Sunday, April 30, 2017

Day 30: Shavasana



Close your eyes.
Feel every place where your body comes in contact with the floor beneath you.

[yang]
I have made things happen
in small hops
from contract to contract,
warranty to warranty:
a permanence continually replaced.
This is how I understood progress.

Let your body relax and sink into those places.

I signed for you.
There is a paper to prove it.
We’ve climbed imaginary ropes
Always reaching for a higher anchor;
Our palms are burned to bleeding.
This is how I understood love.

Pay attention to your breath moving down your spine. Notice the pause before you exhale.

[yin]
Yet things will happen
and I will continue to be.
As I bend deeper into life,
the energy of life will hold me up inside it.

Feel the warmth in your arms and in your hands. Notice the sensations there.

You were never mine to have or hold,
nor will You be.
So I choose to love you as the sunflower loves,
rather than the vine.
Perhaps time will offer us a bargain.
Perhaps not.

Feel the slow rise and fall of your chest as you release your neck and shoulders.

There is no private island.
There is this.
This unknowable,
This beautiful,
This maze of togetherness.

All you have to do is let go.


Day 29: no sound no questions


ghost me out for a little while
let me bow my head
please don’t orchestrate me
no sound no questions

don’t try to make sense
it doesn’t make sense
it’s not about you
just leave the light off
here, if I stay still
i have no repercussions

I can do better
but I have to catch my breath
I can smile sincerely
but it still takes some practice
so ghost me out for a little while
no sound no questions
just leave the light off
and go.


Friday, April 28, 2017

Day 28: The Next Revolution

This is the next revolution:
A child reading by lamplight
In a silent house.


Thursday, April 27, 2017

Day 27: Don't go.


don’t go.

here the only eyes are ours.
the easy breath of night will halt the sun
and drown the scattered, pressing noise of day;
stay,

we’re safe entangled,
skin’s adhering warmth upon our backs,
and whispered lyrics tugging at my ear;
stay here,

brilliant and improbable,
and with our several hands we'll hold this space
till all our rhythms sync to soft and slow;

don’t go.



Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Day 26



Should frailty ever come to find my father,
He’ll meet it with a studied disregard,
His lips drawn tight as a plumb line
As he stoops to tie his yard-stained shoes.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Day 25: Set


I go to the mountain
to be reminded that beauty persists
whether we work for it or not.

I say, each time, that on the mountain
I will think:
about my anger, my fear, my need –
need I don’t want, that pushes and stops.

But when I arrive,
I only breathe, and feel.
I smell the earth and the water.
I’ll think later, perhaps.
I sit and heal.
I don’t ask why my fibers work their way back together
or why precisely they split apart.
I simply let them be set where they ought to be
and I wait.


Monday, April 24, 2017

Day 24: Haiku pair


I catalogued grief
Because grief demanded it,
Red-eyed and screaming.

Happiness asks so little.
It waits quietly,
Then smiles and squeezes my hand.


Sunday, April 23, 2017

Day 23: Imperfect Metaphors



In the mornings
When it’s too early for language
I see in your face
No words
But snapshots of other beautiful things
And I wake my mind by finding
Imperfect metaphors
Like
Your lips are like orange segments --
the shape is right
and the pushing of meat against skin ...
Segment is an ugly word
and you don’t taste like oranges ... 
but I want them now …


Saturday, April 22, 2017

Day 22: The Overwhelm



The overwhelm reflects and magnifies:
You are a giant built like a wall
Angry and primed for a
War of silences
And I am on the other end
Shrinking,
Rolling my shell darker,
Watching my broken machinery
Click and catch –
  your fault -^ my fault ,;;
              your fault -^ my fault -^ ,;;my fault ,;;
I curl too tight when the water doesn’t boil
When the page is empty
When the children cry
,;;
But here you are again
Shrinking too,
Offering to uncurl me.