Blue Beams and Kaleidoscope Rain

Love without opposite – faith and holiness hold hands.
At night, October's colossal moon hovers low beyond witchy oaks and so, I take off my clothes, my body, and everything else.
Moment by moment is now given towards the goal for peace.
The holes we close.
The “who” I serve.

*

I called you “babe” but you never heard it.
October is perfect with its patent on blue beams one day and kaleidoscope rain the next.
We walk and talk but mostly, we don't do either.
If attraction is an assignment then what is non-attraction?
A mandate to give purity now.

*

Sweet potato barley risotto with cauliflower leek soup.
The song of one gladdened cardinal in the rhododendron and one chickadee high in the pines reminds me of what I have not given.
She wrote, “Magnitude Reverses Modesty” and I understood it from the pocket of my bones.
Like the river loses itself in the sea, so too one releases others to release herself.
The witch dies, willing the house to Gretel who takes the confections down to the studs, uses fallen timber to rebuild a cabin, marries Medusa, and lives happily-ever-after.

*

Deeper into the woods the dog and I scrape up against purple thorns and collect burrs around our ankles.
Rain slides down bark and seeps into cinnamon blankets of needles and leaves.
We shuffle, but do we dance?
We do not fail at sea.
We do not fail at Thee.

All Tributaries of Living

Marigolds still!
Orange and yellow layer on itself in the last of October.
Forgotten acorns take hold and black maple leaves pile like ash against the neighbor's yet-green lawn.
Turkeys pick through the new compost area and tip the wheelbarrow full old tomato plants.
Now is not the time to waste sunlight.

*

Hours east; hours west.
Dead deer bodies mound on highway borders along with sorrowful prayers for a life of grace finished.
Dylan, caffeine, and the thrumming road ignites some kind of high that tingles down my spine and off into all tributaries of living.
My church.
My cross.

*

One laughs with the whole body upon realizing there really is no bottom!
Here now; thank you for waiting.
No longer hiding.
No longer longing.
Completion in Love and surrender.

*

Idols on notice.
No one is special because we are one and when the gears finally lock into place, inadequacy burns off like oil on a hot engine.
In my rear view mirror an imperial moon rises before the sun sets.
Perhaps now I can wish you only peace.
And you are not the only one.

Grandfathers, Smoke and Trellises

Beholden to open windows on starry, October nights.

One grandfather was pious and devout in his Catholicism and the other was caustic with foul language and love for vices. Yet the religious patriarch was a cardboard man, expressing love with his mouth but emptiness in depths. The other man was abusive to his children but drank from wells much deeper than priests. Leaves turn from life, cut off from that which feeds, and fall to gather at my feet. They burn in a hurry and I think of my grandfathers swirling in smoky memory. I wonder if they ever existed.

Outdoor plants and herbs come inside for winter. Sunday passes in expanding the garden for next spring – moving rocks, rearranging borders, putting the soil to bed. Ego pictures the finished worked but truth is the work. After pulling stakes, I coil the fence wire but cannot get it as tight as I'd like. My backaches and I'm glad about it.

He and I walk after dinner, a compromise of willingness which should go further than it does. I mess up in the tender places and realize that starting again doesn't mean getting somewhere. The dog plods along with stiff hips and neighbors pass saying, “what a lovely couple!”

Last night I dreamt about a tunnel trellis and now I'm wondering how to make one in the new garden space. To think is to form.

One wakes to consent to healing. The way was promised and that which is born in time will end. There is no otherwise. Slowly smoke lifts to reveal a Thought of peace to which the grandfathers both say, “yes, daughter.”

Stirring Silt

The cold snap finally arrives.

In a dream, I am with a houseful of strangers doing deep, psychological work. My job at the end of our week together is to sweep the floors. My only concern is picking out all the prisms that have fallen into the dust. I pick and save them all. It is the second dream in a week that is in a language other than English.

Across the state and back again, highway humming fails to cover the silence of knives. A moment is born here that stirs silt in the deepest underwater cave I know. I want to see love but instead I see trouble. What is this for, indeed.

Heat now shimmies from suburban chimneys along with the occasional whiff of wood smoke. Soon it will all be about leaf management. The absurdity plays out in a constant din. Late wildflowers do not seem to mind – purple lessons brighter than the sun.

