Polishing the pearl

I consider the layers and layers of shielding, blanketed,

wrapped protectively around the point source of pain.

What once was sharp has been covered over - it is now smooth and blunt.

Beautiful as it may be, it is not alive,

and these blankets are taking up space.

I begin with the outermost layer,

polishing my way toward the center.

It will take as long as it takes

to thank each for its service,

contemplate its beauty in response to pain,

to say to each one,

I care about this suffering,

and ask permission to see what lies beneath.

How The Egg Heals

I've been reading about how trauma

cracks the egg of our heart.

We rush to seal it off: to prevent breaking, 

leakage, but also, 

hatching.

My love

My love flies on silent owl wings,

anticipating a return to her nest,

Long through the dark night she has waited

patiently keeping the secret 

of where she's hidden herself and her child.

Her voice clear at last where was once only cloud

She questions the howling winds:

Whose voice is that?

Whose?

Whose?

Not mine. Voices of trapped ghosts. 

Winds are stilled. The seal is lifted. 

She descends through the fog, silent wings spurring the mist into ribbons -

banners that fly in the name of 'Alive'.

Her daughter will only hatch on her feet.

Reunited, 

they are the same warmth in the night,

becoming each other; 

Phoenix-like 

incubated in darkness

reborn in clear moonlight.

Love, and 

I am,

and I love.

I am love.

My love has been waiting for me.

Secret Message

 Have you ever played that game?

    he asked, while writing on my back.

    We were curled in bed together.

You trace letters on somebody's skin

And they try to guess your message.

    I giggled, Yeah, it's hard! Like a secret, even when you know it's there.

    He began again, enunciating with his fingers, pressing each letter of my name.

    Before, it could have been: connecting my freckles, ABCs, etc,

        but with my name, I felt the intention.

    Somewhere overhead in the night,

    the unseen stars swirl around the Earth

    observing paths familiar to them

    riding and writing the dome of the sky

    still being discovered by us with delight

How do I tell you the secrets

    that I won't say out loud to myself?

My heart melts quietly in your arms, in hopes you will not notice.

My eyes reflect the silent stars; I dare look up

    while you plant what could be a constellation

    of gentle kisses on my forehead, here.

    and here, and here, and here

and here

        and here

    thoroughly, methodically, sweet.

What are we telling ourselves?

What are we willing to hear?

Close your eyes.

Let me bring your soft face to my lips

    under the winking stars.

Tell me when you get the message I keep from myself.

Let me write it again and again,

    spelling it out on your skin 

    until you feel it, too.

And then I'll know it's true.

    

    

Final days of the Water Tiger

 Tiger, Tiger, sopping wet

Cold & dark as you can get

Year is over, let it go

Through the water, like a stone

Airplane Mode

If I were free, what would I write?

Fly away!, he said, Free as a bird!

I flapped my arms to carry the joke.

I was about to board a plane.

But the joke isn't funny unless we know I'll be back.

I've a foot fix'd in Oakland.

My heart beats a little harder, wondering:

Did I get the joke?

Is the resolution of ambiguity centered on the certainty

that even by driving me to the airport

to sit in a box that is thrown by air and fire

to a far away land of ports

that he is not sending me away?

Or, even so, is he sending me like one might

send the far end of a rubber band elsewhere,

temporarily, before the band returns to itself?

How much of it was a joke?

I hear the memory of his voice whispering in my mind

the same way he said,

quiet as an exhale, the first time I left,

to me,

to himself,

to no one in particular:

"I just want to see you again."

And I locked it in my heart like a promise:

I'll be back. 

He needs me to be free, so that coming back means anything.

Prepare for takeoff - 

Before setting my phone to airplane mode, I text:

Miss you already

His reply sneaks in, just as I disconnect:

I will see you again!

His last message, trusting me to keep him an honest man.

A ship by any other name

Once upon a time, there was a ship 

without a name, that left its port

encircled Earth, returned again,

from ocean to mouth of that river. 

Replaced, repaired, where wood had been

splintered, lost, remade the shape - 

called Theseus' Ship, its owner's name

and since, we've asked if it's the same

as one that sailed so long ago

from that port at the mouth of that river. 

 But what of questions yet unasked?

While we wonder after a ship

with each and every beam replaced,

Yet what of Theseus?

Was he not changed?

Does his name still mean the owner?

Does ownership slip if you've gone and grown different?

If taken apart, observed, polished, discarded

replaced, or rewarded,

the parts of yourself that you had,

and you have, is it still you who has them?

Let anyone saying different

establish that they are the same

person from start to end

of a single sent

ence 

And what of the name? 

I'm thinking perhaps it's not the riddle, but askers

who've lost sight of the ship

whether same or different -

- consider we never remember the name of the ship,

but only its owner's 

Perhaps the thing that does not change

is that the ship knows its own name

I don't claim that the name stays unchanged,

but just that it's not we who know it. 

