into summer's sun, arrivals not scheduled. Autumn left as she was.

I am surprised by the fullness of the roadside sunflowers tied with homemade twine. Is it time already? October can only hold scarlet promises, you know . . . maple flames and blowzy cheeks revealing us all as we are. I wanted more than I could say but therein lies the lie. Yellow is never the new red.

Spiders in my shoes and back-porch sentences; neither stay long enough to make a difference.

After the tornados, I knew the nightmares would return. But nowadays the dreams end with a voice saying: you are afraid of tomatoes?! The city repairs itself and so do I. A soundtrack repeats: every little thing's gonna be alright . . . with or without you . . . I can't live. 

The writing only exists in the hints of sunrise – that eastern light which must do what it can to wake all who prefer to sleep under patchwork dreams and heron rain. Heroin rain? One climbs silk walls until after midnight. Only exhaustion will do.

The petunias are done and soon the beloved begonias. There are no choices here except the one where I hug apple trees and say thank you and nap in a lower sun to recover from all these dreams.

This way and that.

Another Sonorous Signal

A needed rain withheld.

August birdsong opens a bit, now arranging a fullness in decline.

One sits under the humidity yet cannot divine a single drop of water.

The dry storm growls east sending the release onward.

Geese overhead.

Another sonorous signal of movement complying with destiny.

To love unconditionally may seem like a choice but as the cardinal in the elder pine and I discussed, Love simply is.

This and other quicksilver threads braided down the middle of my back.

Last December I remember water turning to stone, yet the evergreens and holly and chickadees remained vibrant to dismantle the myth of death.

Yet, this one will wither; my choice-less season in the accompaniment key of Chopin.

So today – short sentences of latent potential in the here and now.

What arrives now is truly a mystery, for more than a muse means more than everything combined.

The field of my thoughts runs dry as the sky-fallen sea withholds.

I shall stagger to river's edge to kiss its cold mouth in hopes of dousing this dusty lament!

Then when will I be empty?

A moment in the waterless moonlight suggests the kind of never that eclipses both hope and despair.

They say that in the death of Pan, Christ is born.

I say that in the birth of Christ, Pan collects Selene for the last time and disappears into the soft white distance that can never be claimed.

Lunar night, dawning bright; I cannot undo the wish I wished last night.

Make for me this sweet ending and you'll know me on my knees.

Two Birds With One Stone

Coffee to Coltrane.

A black silky reminder of where I am not.

These pages turn towards tomorrow's come-and-go, and it feels like violence.

Summer cherries and pits and that thing some people do to the stem with their tongue . . .is that sexy?

I did not choose this desire for blue.

water / sky / mood / moon
and the way my heart must be buried
when the bluebird words you used to write
forget me not

One flutters above the fray yet can't help but notice the catastrophe of bodily proportions.

Of which atmosphere do I belong?

Yes, all of it.

Everywhere's community of false lives.

Coltrane to Carruth.

Are we listening?

Hayseed acid in your throat.

Harvesting has begun.

The muck fields hold a heavy onion breath and the sod farm rollers crawl in the linear existence that makes so much sense.

Line by line he also calls attention to a lavender Christ and thickening apples and the first flushing of maple.

Do you remember the time I fell down at the mention of how a maple must turn red and therein lies its beauty?

Carruth and cinnamon.

The tinge of rust that arrives bit by bit, a lesser red blushing the fallen.

Let's meet behind the barn, for it's the only reconciliation that is left to address.

Two birds with one stone – the cardinal and the crow.

Skip pebbles with me, won't you?

Cinnamon and cabernet.

Swill a bit.

Stain with the bleed.

The drunken rose will spill unto the forest floor as we grab for water to dilute the permanence.

And there it is . . . the return to the Water Bearer and all his many forms.

I know no otherwise, dear one.

Selah.

Parsed Light

Summer shifts.

The August canopy allows shadows to sway in that hue resistant to naming.

In the low breeze off the Great Lake, a grief speaks in wind chimes causing a certain regard that is hard to ignore.

