purple is the shape
of letting go
and blue is the beginning
of sacrifice
all the scars and torn edges
faded blooms and broken stems
form the canvas of whole
and the soft brush of plenty
as gold fills every sky
with perseverance
.
.
.
and it’s the magic of twilight that draws me outside, down the hill to a swamp filled with peepers. some nights the sound roars through the darkness, and on those nights, it’s not that i can’t sleep, it’s just that i don’t want to. my primal memory wants to lie outside and count the starts into numbers too large to carry. my feet refuse to forget the sensation of walking. nothing is clear in the darkness, but everything shines, and until you’ve let the moon find your shadow, you’ve never once stood in real light. there are secrets out here, everywhere. the trees are always whispering. i want to walk into the forest and do nothing but listen. that’s where all the answers are, but we’ve forgotten how to hear them. lightning reminds us, but only for a moment. and thunder makes us forget yet again. i want to wash my hair in the rain and leaves my toes caked with mud. i want to run through the color of midnight.
.
.
.
days when i do nothing
but listen
moving my body in the rhythm
of nurture
i care for you and
together we grow
remembering the mirror
i’ve forgotten
wisdom matters less
than sun on skin
i break a bloom off
with one brown shoulder
a mistake to remind me
of gentle
and whisper my apology
to wind
.
.
.
i stood in the sun for three days once
singular and proud of my peacock pretty ordinance
and refused to marry the sky
growth was always my pattern
and bending
my habit
coy and shy
cut and displayed
thirsty and forgotten
i was always
about color
and you
stole my green
stripped my purple
and stomped my chartreuse back
into black and white
grey-lipped
soil
until i became
an abstract painting of perhaps
washed proud and stood clean
in the summer
of the river
of change
.
.
.
.
.
.
because shedding your skin
is just as necessary
as gathering hips
for the tea
you sip
from the cup
of yesterday’s
parody
.
.
.
and let the rain wash down
to the valley of drown
in an avalanche of
forgiveness
.
.
.
.
of course she had no regrets
she’d wear that red dress again
if she could find it
rubbing ankles in the dark
and smiling smugly at the waiter
with his tray of sweets for the sweet
thinking he knew
the definition
of divine
and the whispers she couldn’t quite catch
shuffling by from two tables over
grief and apology
perhaps
or something smaller
.
.
.
.
somewhere in a garden in spain
your long lost great-great-grandmother
buried a key on a gold-plated chain
no one knows this but you
and the ghost she still sends
to tease your serpentine dreams
with the scent of yesterday’s roses
one day
as you walk to your car in a hurry somewhere
you’ll notice the nod of a purple veiled flower
and catch a barely-there whisper
spoken
in a language you can’t understand
and that’s when you’ll begin
to listen
.
.
.
.
i remember the day you died or
to be more accurate, chose to leave,
or to be more accurate still, i remember
when i found out what you’d done
i wasn’t there
but i’ve never stopped seeing
the violence of your last moment
and the lifetime left
wondering
what more we could have done
the first time i understood
that life is precious
was also the first time
i understood
the hole that grows with living
one shovelful each day
until we’ve formed the mountain
we must climb
to jump back in
and i wonder if
on the way down
we think of
flying
.
.
.
.