(

And this poem: not these words, but this poem

has endured visions, revisions, moments, reverses

It's been a long trip 'round the sun

since you asked for a poem for your birthday

Am I the same person who'd already been writing?

Is this the same Earth that we stood on last year?

Uncountable water hurtles

out from the mouth of the shape of the river.

A ship returns

Reaching embrace of the ocean.

This poem is for you.

This poem is for you.

This poem is for you. 

)

Tunnel Vision

Hey there you

In the hole

At the long spotlight end

Of the tunnel vision

You're feeling abandoned, aren't you?

You are frozen

Feet, knees, legs

Locked to the ground

Can't even feel the frostbite of

empty air

0 Kelvin

You are trapped in the moment

between when you realized the fall -

wind knocked out of your heart,

arms outstretched - 

 the moment between that, and

the in-breath you never took,

lips parted with the words you kept inside

Swallowed

Was it that? Which knocked your heart into your gut?

The words that you saw would not be heard,

and so you made sure of it?

I can almost see a snowflake drifting

past your face

Surprised by the sudden cold

You are alone and frozen

not in that time or place

But in that feeling

Choosing to stay silent and frozen

and to keep your hope

like a grip on a last coin you'll never spend 

 know you can't move.

But what if I told you: I'm you?

And right now, you are not in a hole.

We are in a warm couch in a house in the future

Where kitchens have music

There's a broad table where the sun shines in

And people who care

You live here and you're happy

Even if you're still in the hole,

you live here now.

You made it.

We all make it.

In a desert far away at night

There is a dark and empty pit

in the desert sand

with whom I spoke

for an evening when

it held my voice.

It understands

loss.

Once upon a time, it held an ocean.

That dark and starless night,

I knelt beside the block-wide empty pit -

slated for construction - trapped between traffic.

Like a hollow ear still turned to open sky

it received, like a broken offering,

a shared, full-shouldered sob,   

the salty heave of a distant wave, 

and could not see the tiny oceans in my eyes; 

Nor could I hear its oceans past.

There was time, and room, there in the night, in the desert, in the empty pit that no more held an ocean,

with even the sand dug out of it;

there was room in that container

to hold the kind of howl 

that unwraps itself around someone bereft.

Verses

I think perhaps there is a time when we've grown enough of an inner world

To trade the physics of the universe

For 

Inner

and Outer

Multitudes

Where is the big bang of introspection?

Does humanity fade in and out?

When does the song we all sing in different voices begin and end?

These are questions for another realm of physics.

The night sky from far away

adapted from a found post-it note



In the darkest hours of nearly morning
at the end of a yearlong day
they said good night
from different oceans
closing the yearlong conversation
that had started under the same sky
a yearlong evening before

& hung up their phones
inevitably dreading wondering
what the dawn would bring
& what kind of day would come next.

The Earth had gone 'round the sun and nearly back again.
But first,
it is dark.

The prison and the door

We are all trapped
inside our own mirrors

Alphabet letters for adults

Did you know there is one letter that
no matter what
how many times you recite the alphabet
no one else can teach you
until you learn it yourself?


All my life, I remember hearing "don't slouch"
"don't slouch"
So what else could I do?

Without any of us knowing, I'd studied the grown-ups
and the invisible burdens that sank their shoulders
and rounded their backs with the weight.

I tucked my own shoulders in my chest
tried not to stand out
so they wouldn't notice
and slink onto my shoulders, too

But now, for inspiration standing straight and tall

I contemplate the letter I between my shoulderblades:

I
I can
I will
I want
I hope
I did
I am

And not the letter Y
which is the only letter
others can give you, leaning over
so you must to crouch to fit:

You
You think
You should
You won't
You don't
You aren't

It is not easy to practice one
after becoming so familiar with the other;

to relearn my grown-up alphabet
in a taller body.

But what could they do?
The letter that we all need
is the one we must grow on our own.

The Body

For those who do not constrain
language
to only spoken or recorded words,

the body

in every moment

is a prayer
a poem
a wish

a collection of all the stories over

years
decades
generations

of material experience

wrapped around a heart
that is every now
and has a name
and beats
and hopes to beat
and is
and hopes to be
at least
once
more.

What is my petition?
I am the prayer and the message and the messenger.
And I should listen.

A Chemistry of Emotions: Sadness

Sadness is something soluble

It has a heaviness, a pull, a force, a weight,
a gravity towards that which will dissolve it;

a deep and hollow longing
for home in a greater container, a larger flask, an ocean;
embraced into solution
in the vast and empty bosom of a solvent.

Never to erase it, no.
But, as though the hot and blinding sorrow of a single sun
could, within the dark forgiving rim of sky,
relax into a million tiny stars.

And, what started as a room empty without you
dissolves into
a room
with only
me.

Constellations

(discovered Jun 16, 2018 in a notebook ... probably originally from ~ Sept 2012)



Sometimes I'm Abraham,
sometimes the Calm Potato.
Sometimes, I'm the wailing woman,
sometimes, the stars that set.

day 2

As if a constant scream was not the only way to remember who you are.

