“Instructions
for living a life.
Pay Attention. Be Astonished.
tell about it.”
— Mary Oliver
Year of the Serpent
beginning again
I shed old skin
writhe, stretch
breathe deeply in
inch by inch, slither out
turn round, and eye
my abandoned papery haven
now hideous
empty, irrelevant
breathe in
my pupils expand
colors brighter—world now luminous—
and I flex fresh muscles, stronger than before
breathe deeply in
unwind my sinewy frame and
fixate on new terrain ahead:
an animal urge pulling me
so I breathe deeply in
though I am still myself
and I will shed my skin again
D(RIFT)
I will never fully grasp
myself in relation to you —
that I am of your flesh
but our eyes see a different world,
that I have heard your thoughts
but our minds know no common reason.
That I know your love so intimately,
but our hearts embrace distinctly.
I’ve tried to reconcile these inconsistencies:
To show you my world,
explain my thinking,
and expand the boundaries of compassion.
How else to truly connect but to share some truth?
Yet time has taught me
how firmly your roots are planted,
and that there are pieces of you
I would rather leave behind.
This losing each other is tragic,
but there is also beauty
in our separate souls, our unique foundations.
I find myself now in this new place,
the soil sweet and fresh,
and I am growing toward my own whole.
Shoreline
The Shoreline knows too well
that all of life is a series of hellos and goodbyes.
Every day the same cycle: currents ebb and flow,
a wave emerges with its beautiful power and
covers the Shoreline, washes her from end to end
before slipping, clandestine,
back into the deep.
The Shoreline embraces the temporary,
opens herself to each new wave
and its teachings, like
To love, even briefly, is to live
To love something is to set it free
Patience and resilience is a way of life
when you’re the lover of waves.
Roadside
He spits seeds in the tin
working through the brown bag.
One cherry, two, one dozen.
The red juice speckles his t-shirt,
his cuticles highlighted crimson.
The farmstand was a welcome reprieve
from long days on the road.
He glances at her, smiles,
tosses a cherry at her head.
She dodges with a yelp
then adjusts to catch the next in her mouth.
Looking around, it’s miles and miles of empty space
as far as the eye can see.
What brought them here, so far from home?
That first intention is a faint memory now.
She takes a sip of her Diet Coke and
pulls her baseball cap down snug.
A car whizzes by trailing exhaust and
a cigarette out the passenger window.
She lays back, her duffel cushioning her head.
Above her, up and all around
it’s only blue.
Former : Formed
I believed, back in my naivety,
that I could create a self.
Examine my foundation
and select, piece by piece
which bits to keep, which to let go.
But time proves
that we don’t so much build our personhood
as inherit it.
More osmosis than choice,
our identities sink into us.
Or they are sea glass, carved
by the waves of
our experience.
I remember the girl I thought I was and
the adult I hoped to be. But circumstance
delivered a different woman.
I grieve who could have been, but
will learn to love the shape I’ve taken.
An education
I am loving the process of learning you:
you are the wisest poem,
the most adventurous story,
a painting so joyful it smiles...
the funniest joke,
the most engrossing novel,
a song that can teach even the heart to love...
Questions about fire
What is fire to you and
what is its purpose?
What is your flame and
where does it start and end?
Does it dance in the wind or
quietly simmer,
lighting up the corners of our rooms?
Can you stare into it and
see through its blue to glimpse yourself?
Are you afraid, or will you capture it,
hold it in your hand?
And is harnessing it about power?
Or about comfort, community, understanding?
After all, isn’t fire what lights up our skies?
And aren’t we stardust, after all, in the end?
Elemental
who will we meet when we’re gone?
what truth will usher us home?
what is home: Memory? Love? Darkness?
why were we endowed with souls to suffer
and feel so much more deeply
than is needed to survive
if, at the end, we are just earth and water?
maybe there is beauty in reduction.
a wondering that paints all other things.