And the remains of letters burned on the beach under lilting ladles and the roving bears of my heart.

Parsed light.

The gills in the privacy fence between us allow golden-green beams to pass.

I am engrossed in this light and make all things it leans against to be real.

Is this how Love creates it's own necessities?

Hunger strike.

Satiation leads to sluggish contentment, a hazy drift in mid-summer's heavy lake.

Yet the starving opposite leaves one to flip the coin of happiness and sorrow.

Perhaps now it is time to welcome life as it presents – cheese and cream, or black marble coffee with crumbs.

This Way.

I see now that it is the search or longing that destroys the peace never not offered.

Maybe the cold kiss as woodsmoke clings to autumn falling apart.

Maybe the tapping of letters from the writing chair snug in the corner as one writes in, past, and through the current of arrival.

And maybe none of it.

Just love.

Accept what is.

Like clouds in the sky.

Here and not.

Uncollected Hallelujah

From the room of windows, two yellow butterflies startle morning's yawn with a tango. The rise and fall of black veins give and receive an infinite gift – justice in the macrocosm of existence. How they hover in divine movement! Yes, yellow seems to be the way this time.

They push the slightest breeze towards attention. Why does their dance need wings? Help me with this body. Hungry questions beget the wreckage of storm-torn trees upon endless beaches one must visit from time to time.

The dilemma paces between the insignificance of the physical form and the spiritual wavelength emitted and recognized in another. Only a few have made themselves mystically known within my vibration. Fewer still match the unsayable steps in this unicursal labyrinth. And there is one who sees me, even without eyes.

So then, what matter is the body? If the height of inner honesty and oneness can be recognized without having touched my living barrier, then what purpose shapes the sloping shoulders or moves the watery lips towards another? Which conception asks for the other?

The spiritual confluence of cardinals and questions and trips to the river just to see, is a fuel to my constant flame. Winged Beings beware.

butterflies
climb the sunbeam's prayer -
an uncollected hallelujah remains  

Possessed by the Course

In the middle of the grocery aisle, a man holding hands with his two young daughters was being pulled in opposite directions. I waited to pass, enjoying the moment in familial recognition of all things parenthood. When the father noticed me he said, “ Oh, sorry, sir.” The playful summer storm passed by and I took a few minutes to determine how the mis-gendered apology made me feel.

Fat. Unwomanly. Not me.

An aisle or two later, the father tapped me on the shoulder to say that he could see I was not a man. He caught me out of the periphery of his eye and misspoke. With his girls at attention, he apologized in a lavish, heartfelt manner.

Lately, an awareness of an infinite loop. Birth, life, death, repeat. Elephant, Egyptian, Ghost, Housewife. A man ends them all.

Though it is the body I rail against, it is not skin that holds me inward. Or the miles arrowing into the horizon of sunrises.

As any highway can tell you, the undulating cadence beneath the tires takes one both away and towards home. Closer and further into being possessed by the course.

For is it not the essence of sameness beyond the skin and bones and motel rooms that will finish the traveling? Let us all simply nourish the softening gate that opens in recognition of God. Her warm beckoning eating the miles until there is nothing left to consume. No where left to go.

 
in this place
I am fugitive words
spilling the presence  
that will never be contained
in the breasts
or hips
or bones
of me

Leave a Little Room

Lately when it comes to words and sentences, I feel bound to the consistory. They exact devastation in their surgical flow while some manage to birth an entire universe in a single word. One could die in those moments. Instead, a battered crawl, knee-to-fist unto the altar begging for life everlasting.

The pounding storm at dawn says: write!

There are two reasons I don't ride horses. It seems a form of violence to mount holiness. The other reason will have to be shared over coffee in that little cafe that offers sunrise on a slant before the day takes what it must have. We can rest our cups on the white flags of surrender. A celibate affair in acquiescence. Who couldn't use an abiding friendship about now?

Well, it's okay either way. To express one's truth is to reenter recognition – an intimate touch transcending what is believed about love. Maybe that is why this is here. A written account of enmeshment so that the author might trigger the clarity of her own vision. Christ's sight of unbroken heartship.

