seat in the tea house this, second day of autumn so cozy, so nice wind through autumn leaves white cat drinking at the pond new chapter unfolds breeze like white paper blows open doors to tea house the wicker chair creaks
Uncategorized
Heart Flutter
Sixteen birds perched on bird feeder That is swinging in the wind Fluttering wildly to fight for food; To stay on the feeder This is what the inside of my heart feels like today Like sixteen birds on a bird feeder Bouncing, thudding, and flapping And bumping into one another So hungry
meaningless rituals
The birds at dawn Signal the start So I put on my Sacred terrycloth robe Do a single spin Light the white candle Boil the water Pour it over the coffee Clap three times Sniff my morning sniffle Shuffle old, tired slippers To the toaster Watch as the bagel Makes its transubstantiation From bread to toast I remember ringing the bells in the church And marveling at my power as a ten year old altar girl I made tiny little crackers into Jesus Christ himself Here, now, in my kitchen I am performing other ceremonies Whisking, whirling, humming Whispering measurements Into soft white piles of salt and flour Tiny little incantations Creating my very own magic Wielding power ever so gently Ringing those bells
AT SEA
Who gets to be lucid
And who comes into the ER in the middle of the night
Screaming wild nonsense about the president, and how he owes him money
There’s a nurse there
In this particular ER
For her
Everything is concrete
Extra-real
The musk of him
The white foam gathering in the corners of his mouth
The clock ticking the wasted time
In the struggle
To obtain vitals
He is at sea
A thousand miles away
Unable to see light on the shore
But she is here with him
In utter realness
Touching the fabric of him
Seeing him in vivid color
And the tight bold lines that carve out his shape
She would rather be
The one with the blood pressure cuff
Than the man at sea
With her smart white coat, clicky pen, and glasses on the end of her nose
So that she can peer at him skeptically
Jot down his failure to “orient to time and place”
She enjoys the steady control
Of knowing that there is no ship
No ocean
When You Are Old(er)
When you are older
You don’t see old faces
Just young faces you know
With wrinkles Saran-wrapped around their features
And fake white beards glued on
You never even thought when you were younger
That your friends would too get old
You had an illogical notion that
All of your friends would stay, and appear
Exactly twenty five years old
Forever
The chilly moments
Are the ones
Where the Saran-wrapped, beard-glued folks
Start really acting like old people
Talking about
Conservative values and
Fixed rate mortgages
That’s when you think about tugging on the beard
But for the most part
You just see eyes
And a t-shirt
And a jean jacket
And the boy you knew
Who would run his fingers
Through his cool skater boy hair
And talk about how
No one really understands Kurt Cobain
AGAIN IN COLORADO
I. Sitting in a shitty burger joint in Manitou Springs On the patio Maybe two other families and A couple sitting, drinking beer Very drunk girlfriend missing the door handle on the way Into the bar The ominous smell of impending rain My lovely, sore feet in Birkenstocks Slightly sun-charred A little dirty Sips of mango lemonade II. Two candles lit like a little makeshift firepit A near empty bottle of bourbon Chilly can-sweat beers A Mexican blanket Looking up An imperfect circle of pine Around a white-paint-splattered sky III. Tired, scratchy legs and feet Grey, dark grey, darker grey contours of the mountains Who have their backs to the setting sun The three of us Idling on the boat Basking in the warmth of instant friendship Radiating joy and gratitude Out of ourselves Into each other And back again IV. Front yard managerie of vacationers Hikers and other crispy folk just off the trail Sitting at steel tables rusted by winter snowfall Hot wind through flittering Aspens Half-warm beers Greasy goodies for empty bellies Triumphant dust and scree runners V. A silent moment Content and sipping No need for small talk A girl dances for her mother in a frilly lavender dress A hummingbird hovers over butter yellow wildflower A light tittering of people eating and chatting A perfect temperature Aspen leaves dance overhead VI. Alone in tiny tent Woolen socks over dirty toes Last sip of water before a little too much beer and whiskey Takes me away Camping mat squeaks Someone in the tent next to mine farts I giggle and swan dive into mountain sleep
TO LIVE BEAUTIFULLY
I regularly oscillate
On the whole “god” thing
As a second grader
I openly wept in the bizarre child-bride outfit
Given to me for my first communion
Feeling blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit
(I still think it’s a little fucked up to feed seven-year old children the flesh of a deity)
In my teenage years, thrashed wildly between
Deciding I was a witch
And praying ceaselessly to Jesus and Mary
In the early college years
Turning to science
And deciding not to feel anything
Years later
Stumbling over spirituality
Like a log in the path
While practicing yoga for sport
Accidental wild crying
To ambient-nothing music
While laying on my back on the floor
Eventually, an older and more
Self-actualized me
Prided myself in managing my feelings
Sorting them into neat, labeled Tupperware containers
Having tidy explanations for everything
But I wonder if to live beautifully
Is to find meaning in everything
To see intention
In the director’s every decision
Having reviewed the arch
Of my swing
I cannot help but giggle a little
I did not know then
And I do not know now
But I do think that:
Perhaps a good life
Is not measured by
How well it is managed
But how artfully it is interpreted
GONE
I breathe in
The poison of missing you
And feel every inch of the room around me
In its contemptuous
Awful
Emptiness
I hear my stomach turn over
And see my heart beat in my chest
And feel everything ringing out
With the absence of you
If I let it
It takes me over like an ivy
Grows into my ears and eyes
Through the web of every finger
But if I can fight it
It is like a heavy hum
That buzzes in my bones
A tightening of the skin;
Like you
Living inside me
Trying to get out
I still look for your ghost in places you have never been
THE MOAT
To be separated like this
Feels too old fashioned
You in your high tower
And me in my moat
I do not beg
Or ask you to come down
I tired of shouting months ago
I just row this little boat
Circling
The smell of you
Wafting through tapestries
Out of stone windows
I do not even know
If i would like it
If they lowered the bridge
To let me in
At this point
I think I might
Just rather row
WHAT OHIO HAS TO OFFER
Conservative, old-fashioned, god-fearin’ folk,
busted trailers filled with odd treasures
post offices the size of dog houses
proud American flags
smokers
Guns
Potato Salad
Abandoned video stores with sun-bleached cut outs of Indiana Jones
1,000 newly opened craft breweries
Hills
Checkerboards of soybean fields
Three generations of broken tractors in a front yard
Football
Pageants
Corn
Hill-top cemeteries packed tight into thick wet soil with the bodies of people you love, decomposing
A lake that looks like an ocean
Amish buggies in a Kroger parking lot
a place to tie up your horse at a gas station
Farm dogs
Log piles
Confederate flags
Little hippy towns with blue-haired 11 year old kids playing chess
Septic tanks
people feeding other people and calling it “a ministry”