--

a tender compassion

tears somewhat exhausted
the past is never coming back for us

a tender compassion
arms reaching up

sand gone
hair washed
all else is "normal" again

when we wake up tomorrow,
what is the difference between our time together
and a vivid dream that fades within the hour?

what was it that we felt so strongly
that we almost peeled ourselves in 2?

Resistance subsiding
memories fading
inevitably

all eroding into now
with what's left of our identity
myself and I
no longer on opposite sides
we finally grieve together

In custody of reality: Day 0

I didn't want to wake up in this grayness
And yet time still marches on
Waking up in a familiar place was surprisingly easy
Getting up, surprisingly hard

I drag my body
like a screaming baby
through our usual day

crying NO to showers
washing feet
washing hair
getting dressed

Patiently, I will myself through time and space

NO NO NO NO
I carry myself under my arm through this friction of protest

NO because it's not the right shower
NO because the sand on the feet is the last of what's left of the beach
NO because we won't wash your hands out of our hair
NO because if we get rid of that top, you can never like it again.

And yet these rooms are the same as before
old habits churn along familiarly
eerily comforting

NO to accepting the now as the future
NO NO to the dying of last night
NO NO NO NO to the custody of present reality

I stumble blindly through time with a crying child
following only the well-worn patterns of habit.
compassionately leading myself along
until the new real world inevitably embraces us.
until bereft shrieking fades into sobs.

We all know how the future will go
The reality of now will move in to occupy, displace, reanimate as its own

With time,
the sand of the beach will fall through my mind
washing my brain
like an hourglass
until clear of the past

mindwash
sandwash
brainwash

It's just a matter of time

Time is more patient than a howling child.
The latter eventually exhausts.

Now? The passing of time itself
like an hourglass
made of sandpaper
under my skin
a horrible cleansing

I am exhausted.

The screaming child inside
resists bitterly
retaliating against
perceived complacency
clinging desperately to identity through fading memory

retaliating at every moment the outside world moves along invitingly as if to say that nothing's any different. That nothing's wrong.

As if everything was fine and is and will be fine.
as if there were no need for a child to cry so bitterly
no need for a child to cry
no need for a child
no need to cry
no need

as if you were still there

Ferryman

Charon the boatman has a very defined task.

Newly lost souls
One side of one river to another.
Deposit.
I recall him depicted as callous, cold, darkly-clad bones, perhaps emaciated. Indifferent and uncaring.
All those things we, still round and warm and breathing, might associate with the shore of the stony waters at the end of life.

After all, by that point, anything that can be carried must be left behind.

This business of living though
makes me wonder.

Because I've also sent so many on.
Not to death, I hope, of course.
But, to their other lives. The person they'll be tomorrow. The place they'll be next year.
The soul the universe is helping them become.

And I did it, never in callousness,
sometimes in confusion or conflict
sometimes with fear
sometimes in ignorance
often in sorrow,
even when with gratitude,
always with love
always with love

And many have also sent me on before.
Guided me patiently over my own rivers, to my other side,
where they set me down
and I go on
alone
but hopefully not without memories

I've crossed many rivers,
oceans even
at the patient hands of those who
whether in ignorance or wisdom
waited, led, or advised
until I climbed out onto my own path
extending from the other side
and began my journey
away from them
toward another river.

It makes me wonder:

If perhaps this business of living
might be a sort of many-transfer shuttle.

We humans live many lives in one lifetime.

It makes me wonder if this might be life:

A series of drawing near enough to see others closely enough
To love them enough
to

guard them when they can barely stand,
witness them through their valleys,
wait with them across their rivers
send them on when they reach their shores,

To love a pilgrim soul
is to journey with it
and then send it on to become itself.

It's an uncomfortable love
that stays with me like a companion,
consoles me,
as they go.

Instead of coins
I hope they keep my memory behind their eyes
I hope they don't forget the me that was.
As I turn and step uncertainly
into my next boat

looking up and being recognized
by a loving
sorrowful
peerless
Charon

After Easter

I suppose the trick to things that come back to life
is perhaps they
haven't died

Just,
it was cold.
And so they hid themselves.

We all do what we can
and when.

This .... Dream

I think there are dreams we can wake ourselves up from.


When you learn lucid dreaming, the first step is to observe.
Observe because your dreams give away patterns, cues.
You try to notice when a pattern is happening, and this is your trigger
Your trigger to ask yourself: is it real?

I always fail this question.
I convince myself that it is, even when it isn't.
I still can't lucid dream.

But I noticed that being awake,  the same things happen.
There are patterns, cues; I find myself making the same assumptions about people, about myself
When I know my patterns, I can ask: is it real?

Maybe it's also a dream. The kind you can wake up from or choose to steer differently.
I suppose much of life is a layering of these dreams that recur until we can observe them.
Even if you don't know how to wake up, the next question can be: is this the dream I want to have?