*
*
Full teacup
Wet teaspoon
One blue plate
One thin moon
*
Full teacup
One long night
Two bare feet
One bare light
*
Full teacup
Weathered floor
Three green chairs
One shut door
*
Full teacup
Empty room
One white pill
One thin moon
Waltz
Sonnet II: Generosity
*
*
The Saint marks time
in circles and reverses.
For us, she knows, worse is
the illusion of a single line.
*
We hear her dictum: all is one.
We meditate in reverent quiet,
eliminate meat from our diet.
And pray for the ego to be undone.
*
Like birds, we flutter at her feet,
pecking at seeds of wisdom and advice,
our vision of freedom growing faint.
*
Like birds, we forget and repeat
our hungry pleas. She complies
with the patience of a Saint.
A-B-Sea
*
*
Always and never changing
Beach shapes itself under
Curling waves.
Dunes rearranging for
Each sunrise offer a benediction.
Feathers tumble along the tideline.
Gusting wind sprays rainbows.
Halos circle each step, soft sand sifting
In between toes.
Jellyfish collapsed in a glassine heap,
Killdeer skitter, gulls sleep.
Leaping dolphins breach and blow offshore.
Moon-ruled tides,
Neap, high, and ebb cradle
Oceanides, nymphs of the sea, while
Psamathe, goddess of sand beaches, strews shells of
Quahog, ark, scallop, whelk.
Rolling in from foreign shores
Sucking and spitting, the sea
Tastes the sand,
Undulates
Vast as thought.
Wandering jet streams map the sky, making
X’s of cirrus.
Yearning for union, the sea mirrors the
Zodiac above.
Turkeys
*
*
At the end of my street
is a small stretch of woods,
bare now, layered in snow and sleet.
I crunch the crust of icy ground,
startled by a sudden whoosh of sound.
*
A wild turkey explodes high
between the trees with frantic wings
escaping my presence to safer ground
where the flock scratches, stalks and pecks.
*
Winter sun pale and thin
outlines every trunk and limb.
The turkeys move on, unconcerned.
I stand transfixed in the winter wind.
Star Soul
*
*
At God’s behest
I gave up being a star
to come to this sorry planet
and be a beacon of love
among the billions
who’ve lost their way.
*
But then I forgot my mission
believing I was a fleshly body
believing I had agency apart from Source.
I pursued comfort and riches.
I was unhappy and afraid.
*
Now I am old
and in this wrinkled skin
relearning what I forgot, that
the Truth of my being is holy.
I am light. My purpose is to love,
to shine.
Carillon
*
*
As God plays bells along my spine
Each hollow column joins the choir
The sacrals sing of roots and fire
Lumbars chant birth and desire
Thoracic bones play joyous light
Heart hums warm through ribs of night
Cervicals voice the spacious blue
skull bowl chimes its violet hue
A hymn to grace lays tone on tone
My life’s song in bells of bone
Poem for January
*
*
Wild winter night
the old house creaks and rattles
Outside in the leaking dark
an old woman smiles
*
Wrapped in shabby shawls
carrying a shuddering candle
she seeks a path around the grief
that stabs her groaning heart
*
Keening low and lissome
shadows sigh and sway
a song of the lost and lonely
a song to singular pray
*
She swallows the candle
She swallows the night
She swallows til nothing
is left but the flame.
Solstice Song
*
*
Old lady nails a yellow 5 on the door post
Raises her reedy voice to the widening sky
Moonlight, starlight
the solstice is coming
Ice light, snow light
winter stars humming
*
Redtail, blue jay,
woodpecker, finch
Sing a song of four birds
a pocket full of leaves
Round the house
Round the house
a pocketful of grief
*
Old year, new year
heavenly wings
Angels, ancestors
what will they bring?
Wind
*
*
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
From Remember by Joy Harjo
She came in the door today, carrying a bundle of leaves.
You sit there, she said, like a rotting avocado, picking
out your black spots with a spoon.
She flicked her fingers through my hair, kicking
up puffs of cat fur, humming a windy tune.
*
She ruffled the pages of the book of mandalas.
Ha! She puffed, The universe began on a breath.
Only love is real, nothing else, not even death.
You sit there wringing your sweaty palms,
examining the dirt in your closet.
*
She threw the leaves, dry and crisp, on the floor.
She blew a scatter across the planks.
Pick up your broom and sweep! Leap
into the present, foolish woman! Your heritage
is splendid, daughter of Isis. Fly!
Another Chance
*
*
If half the spinning galaxies of the universe have sun stars with planets
and
if only half of those planets host intelligent life
and
if half of those populations resemble humans on Earth
and
if half of those peoples take their lands and seas and skies into ruin,
the Great Mother of Creation must have known this would happen.
*
Will this omniscient Creator gather up all the sorry star-souls remaining
on planet Earth
and
lovingly place them somewhere new in the vast universe?
Will the Great Mother of Creation give them a fresh, clean planet,
green and blue and flourishing, saying,
“See if you can do better this time”?
Tangled Magic 