In an attempt to be more present, coffee in the living room. I get lost in low morning sunlight filling the gazebo floor with golden grids. Whatever is more interesting than this is unheard and unseen. In this way, marriage is doomed.

A fried egg sandwich with guacamole and pepper jack cheese for breakfast. I see now that enjoying this fully rises in its ending.

When the Moon is Right

Morning stars.

One wonders how vision changes the definition of beauty.

An uncalculated life leaks around the scab – so this is peace.

Remnants of vain desires cause an itch I do not have to scratch.

When the moon is right, it is right.

*

Fog and mist rises with hesitation from the predawn pavement like the idea of no me without you.

A question of what I want lingers, thick yet translucent.

Light knows best.

But so do bees and bears.

3 a.m. disappears accordingly.

*

Potato leek soup and warm bread.

October begins departure as it must, but I am not ungrateful for her lessons in love.

The dog walks with me but no one else and that is okay because it reminds me of whom I have not yet forgiven.

How clear the air; how softly the light bends through gold and bronze!

Firewood stacked the way my dad taught me – it's almost time to burn.

*

A new, bigger compost pile, the last of the greens, and turning the earth before it freezes to make room for the larger garden come spring.

Mom wants to tell me a secret but I decline on account that I cannot tell Kyle.

Yes, hypocrisy; yes, a better way pending in my willingness.

Maybe Montreal?

The last sentence says one thing but means another – tell me you understand.

Everything for Love

Caught smiling in the rain.

In every way that counts, my heart belongs to all but me.

The sea. The sea.
The river must rush to the sea.

To the mat.
To the well.

In the valley.
In the desert.

The wayfarer forgets there is no where to go.
No where to be.

Move your legs if you must.
Carry your heart in cupped hands.

Drink from the earth's cool cisterns.
And weave a blanket for rest.

But even in peace, the dreams will not end.

Last night's moon replaced the missing headlight on the long drive back. We watched for deer as we listened to music – not speaking – not addressing – not terribly upset about any of it at all. I cannot hold what I never had and besides, having is for bodies, and bodies are most definitely not worth having.

Be careful what you wish you for, especially when it aligns with the Will of Love.

Farmer's Songs

October passing.

Mornings now dark and damp with the spicy aroma of decay.

Crickets / street lamp blush / the incision of eloping / geese

Not alone and not quite together.

Who has a queen gets to choose how the knee is bent; who is a queen knows the weight of gold but suffers a tomb set apart.

Cider donuts, hot chocolate and the hunt for wood to burn. Hikers grind leaves in the way of pestles working the walls of their mortar.

A train groans westward along Chicago Drive and for a moment or two, crickets and emptiness are forgotten.

This and other ways to honor signed treaties.

Rain stayed longer than expected but so did tomatoes, peppers and carrots.

These and other grace notes farmers are singing.

Dylan all the way down now.

How a man can be so many rays of light even with a leaky soul.

Now the only bears are those coagulating in my blood.

Instead cardinals, dogs, and two bands of wild turkeys reclaiming land the land we steal every day.

Pieces of heart left to burn in the Serengeti.

I remember the way an elephant's eye both saw and contained the entire cosmos and it shook everything.

Love met me in that hot wind, in her whispering grasses, in the sacred cry of the Ibis floating above the dissolution of earth.

Wood smoke as the essence of timeless being.

Ancient of Days, where is the last scroll?

On the Outskirts of Bed Sheets

Fall is falling and thusly, so I am. Purple and pink wildflowers come on late, but not too late for the land of Forgiveness.

A light rain hisses at the dawn and only barely rises above the purr and murmur of crickets. One is denied attention to stars as of late, Venus or otherwise.

The world of men has both obscured me with disregard and made sure that I was educated on how to become the architect of my own pain for wanting too much. These curtains of hair I have hidden behind; this eulogy I have written for Dad in the shower.

Moonlight slices porcelain ankles stacked and cooling on the outskirts of sheets. I lack nothing because midnight tells the truth.

A broken waltz restored. The Hands of God slip onto the small of my back and ask for a dance.

Prisms and other ways to kiss a neck.

With one, I never have to ask for what I want. With another, I am a conditioned hollow of low-maintenance, giving away mountains and continents in exchange for status quo.

How we are trained for happy servitude. How we are trained to not expect servitude in return.

Keep your appetite in check, young lady, and if you are lucky, you will get to nibble on the alms left at the front gate.

