The Where & The When

Do you know
the stairs that I have been willing to descend
for the sake of love’s fulfillment?
Only to find in the hidden folds of my willingness
that I had actually ascended to heights foreign even
to my imagination,
and I discovered myself in the clouds.
The places the world calls depths
were really mountain tops
and I who thought I was falling was breathless in the climbing;
weighted down with the roles I was playing
that at the top transformed to winged things.
I have kissed unholy places you know, and pierced the forbidden
with the spear of my folly
with a tongue of fire I have licked clean the tears of indecision,
and simply lept.
I have pried open the shunned and the damned
and found they contained the bones of the Holy Grail of love;
entering the profane and exiting through the sacred.
I experienced the weightless wonder
of flight without the shackles of fear.
Do you have any idea the things I have done
or the gowns I have worn?
The roles I have played, the costumes I have donned
to prance across life's stage in time to the beat,
from a drum that I alone was listening to,
all the while peeling back the layers like petals on a rose,
revealing the beauty of each one individually in the scent.
Rejecting nothing, I followed with a child’s abandon .
Fiercely I clung to the fingers of faith, and found
There is no door we enter through in which God is not.
I was not afraid to go where most would fear to venture
Because I know He hides in the mystery at the center of His calling.
He disguises Himself in what the world judges
He dresses up as paupers and kings, hides in the secrets of
angels and dervishes, and always goes to places man misunderstands
like the Pied Piper He sings inviting us to follow in the dance.
He gives to the daring a special touch of grace,
a twinkle in His eye, a smile upon His face, a snap of His great fingers,
a skipping through the race.
Do you have any idea the places I have been?
The journey, or the where and the when?

Collapse of a Spineless Happiness

This is the saddest hour
isn’t it?
Long drawn out minutes marked
by bleeding hands moving on the face
of a round reality...
Ashes are rising from the playground of
yesterday’s laughter; from the
stilled swings that sit in backyard sorrow,
under trees that house no song.

Flames and circles consume seconds of lost trust.
Murdered by the scorching of their lives lies
Where the strings of too much joy and promise
stretched to breaking,
And preoccupied parents like puppeteers let go
allowing the collapse of a spineless happiness
no more real than a puppets smile...
The broken face
The smashed hands
The shattered hours
and their left over ashes
from the life they burned; the
remains of a child’s innocense.

As Effortlessly As Rain

I sit remembering the girl I was;
small, spindly, speck my Father spawned,
and tears fall as effortlessly as rain.
Not from a roof of regret,
but a canopy of trust.

She took the road less traveled to be sure.
Where two paths converged
She always followed the song bird
singing from trees
where beneath few feet had trod.

I sit remembering the girl I was;
a fleeing, seeking cloud of a child,
a tiny tornado of dust blowing wild
forward movement on the breath
of some great angst and destruction.

I sit remembering the girl I was
with the perspective of aging and its
gifts of so called wisdom;
You know there is absolutely nothing
that doesn’t have a flip side,
Nothing.
There is no positive that can’t turn negative
with the errant flip of a coin.
There is no negative,
None
that can’t set the stage for immense good.
In the end we see it is all of our choosing.

My Mother never knew the gem she birthed
because it had not been polished by the years
before she faded....
I remember her and I remember the girl
encrusted in a shell constructed of layers
of generational pain, gestating a pearl.
A holy stone tucked against a rock of faith
beneath a sea of uncertainty......
And tears fall as effortlessly as rain.

Women and Roles

Nature assigned women a very special and unique role, she also infused us with great power, but it is so different from the power of men. It is receptive and transforming rather than forceful and aggressive.
As we evolve it seems the boundaries and borders of the sexes get a little more blurry, and we dabble in each others roles giving us more understanding of that which is "other".
Today's woman is a metamorphosing secret in a soft fist of possibility.

DO YOU EVER

Do you ever really think about how once a spirit has touched us, really touched us, we never really lose the connection. It is as close as our photographic imprint of remembrance.
People cross our path all the time, some touch us, and some we touch. We are never quite the same as before we met along the way, for we leave our imprint on each others soul and impact its growth and enlightenment.
It doesn’t really matter what level the relationship is on or even if its in the physical reality. People of words relate without bodies. Some of you I will not forget and some of you will not forget me, and we may never see one another. But something about you that transcends time and space and age and status connects us in the silence of our words. Some of us hear each others depths, vibrate to each others song, inspire each others poem. It is the depth of peoples touching, not the length or the means. It is resonating we do with another spirit , the simpatico of recognition, the comfort of understanding, or the apparent conflict so full of hidden jewels of meaning that it spews forth love for those worthy of the fight.
Death and parting are not endings, they are changes in the way and form of relationship, but relationship goes on. Love does not die and spirits live on, we never really lose someone we have touched, someone we have loved.....they are as close as our photos of remembrance, their lingering scent in the very air we breathe, their touch, where our skin suddenly feels warm, as if spread ever so gently with warm melted butter left out in the sun..................

Don't You Know

...don’t you know
that this is too much to tell you about;
too deep, too vast,
too all encompassing.
I have no words!
Me who has too many,
have none sufficient...
They hang on the heart beats
between our thoughts.
The very cells of me,
and the flesh and bone of you, held captive
in the fist of nights unclenching.
Sounds seep out around
the tightly woven fingers of concern.
I can’t decipher or decode,
can’t translate or convert to song.
I only hear and comprehend for us both.

Nesting In The Niche

We reach out
we touch the silent leaves
hanging on the trees of one another’s lives.
We smell the flowers of hope, feel
easy satin petals rubbing up against
the warm breast of nurturing....
Our leaves lie still on the emerald tips
of our words where they fall.
They wait for someone to mow them down
and take the fertile leavings;
the compost of our thoughts, nutrients for their need.
A grass sowed full with bursting seed.

We reach out,
We tangle ourselves in one anthers twigs,
swing from the strong straight branches
of years of growth.
We seek shelter and freedom in our touching,
we find quiet and peace
and nest in the niche
of each other’s dreaming.

5/1/08