Zucchini bread. Caprese salad. Blueberry pancakes. Summer yields the desires born of the earth. We consume our own perfection to find the totality of Self, deliciously and wonderfully made.

At least, that's something to laugh about over the house coffee . . . leave a little room for cream, please. 

Black Butterflies

It sounds like this.
And now it looks like that.
I'm writing like everyone else these days.
Maybe my truth isn't all freedom and love and slightly bad days giving way to rainbows and lilies.
Maybe I am owned. Distorted.
Falling through the crashes.
Unto here?

I delete what is real and put forth what is almost there.

Black butterfly / the grill of my car / love unto death

I moved the books from the nightstand to the shelf. Yesterday that didn't change a thing, but today is today. The movement is a mere conduit of everyone trying to do the right thing.

Choosing the unused side of the bed for now until maybe finally very soon I will wrap certain texts from the shelf in that blue satin ribbon cut from the dress that she said looked so beautiful on me and place the whole bundle in the locked box in the back of the closet under that pair of sexy shoes that kill my back.

Maybe if I can't write the real thing I can at least say that.

Immunity Over Compass

Jays, chipmunks and chainsaws before the sun reaches the end of the driveway. Cue the dogs who never seem to run out of things to say in the round. What have I chosen to learn in this suburban temple? Trust, perhaps.

Do you trust me?

The feeling of discarnate expansion wakes at 4 a.m., despite the boundaries I imagine for myself. Hints of total freedom quietly crash through the body's appeal for sleep. Who do I join at this hour? We embrace and I hear the whispers of undivided unity. The holy hour is not mine alone.

A later dawn. Which pockets will I slip my curling fingers into when fall arrives with such acuity? The proof is lacking, but I am trying to remain in summer. Yet as we swim and plant and the turn humid pages of heavy books, the signs of advance are there.

Do I trust myself?

Well, one thing I look forward to is soup on the stove, steaming up icy windows. Highway thoughts return and so does the chance to choose immunity over compass.

And yet . . .

a certain kiss
of outdoor lips

an inquiry
of what is underneath

a moment meant
for just that

lingering

Where I Begin

I never skim love letters.

Instead, the wrists of the blindfolded author are surrendered and tied to the cold, plastic chair arm. One wonders if the cosmos delight in the slow assessment of frame and slant and helpless solicitation. Perhaps the collective is just hungry enough for a show. How obsessively I drink in the way its body breathes, shaking a little as I stand over the lap of intention. You already know where I begin, yes? The neck bends both away and towards, ever so peaked beneath the breath of sublime titles. Each word demands its own pause. Then all together, the full calamity of murderous sentences unleashes the DNA of the sender. We all spill for gravity.

It's too hot for this far north. The begonias bleed all over the back porch and the lavender spires of hosta blooms are now anchors thrown aside under the heat's oppressive command. I stay inside because melty me takes hours to reconstitute.

Butternut squash, curried, over brown rice. A side of ginger tea. Summer gathers a fullness of flavor which tastes best in immediate consumption.

So it is with this life. One bread. One body. One elongated missive of love.

This Muggy Hug of Rainless Anemia

I can afford no sympathy for the storm which both arrives and dissipates before unleashing. For once, I am clear minded and step forward thusly. Without waiting.

Therefore, another day of watering. Another turn of prolific heresy, coiling through perception's nagging atmosphere. But in this muggy hug of rainless anemia, I am happy.

In the exam room, Billy Joel vomits through the celling speaker . . . Darlin' only the good die young. Did you know that red-heads bleed more? The doctor remembers after the first incision. Gray walls. White floor. Her red Mary Jane's shuffle around the table for better stitching.

One considers a pressure cooker for beans, recipes for restoration, and how to make things palatable without sugar. See? She isn't waiting for diagnosis. Or rain.

A sharp moon bores through pine filters with an effortless certainty. No matter what is decided, the moon has the last say. Tonight, as he cups his hands around my face, I am forbidden to look away.

It's really nothing more than this.