What happens when the unapologetically hungry monster-witch-heroine is freed from what has been denied her for so long? She finds enough strength to swallow a man.

Am I the goddess or the offering – the witch or the divine child of God? All I know is that when my hands ruck the sheets in sheer pleasure, my mouth is bound as to not be named a siren.

Married in a Cave

October morning remaining dark. There is no goddess here and the witch is off bathing in the river we once called “sacred.”

A hard sob refusing to stay in the throat. She who was married in a cave knows the tiniest prick of light to be enough to save the whole world.

It rains all day, east and west. The highway doesn't get a say, but it sure does do a lot of talking.

A message in a magic bottle floats up onto the shore and reads, “stop fucking around, in all the ways, for the sake of all the people.” And just like that, a broken little girl is admonished by her father.

Magic indeed! Divorce the body and live free.

Eleven turkeys meander about the neighborhood, scratching at perfectly manicured lawns. They emitting purring giggles along the way and I laugh with them as they destroy the mundane status quo in their innocence.

The mirror looks at me as if it doesn't understand my grief and so, in that way, perhaps I will return to getting undressed in the dark. Ego speaks again, for now.

In the mid-morning dream, we told my family the news and nothing stayed the same, except, we were together. Together, together.

Slick, yellow-red maple leaves press themselves against deck chairs and pine-needle beds and asphalt driveways. One stands in the middle of October and shivers, for winter is on the way.

We want love to win and at 100 turtles deep, we know it does. Do we know it at 101 turtles deep?

Inscribed in Always

In a 3 a.m. vision, a black fox, grotesquely missing his left eye, holds my gaze with a warning. Witch Mother is not quite done with me yet.

Blueberry pie for dinner. October gushes and pours all it has into my balloon heart.

She wrote, “...our unfurnished eyes” and it is then I knew I had mistaken the woman for a poet. For indeed, the poet was firstly, a woman.

Write your body and then, write it again. I strip in front of the mirror and the lesson compounds itself.

A dark green sweater against my red hair. Desire says I cannot win unless I stop playing the game.

Marriage as patriarchy. Pussy as property.

Eve reminds you that she herself is a “threat to the family.” Snakes and elephants and bears, oh my!

My body and songs – a beauty no longer forbidden, for this goddess was inscribed in always. The scent of our river is still in my hair; the distance between our lips is still missing.

Oh to usher your sleep! Our rest.

The truth is, it is not my body that attends. However, the taste of apples does indeed make October different than the other ways of tasting October.

The Old Bait and Switch

Hanging rainbows on spider thread for love's sake.

After rain, moss on the oaks becomes more verdant. A daughter hears her mom say that things would go down differently if one was to do it again, and a mom hears her daughter say that she can totally see that. And yet, the course is not this way or that; it simply is. Though maps no longer speak, Magnetic North still gives all the guidance one needs.

Behind closed doors, what would we do first? What would last; who would linger?
Let me kneel in order to bring balance to the universe. Then you.

Skin providing the shelter and the wanting. A warm mouth gaping. The rise and fall of mountains.

Until Genesis, the serpent was a symbol of reincarnation and renewal. Ouroboros signaled the cycles of life, death, and rebirth, which were seated in the heart of the Goddess's power. With the Eden story, a new narrative became the old bait and switch, mutilating and exploiting the Earth Mother's body in the process until this very day.

What has been suppressed since then will rise, my love. I wish I may, I wish I might have you inside me on that night.

The deepest truth is impossible to confess. Yet here I am speaking for the waves of woman. Hear ye, hear ye!

The Eye of Man

What if I tell the truth?

Her nude figure brushing ferns as she turns towards her lover. Rivers always rivers, indeed. Yet we have already risen beyond those rushing waters which in a significant way, does not negate the longing to swim.

The truth is that I long to be consumed; what other energy could withstand my own ravenous fire? Perhaps if two die in ecstasy, the mandate of the One will leave no stone unturned.

A small snake the size of my hand slipped through the grass at my feet. The desire to touch it led me to try. Beck says, “Don't mom. He doesn't want that.” I pull my hand back and think about Medusa's voice. A short distance further up the path, another snake. It disappears into waning goldenrod and chicory.

Her voice whispers from an ancient locus into modern injustice.
Her snakes, undaunted and unafraid.
Her power, preventing the eye of man from defining her.

