Halfway through

And what if it turns out,

or turns in or turns about,

that you find yourself starting over

-o-v-e-r-

at roughly (obscurely) halfway through

-as best you can tell-

the life you’ve been given?

Did you miss something along the way?

A flowering path, a waterfall dive, a hollow

to watch stars fall?

A tricky switchback, a higher climb, a conversation

with a person you ignored

(or whose shoes you noticed but whose words you never met)?

The questions fill every available basket.

Meanwhile.

An unobscured landscape has poured itself out

before you.

Maybe there,

there is the place to begin.

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Front door

I always entered and 

exited

through side doors.

quietly.

..slipping in or out with as few eyes following

or ears noticing

or minds rippling

as possible.

Now,

however,

that I’ve bought my freedom

I will be using the front door

as often

as loudly

as visibly

as this once-silent spirit

needs be.

And some houses will never

be catching sight of me

again.

The women speak

The women speak

and dogs lay down side by side,

cats walking railings sit in spots full of sun,

the cursed dust no longer cursed 

becomes, finally, nutrient moving

from here to there.

(Trees nod slowly in recognition.)

The women speak

and silence begins again to be known-

an expansion from where

the most needed, sassy ideas rise.

The women speak,

and our planet shakes off a yoke

we think we’ve set around Her neck.

The women speak,

hummm, yes, listen.

Kick the temple bell

Shy at the gate,

toss your head, flip your tail, 

switch ears, twitch nostrils-

a fine tension builds,

keep with it.

Shimmy your skin and whinny, yes,

a whoa-what’s-happening kind of alarm.

Stay with it.

That gate’s got words for you,

and not of a sort your brain’s going to comprehend.

They have teeth, and dirt, and a strange wind to them,

which may be the reason for the fleeting,

repeating

blood chills, maybe.

Rushing to run misses the opportunity.

Kick the temple bell with an eager hoof if you have to

but know

this place between,

at the gate before god knows what and you,

holds the field of promise.

Hang in, possibility calls you far,

far from the familiar.

Someones of Somethingdom

Those pesky brains,

the ones making a someone of a something-

who’s been serving them the kool-aid?

Settle them down before we cart them off

wearing special white outfits complete with ties

they can not undo.

We’ve categorized, cauterized, organized, familiarized 

until the ize of the horizon is known.

Imagining may be cute when your feet are small

but now we must grow up-

taller, smarter, firmer in stance and action;

Up-standing people further things, uphold things-

We are the Someones of Somethingdom.

Reality has a timeline, afterall.

And, then, while we adhere and cohere 

we’ll do something silly like have a child

who will see all we won’t

and giggle until she’s sideways

leaving at least one of us to wonder

just what exactly brings that spark to her eyes

and rolling thunder to her tiny, mirthful belly…

(Go ahead, It says- research that.)

The new year

The new year could be a prism,

a prison,

an ache and an embrace.

We just never know,

until at once a soft wind settles and we do.

Offer a kindly nod to the dark,

and an opening of arms to the light-

both will accompany us the whole way;

it is our work to acknowledge and learn from 

the full spectrum every day.

May we remember to create Beauty 

and move skillfully as we can

with the cinnamon dance of Mystery..

And, please, mind the tenderness of little toes.

Its nature

Being an untamed tributary

of a river whose origin reaches far 

into depths unkown

brings twists of bramble,

leaping fish,

frog and cricket symphonies,

bats dipping low in twilight-

when settling into quiet lulls.

In rugged young churning-

escaping water

pulls earth, boulder, tree to itself

as passion builds with heavy rains,

filling banks,

carving hungry routes,

chewing civilized lands and

renewing plots left withering.

This tributary is this and more,

trading nothing away

in honor of its nature–

wild, strong and unpossessing.

Nowhere but onward

I have searched, reached,

spoken, cried, and delivered.

My arms have ached in fullness, emptiness

and longing,

my legs have quaked miles into the journey

with nowhere but onward

left to go.

Muscle blood bone

register waking 

like petals opening toward light.

What I now carry will remain behind

in this daily offering 

of God

back to God.

Take the risk

A black and white world

hasn’t any lines to blur-

            what relief to fearful minds.

And if a smudge

tangoes with reason,

snapping the bra straps of rationality?

Waters might move in,

     fill bleached arroyos,

          and offer liquid to dry, cracked,

sorrowful lands.

Take the risk.

          Invite chaos to play.

I am a shooter

I am a shooter.

In all the ways I hate myself, in all the ways I hate others,

in any destruction of life in which I partake,

in my cruelties and holding on to misunderstandings,

in any willful resistance to seeing difference as beautiful,

in my own brokenness, impatience, refusal to love,

I, too, am a shooter.

And how

may 

my life-

this singular life-

be a devotion toward loving and mutual living 

on this planet,

the one inhabitable wondrous place

we all share

and call home?

Born into violence and out of grace,

how may my breath move

from the one toward

the other…

With each day

I ask,

in the face of violence,

for grace.