one of a thousand regrets

is there still time to return

all the things I bought
(for comfort)
in exchange for my absolute
knowledge
that all things are holy?

pollination

an egg burst open a pregnant and contagious happiness, immeasurable, runs the length of my body and cannot be taken away. my harp is a harmonium woven bit of tantrum not afraid. of bees a chrysanthemum night-blooming cereus eats these

for those in peril on the sea

trying to close our mouths to each other our ears. letting the water flow in. is tender the strange and somehow incorruptible heart as it reaches out. we reach for the sides. each man to himself and in another. rocking. how we try to hold onto it.

tattoo for both palms

We were introduced in tulip fall,
in tulips, after all.
We were introduced
at a salmon cannery
in Scotland. Our hands
were numb and we wanted to die.
You wouldn’t stop talking.

thankfulness.

fullness of Love that makes me wonder how I could continue another moment. how my day to day life could survive the explosion. the heat. the gravity. how one could experience divine providence, even for a moment, and ever resume the task of living. pick up a pen or let words pass, any of them. makes you regret the moment it does. presses tears from the eyes. from your gut strings and heart pearls. from the part of you that beats and is still living. to remind you you're living. the string left unbroken. the possibility of arriving still intact.

sentences

We pay for our words. Once uttered, they live forever; a string of vibrations from my mouth, my tongue, my teeth, my lips, which extend infinitely throughout space. For as many of these as I regret (those dark tapestries of misshapen syllables knotted, inextricably, by time and pain), there are those whose delicacy and light originated from the kindest, most sincere node of my black heart. And as those silvery words (of love) circle and snake their way across the globe, I hope they find you again, and again, and yet again - even if I don't.

how to disappear completely

What the heat has to teach my body - its broken water mains and stagnant pools - with enough heat you could dry up either of these. With fire.

Thanks to a recent lack of air conditioning, I've begun to come to terms with my sweat. I would rhapsodize about why sweat is beautiful; how it's one out of thousands of ways the oceans we contain manifests itself, how we sweat in the midst of pain, of joyfulness, of lust,

but I'm mostly interested in its application to problems. When we say we have to "work out" a problem, we usually mean we're going to think it through. Perhaps some solutions literally require working out - work that is evident only as it appears in beads on the upper lip or forehead.

With this thought in mind, I enjoin myself and others to begin again the hardest work. (I don't have to tell you what it is because you know.)

A humble offering of our water and salt to the fire of recognition, maybe the god of us water-creatures will notice and take pity.

yes

The story of Andy and I is a fun one to tell. In it's retelling, I'm reminded how my life has been riddled with signs. And how, in some ways, I've never been left without internal guidance. It would also serve as the perfect segue between my relationship with David, and what followed. But I'm not going to tell it. Not right now anyway.

Right now I'm interested in one of two or three incidents. This first, roughly five years ago, happened in my studio apartment in Decatur. This time, I was crying because I felt I'd done nothing to deserve all the goodness in my life. I felt blessed but unworthy. Do I deserve it? He didn't say anything but wrote one word on a piece of paper, ripped it out of his journal, and gave it to me. I take that word with me wherever I go. It's become a mantra whose repetition I hope resonates throughout my life. Yes was the word he gave to me because I couldn't give it to myself. Yes - a mighty word. A Godly word. A word of absolute affirmation and acceptance. A word closer to love than love itself.

on a bus in Chile

Pet Your Confusion

You set bowls of milk out as offering.
It eats, then curls up in your chest.

Every moment I spent in Chile was stolen. Stolen from a life I was trying to hold onto at home. A non-life, really, as the only thing that was missing from it was my self. David, my boyfriend at the time, basically forbade me from going. His jealousy, fully manifesting itself in our relationship at that point, punctured any happiness I had once felt and kept him in a state of suspicion. He had abandoned himself to his suspicion, actually. Our evening phone calls (they were really interrogations) while I was in Chile left me crumpled, wet, and ruined.

Ruined, but free. There's something liberating about being in a different hemisphere from the source of your pain and self-loathing. Especially when you've been swept from the throws of Winter into beautiful, Chilean Spring. Those ten short days abroad were some of the best of my life. I was mopey and alone. I separated myself from the group every chance I got. I picked flowers and prompted a spontaneous daisy picnic. I was so alienated that any openness or happiness I experienced, was an unexpected gift. Was an experience of Grace. Chile was indescribably beautiful and our cello choir concerts, intense.

There was the concert in the rose garden in Santiago, with white banners streaming. The concert in the ruins of Mora(?) Island, where I had those amazing cherry pastries (there were cherry orchards on the island), saw the school-house and its flowers, and got rained on. The stray mutt I left on the banks whose fate was mine, the black volcanic sand of the beach, and our 18 cellos bobbing up and down in dingy boats across the water - some bizarre procession. Eighteen casualties - our instruments in their black caskets.

There was also the concert in the Catholic church in Valdivia, which was magical. We made sacred music there. Music that was careful not to break the silence too completely. And then there was the unforgettable bus ride along the shores of Valparaiso. Window open, knees wedged between my seat and the one in front of me, hair flying, blue skies, water that stretched from rock to horizon.

Moments like those make you beg whatever higher power exists to kill you, right then and there, because it doesn't get better.

I've experienced other moments of joy like that, and gratitude, when my heart asked to lift itself clear of my chest and join itself with whatever lies beyond.

love as a

Love exists. Love is waiting only for you to open. Love is urgent as it watches you grow older. Love asks only to be received. Love is transformative. Love opens flowers in the darkness of morning. Love is fire. Love speaks not and thinks not. Love knows. Love I beg not to leave me alone. Love you don't have to deserve but should want to. Love gives everything and takes everything. Love ignites love. Love you have to be blind to see and blind not to see. Love you pray at night to wake up with. Love never grows because it simply is and always was. Love, inseparable from creation. Love as a fetus, a seed. Delicate love. Secret love. Love from behind a veil.