What does Medusa do when she desires to merge with a man? She sees with her heart, not her eyes. Who loves her must embrace the snakes if they embrace her at all.

Come, witness her unvarnished, unfaltering potential to heal and to take what is hers.

Never Leaving October

rain
acorns and dead-fall
going down
on unheard birds

October's dim cadence drifting eastward from the dunes. Wood smoke, leaves and confluence curling. I pass on the offer for mushrooms because even though all things are on the table, commitment to set and setting matters, which is to say, you.

Born in October and therefore never leaving October. Common colors for some burn as hot as fire for others. Was the cross of Christ made of dogwood, do you think? Cedar? Pine? I do not know as much about hemlocks as I'd like. Regardless of the calendar we are to move past holy, of course.

Sentences as a spiritual practice, which is to say love notes, which is to say, the moon really isn't apart from the sea.

Desire rises into cupped hands and released to the river. Everyday. What else is this life for? Falling backward off the cliff is different than falling forward.

Whoever cannabis is, she took me to the break in eternity when I was allowed to watch you sleep and she reminded me that it is all so much more than a poem.

Come Closer

A small break in the backyard canopy insists on gilding my tired face. October handles it all – the end of summer, winter prep, and a prayerful blessing rising as wood smoke for the pending birth of spring. What if October is not about briefly beautiful deaths but instead, the groundwork for possibility? Well, froglets late to the party might say otherwise. But who's in charge here?

Kale chips, savory cheddar soup, homemade bread. A chipmunk clucks incessantly like a dripping faucet, forcing me to wear headphones to think. There are two options when it comes to all the acorns nestled in the grass: rake them; wait for them to become a seedling and root them out by hand. Leaving them means a season of not being able to walk in the grass without shoes. So....rake them out it is!

My mom and her long lost sister will go with me to the famous flea market next week which is an event normally relished without an audience. There will be a band, so at least there's that.

Are we finally awake to the power ourselves? After midnight a laughing moon weighs in on the matter. “You can see me but not hold me. Am I less real?” To which I respond, “I cannot hear you. Come closer.”

Maybe if we touch the face of the moon we will live forever, beloved. I reach out my arms because that is what they were made to do.

Mother Bear Speaking into Bones

A finding feathers kind of day.

Minnows skip just below the surface.

Tree genuflect towards nakedness and to complete the invisible circuit, so must I.

*

A paradox of relief and sorrow swirls in September breezes.

Stars pulse and beam in a direct route unto expanse.

You – you – you.

*

Acorns, whirling leaves, hydrangea blooms tapping the ground.

The magic of October rises in the colder nights, but the funny thing is that it only feels magical when it is shared.

And I cannot make it real.

*

Turkeys amble in the back yard, ducking through the split-rail fence, sometimes hopping over it.

I wake later and later, a symptom of Mother Bear speaking to my bones again.

Coffee, tea, coffee, repeat.

*

He watches me cry and I cannot hold it back.

Who gets the whole of me; who wants the whole of me.

Sure, the veil thins to the promised land, but there is a leaving.

*

Slipping in and out of sleep pockets.

I say goodbye to my grandmother in a dream as she journeys into death.

To let someone down in this life is a promise that we will all be here one day again to give it another try; to learn another lesson; to put the teacher and students to death.

*

The cabin up north but first, make only one more bowl of soup and offer it to Jesus.

Harvest of Waste

The weather has turned but what else would one expect this far into the season? Still, I wonder what difference the long winter would make if we were spilling tea beneath blankets in bed, reading Dickinson, and occasionally catching each other's glance – the one that melts me into the sheets of surrender.

At the corner of Yorkshire and Williamstown, the maple bursts into flames from the top down. I walk with a sweatshirt and the purpose of making sure my body moves in certain ways. Lately, the pain approaches the threshold of suffering. The old dog and I make noises when standing after sitting a long time. There is no time and therefore, it is not running out, my love. But can I please kiss you soon?

Stillness makes a way.

Suburban pears and apples on the ground. I am angry at the harvest of waste. Yet here I am, holding all the apples.

A heart
bleeding for change.
Use my open arms.

Who comes?
Who runs to me?

He who lends
sounds of the sea
in every song

who turns
my wooden skies
to smoke.

