Falcon’s Erudition

Recall her.
Cry out against what was taken,
Shout back.
Historical reclamation of the sky is
Falcon’s erudition.
No effort wasted on explanation
only
Complete trust in body knowledge-
Flight and the hunt
instinctual as waking.
Come forth,
The weightlessness of self-possession
calls you.

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corrupted love

the crippled reaching
for someone else to make you complete-
what teachings established in hearts
has wings
if it plants a strangler vine,
suggesting you aren’t whole
exactly as you are?

Tongues of sleeping infants

Time
Now
the tongues
of sleeping infants yet nursing.
Silenced cries in a scream to be heard,
poles of a tension
racking tiny spines hoping
to find rest.
Pulse and bird song and little lungs.
Rhythmic,
the intimately familiar movements
of suckling-
Feed us, World,
Shelter, hold and protect us.
Allowing for that world-
the one we call to reach for us-
we bring the scattered pieces
together again.

Uncorrupted earth

An electric palm talked to me last night.
Piercing its feisty fingers,
playful dagger fronds dipped in hallucinatory intent,
through moon’s half cast of sky.
That crazy cat visited,
showed a thing or two
about shape shifting and trickster medicine.
She grabbed my brain
with her buzz.
Scattered stars and hairs of lazy clouds
sucked her dark light towards them.

Further along,
silent, unmoving owl watched
from telephone wire.
Stopping for him, I said hello.
He dropped off into flight
carrying my whisper back to the forest.

A few steps away, cypress
impressed herself upon me,
a pale barked dancing woman
held within rounded trunk.
Wonder and timelessness,
a patient grounded movement
through change-
like this old tree whose feet
adapted to growth at the banks
of asphalt
where uncorrupted earth
once collected water.

Spiral shells

Experts at falling apart,
those who can shatter without shattering,
grasp that what is viewed as breaking
is only breaking through.
Smaller selves
crack
when outgrown.
Vastness bucks at containment.
The skills gained
that serve and save and form
may rest,
tools placed in their box,
upon reaching the precipice,
gazing out, and gathering in
this knowing-
Spiral shells can also be exited
from their opening,
even as larger spirals
await
to house you.

Soul Food

You are alive.
You matter.
You are heard.
You are seen.
You are received.
You are welcomed.
You are celebrated.
You are enjoyed.
You are met.
You are held.
We are connected.

Deafness

When the words
fall
on deaf ears,
I wonder, what’s it like in there?
Static?
A song on replay?
My sound doesn’t tingle the switch,
the spectrum of frequencies a foreign language.
I used to scream to be heard.
I used to hand out the code
to what others thought was encrypted.
Now, the fire behind these eyes
that licked the ceiling high
if I couldn’t get through,
has real wind to respond to.
My lips rest
when the noiseless collision
of intent
reaches my own deafness.

Rituals

He draws breath
through his first cigarette
close to daybreak,
and shuffles himself in bare feet and heavy
blue terry cloth robe
down a concrete driveway,
below phone line the pale grey squirrel travels
like his personal super highway,
to pick up the newspaper
and bring it inside.
I’ve never seen him smoke,
I don’t need to-
the perfume of morning shifts
dramatically
when his ritual begins.
These rituals, their shapes,
differ
and
appreciation arrives despite
our never having exchanged
a word.

Fading footsteps

Looping letters in pen,
my fingers contain dances
that my tongue is meant to spin.
But, without them, you wouldn’t hear me
over mountain ranges and
thousands of miles eastward.
This instrument will take the sounds,
twirling and swaying in my arms,
and transmit them through your eyes.
There’s a hunger that crumbs of words
could never stave.
Grasp.
Hold.
In stillness,
you know possession is impossible.
Let’s look not at one another, but
to the approaching terrain
wrapped in shadows of dropping moonlight.
The landscape will explain every twinge
these small dances can only hint at
through dusty, fading footsteps…

Sovereign Arachnid

I needn’t reach out from here,
the entire world can come to me.
Body slung comfortably
between eight agile legs,
I sense your presence
long before you know of mine.
Quivers of silver silk
transmute movement
into knowledge,
informing my scuttle towards,
or away.
Deep in this dark protected place,
I gather silence
and watch.
Light drops in,
lifting me up
if I want to visit day.
But people fear me,
little me.
Tucking myself away
with my abilities
feeds a hunger for solitude.