none of us are free
we all come at great cost
to ourselves
to others
to this bold green earth
to those we love
and those we hate
to those
we cannot know
own yourself
pay the price of reflection
add loose change
to the plate of collection
pick up your actions
hold them high
look deeper
examine
have the good guts
to stare yourself
in the eye
have the true grace
to accept
all consequences
own yourself
none of us
are free
the sun is shining just now, but it’s so cold.
the snow is glittering with that false, enticing promise.
beautiful to look at, brutal to hold.
and now i’m thinking of you again.
it’s a vicious circle-cycle.
life and loss and the truth of living.
survival of the fittest.
survival.
of.
we all have our own sky.
the second poplar tree in the front yard is dying.
it lost its mate a few years back, and being the romantic that i am, when it started dying from the top down, i decided it must have a broken heart. ha. then again, perhaps i’m right.
i have to figure out what to do about it this year, how to afford to cut it down, if i can bear to cut it down, the hole it will leave in my view (and my heart) when it is gone. how much i will miss the sound of poplar leaves rustling through the darkest hours of long summer nights.
it will mark another ending, in this winter filled with endings i have not yet learned to process. all part of the same era, the same time-vine of hope. i planted those two poplars when i first started my garden. i planted my garden when i first started my marriage.
and now i am surrounded by empty spaces, dying graces, loaded places.
there is so much to say and nothing to be told.
so much to grieve and nothing real to bury.
so much to carry and nothing left to hold.
my truth is a dark burden, and in the silent hours of night, i sit by my window and watch those bare dead branches pierce the sky.
the gap its absence will leave on my horizon is too difficult to consider just now.
i’ll deal with it this summer.
. . .
there’s another tree in my front yard, a young river birch with its own painful story.
last summer, i actually thought about killing it. of course, i didn’t. i couldn’t. i wouldn’t.
after that, i thought about moving it, to somewhere out of sight from that same window.
i didn’t do that, either.
i decided, in the end, to watch it grow. it has three trunks. i have three children, three grandbabies. we all have roots here.
it doesn’t even begin to fill the sky yet, or close the hole in my horizon, but i’ve re-framed its significance in the window of my existence.
one day, it will offer shade to this tiny house still filled with love. in the fall, i’ll watch yellow leaves drop down through the night and think how often we all begin again. each morning, each month, each year.
the seasons have always marked my cadence.
i’m looking forward to the spring.
don’t let yourself be swallowed
by tomorrow’s grief
let the tongue of life
cradle you
now
here
in the silence
of present
this rocking boat
of emptiness
hollowed out home
of hope
will be your vessel
i got so stuck looking for the map
i forgot to wander
these hills and valleys of deliverance
knocking down signposts
and standing there
smirking
at my own confusion
in the same way you led me here
as if it mattered
as if i mattered
and the trees just keep breathing
their dark ragged breaths
as if dying and winter
are the same
: :
i built a red cairn
in a bowl of misfortune
balanced everything
just long enough
to understand
falling is a journey
of its own
and landing
is not
destination
keeps playing through my head and
i walk my way through
this melody of motion
stay busy stay busy stay busy
stop, drop, and roll
lay on the floor crucifix-style
stare at the sky/ceiling/sky
a bit longer
strangely, the race feels over. life has slowed to its essence:
breathe and begin, breathe and begin.
the floor, the ground, the hollowed out place where a heart used to be,
these are my constant companions, and i adore them for their loyalty.
(just as i adore the beautiful souls who stand beside me through my trial)
circles circling and life living and hearts bleeding/breaking/beating
just as they always have.
last night, in a dream, i heard rapping on my window.
hard, insistent,
and i thought it was you.
or the moon.
it doesn’t matter which, really.
the sky was filled with clouds
and lost coyote screams
and i felt no fear,
nor did i part
the thin white curtain.
for you have no face and i, no mystery.
just this silence
filling cracks
with bits of blue.
integrity is honesty in words and actions
damn the game-playing,
word-changing,
hide-and-seek
gladiators
: :
i’ll take the bird singing joy
surprised by each sunrise
the child’s new word
wrapped in giggle and smile
i’ll take the plate washed with love
to complete a good meal
and the call in the night
to remember what’s real
i’ll be quiet and staid
in a world filled with pretense
wrinkled and worn
in the fountain of youth
i’ll walk steps on the path
my own feet have created
humble-quiet and found
through dark forests of pain
: :
i will listen with love
and be your best mirror
shining back your lost song
from a field
sown with grace
is the seed
you never saw
dropped by bird or breeze or
gnarled fingers
holding silent
in
the cold of dark
the dark of cold
the carapace
of old
tend the bloom
discard
decay
worship petal
over promise
the grey kitchen
sings in whispers
to the rainbow
of brevity
each flower is merely
the camouflage of purpose:
grow
continue
circle-cycle
rest in soil
the light was always
your beginning
…
of cold
spinning deep down orders
to watch and warble and
listen
the way you stand there, alone, in a memory
of sanctitude
as if
as if
as is
forgiveness is the penny with no shine
worth next to nothing ’til you save it up
build a bright copper mountain
watch sleet coat the north
with patina
so much patience, required
this bold gift of living
inhale
over there, the beast just keeps rising
sun-gold and heat brittle branches
painting red a beginner’s horizon
luck is the path,
compass forbidden
embark, unmoored
stand frozen,
arrested
these clouds all smell
of winter
exhale
…
and i carried silence
limbs crashed as everyone watched
gladiator gold and cold blue judgment
but it tell you, i buried the seeds.
tending was a way of life
and you left me to it
watering
feeding
trimming fat
from bone
it’s not the burnished quiet
that destroys me
it’s the wind echo
petrified singing
cracking hope clear through
those
ring-counted hard-growth years
the sunset stays the same
holding space for another
tomorrow.
all i want is the gift
of a bare sapling
backlit
horizon
…