His blue tent
in lavender fields
pitched in Love.

pearls, pigs and prophecy -
what cannot be undone
goes on

A Truer Marriage

black patent heels
bruising tender places
for a lie

The young couple exchanged rings below a giant crucifix suspended at least 40 feet up the north wall of windows draped in black gauze. Wooden ceiling beams crossed at asymmetrical angles, reminding me of the Second Station of the Cross whereby Jesus' cross is carried on his shoulder with great difficulty and pain.

How the ritual has changed. How meaning has evolved.

There are moments when one is perfectly aware of engaging in something that will cause some varying degree discordance. I felt like a trout caught on the line, fighting back and forth to no avail. Eventually one has to go to the fucking wedding, wear all the garb, make all the small talk, and surrender to what is. I am so exhausted by this and all the compromises that make perfect sense, yet lead to the lack of connection and joy.

In those moments of protest, I thought about sitting on the bank barefoot instead, about honoring a truer, more beautiful marriage by brushing my lips against your ear whispering, “lets stay here instead, beloved.” This is the way and yet. And yet.

Tomatoes continue coming on and peppers too. Carrots are still maturing. It is the better way but it is not enough, and I think you know what I mean. Sometimes I mistake the wind in the giant oak trees for the sound of my brook in Vermont. Soon enough the leaves will fall though, and there will be no mistaking where I am.

Pockets of Purple

As we spoke, two owls called out to each other in an almost-dawn. How soft their sighs; how easy their coupling. Sometimes it is the sound of a voice that helps us see in the dark. Certainly blessings abound.

Yesterday's hummingbird finding faith in every sumptuous pocket of purple.

Beck sent me a photo of a praying mantis he came across on campus and said, “I thought you needed to see this.” It made me think of someone else I know who would do something like that, thereby tilting the world a bit closer to the sun.

Turkey feathers, penny-sized crickets and a ghosted cicada shell still clinging to the porch screen. September rises like a heavy autumn moon and all I can think about is how Vermont might look in October. Should I have given in to that feeling of jumping off the cliff into the river that day? I was wrong about nothing really changing. Something has moved. A willingness to be open to what it means to join Love's flow is now the only light I see. Everything is on the table. I am born again and radically wide open. That's something new.

Planting milkweed. The purity of is-ness clings to my fingers as they long to elicit the touch from what is next. Every cell dancing. Every night sky star saying, “yes, me too!” Every lover wishing they had even the faintest whisper of this knowing.

Unexplored Arteries

Studying maps of campus as if my life depended on it. Maybe some things seem manageable if one has certain minimal bearings.

The heat is noteworthy.

Staring out the window I watch a rabbit watching me. Beckett's clothes are piled on the couch waiting to be put in the oversized duffel. His room empties and Lexi's is already bare.

Strawberries still surprise me in the morning.

edible summer
our red life
passing

A late batch of fledgling robins picks through debris beneath the evergreen bush. I haven't taken notes from reading in a long time. This and other ways I do not know what I am doing. Beck crawls into my bed and pulls the blankets up around his neck – his last day here and it hurts. Sometimes we take a path that we do not like and call it “normal” or insist that we are “doing hard things.” In all my infinite lines of questioning, how did I never question that?

Masai beads
around my ankle
unexplored arteries

Yes, I follow the cricket, the grasshopper and the butterfly. I fall in love and write about it and talk about it to the stars before accepting sleep. Good God . . . always tell me the truth.

God in Drag

In the mirror, evidence of crying in my sleep.

You are no longer the object but subject so thusly, no longer available for possession.

Summer thunder rolls around like a cannonball in a cosmic lead funnel. The “will-it-won't-it-rain” debate has been answered on the dry side. For reasons unseen, the sky just cannot let it drop.

I'm waiting and checking on milkweed seed everyday. The walk is mostly flat which is strange after choosing steep ravines and a million steps in anticipation of mountains. This time we chose the river.

Falling into highs vs. freedom. This is now the question, beloved. The reality of having nothing to lose. Can I allow that to be true?

Wanting less and less from anyone.

Mind as servant vs. master. Does fulfilling one's needs make you any happier than not fulfilling one's needs?

We are not who we think we are! God in drag.

Sat-Chit-Ananda

Follow beauty and love and light and wisdom and energy beyond the personal to find out that it is all the same.

What do I know and does it matter?