Everything undulates slightly
in the twilit hours, rippling gently
as a mirage.
What seems solid during daylight
becomes other by nightfall,
as things left unresolved
return to haunt the living.
Thus we dwell upon passing thoughts,
full-blown as stories once told
to the very young when we remembered
that which we did not yet know.
Secrets carried like diamonds
on our back spilling forth, then landing
like rocks from the sack.
To stand on a cliff
overlooking the shore
gazing northward, then east,
send the mariners home.
While out in the distance
clouds bear the fading
sun on their shoulders,
the Gods contemplating,
Filling glasses tipped gently
into their reflection,
over black diamond sands
in a wondrous advection.
To glimpse in an early morning sky painted cerulean,
Venus, the Morning Star, and I know,
if nothing else is certain, today the earth is rewed
to herself, committed to rhythms
and processes we humans take for granted,
greening as she is around edges
of slumber soaked minds
while the bulk of humanity jangles
in a falsely-lit biome of busy-ness, sounds
and lights assaulting fragile systems regenerated
during nighttime hours spent dreaming,
psyche plodding through desires
and suppressed terrors while the mind lurches on
in command, it would seem,
of the exhausted vessel scrubbed and polished now
to a showroom shine.
Each time I am asked, my spirit is willing,
yet somehow I still suffer from a sort of social malaise,
and I cannot name where it comes from,
save enormous overwhelm in situations
where many discover delight.
I know I may fool you, for I genuinely love people,
though I am ill suited to groups and exposure,
small one hiding under desks, trying her damndest
to remain invisible, the observer, the writer,
the introvert shoved onstage, deer in footlights,
yearning only for the quiet of forest and stream
and creatures who do not conclude.
Still I soldier on, tears streaming down weary cheeks,
attempting to share my humanity, my heart;
participating in the human dance
for the first time in over thirty years of isolation;
and when I try and stop the waters,
it’s like imploding on myself, bursts of mortar
and powder, notwithstanding.
This tearing up is not stifled emotion,
decades of mining the depths of my soul; neither is it
a call for sympathy or pity, I cannot imagine
what my own sobs bring up in you, we do not share lives.
Still, despite discomfort, I vibrate to the strings
that tether us, sensing the tremolos of repression,
and perhaps the gods in their eternal quest
for amusement simply interject
this collage of a human, cobbled together
with paste and faded construction paper
into your midst for reasons unfathomable,
especially to her.
What do I expect
as death approaches the air’s edge,
colors once borne by maple and oak
now displayed garishly on store manikins,
tight muscles and thoughts
that curl back on themselves;
Hunger for inspiration, the drawing in
of breath begging to be twice inhaled,
cupped hands, skin hardened
like tanned leather over bony knot
of muscles, woolen softness
over all;
What’s real,
what artifice.
Between cinder cone mountains and the
solid feel of dog flesh nudging ribs
lie vast expanses of earth,
surging seas thundering against cliffs and sand
like the unceasing labors of Sisyphus.
As whitecaps assail her surface,
a clutch of humpbacks,
slick heaving bodies pirouetting
above the waves, carry on
as if no one’s watching.
Commuters speed by cars pulled
alongside the road often carelessly, compelled
to witness massive leviathans defying gravity
in a dance few comprehend, having traveled
far from northern waters to give birth
on empty stomachs.
Burdens moored in distant harbors forgotten,
the meeting of ocean and sky anchor one
to the planet’s surface, urging hearts
into glorious flight and boundless distance,
gravity mending to flesh solely
for the pleasure brought about
in witnessing the miraculous.
Just because we are doesn’t mean we always
must be.
Who ever convinced me but myself,
long yardstick held over my own head,
measuring down, not measuring up,
listening out instead of listening in.
This is the time, there is no other.
I sit in mindfulness,
at long last the Observer
of my own folly and fabulousness.
When a nagging voice queries,
Who said so? Is that right?!
quaking illusory future colliding
with enjoyment of the present,
I gently recall vermiculite beginnings
and all speak to me of purpose.
Mostly I am standing here in this moment
alongside past and future, animated ink blot
pausing time and space
to record, perchance to experience
the glory gift of this existence.
Nobody seems to like him much,
though after an attack of the heart
some slack is granted;
daughter tough as nails,
though some pierce the veneer
from time to tale.
Life sometimes works out this way,
leaving us defenseless
and knowing it, ever ready
to shadow box demons
of our own making, unaware;
yet just this morning I flagged
tractor and driver while
raising hand in greeting,
not having met the man
and, supplementing lambs and ewes
nutritious bounty from my garden,
unthinkingly left detritus in his field,
unscalable fence;
saying sorry, why, how,
please throw it back
into my considerable pile
of the large and rot worthy;
he rewards with broadened smile
creasing corners of mouth and eyes,
offering his own field as repository
for the entire mulch heap and more,
anytime, anytime;
inflating my heart to bursting
for the simple love of humanity.
We live in a culture of individuality:
what we aspire to,
a filling ourselves up
with ourselves.
Ah, the miracle!
We might well fear loneliness
in quest for that unique seed
we term Self.
Still, something inside thrums,
knows to its core we are not now,
nor have we ever been
Separate.
Individual.
That is the myth of modernity.
What have we left behind then,
in this search for singularity?
How can we exist as unique,
save in relation to others?
Without them, who will tell us
of our wonder, our splendor,
our prowess and might,
our superior intellect?
Who will be there to stroke
our massive ego
in a strange little universe
Alone?
Restriction is a mindset
borne of concrete and steel and stasis.
Seen and not heard. Sit still in school.
Conditioned respect a static response.
Still, wander out into the countryside,
its very nature abundance.
Just notice!
Trees swaying wildly,
birds warbling boundlessly,
feathers and songs and petioles
exploding iridescence, vibrancy,
syncopated symphony
of wind and rain and streaming light;
meanwhile a blazing orb of fire slips
into the sea, molten body
capturing breath,
slowing heart rate,
surging open ventricles
pumping vitality into eyes settling
into sockets of slumber, resting
in peaceful, ecstatic repose.
