The dream, and waking
I’ve always known you
yet still
I can’t hold you
My whip-poor-will,
his flitting tail
upon my trail
Waiting for me,
my whip-poor-will,
in dusk so deep
his body’s black
Yet I know he’s there,
under the half moon’s glare
my whip-poor-will
and his flirting care
_______________________________________
Mirrors to me,
Mirrors to inside,
Mirrors to my mother,
and mirrors to my child eyes
I see the woman before me
woven into earth
and pulled away from
another world
She scratches her wide,
pregnant,
kind, white Nubian goat
on back, on throat,
sharing to me,
“All medicinals cannot compare
to healing through forming
a deep,
relational connection
to one animal”
Her kids coming,
no billy in sight,
soon milk to feed
the mother too
Who has fed me now
from her rabbits’ hutch
juicy meat
_______________________________________
Points of loss
and gathering,
the little, fluffy
white hen
Her belly bare,
hot,
over mutts of eggs
Points of understanding,
the collapse
in-
to one
The mother, the child
the hen, the egg
_______________________________________
A mother tree has
a dozen babies, in the gutter
she lends a branch
to soothe them from
the cicadas’ constant mutter
Tiger Lillies come and go
disappointing my mother
she knows she too will be
buried low,
But a thought of time
without thought
causes her to shudder
We lie together,
one from the other,
in early morning, night
hoping to never leave the world
where the sky holds us tight
Immortalizing mothers from
my mother’s aging past
her legs have sprouted veins as roots
allowing her to last.
_______________________________________
A sycamore sheds her clothes
proud in broad nudity
by the creek, exposed
The storm has broken the weaver’s web
I’ve left another love
sad, lonely and dead
I beg my love to tell me all he knows
to tell me of our love
once liquid, but to a solid
it froze
Instead, he gives me what the creek brings
a constant flow
under black butterflies’ beating wings
_______________________________________
Weaver, weave my paths together
Don’t leave their loose ends
Undone
For I fear I’d choose another
And unravel
The other one
Summer’s come and the swallows swoop
Diving to glide
In a loop
Fishing in eternity
Now I share all I see
With the loss of winter’s
Privacy
It’s here when
The common milkweed blooms
Fat, and heavy
In falling swoons
And mulberries make
The footpath a stomped jam
I’ve lost pace with my mind
And the trails she takes
Rather, I live in hands and feet
Doing and speaking
Under a sun
Seeing and digging
Until I am just tired and done
My sons feed themselves freely
From strawberries,
Reds or greens,
And pried peas,
And flowers they seemingly know
To eat
All blooms and blooms
And blooms and blooms
Surrounded by a hum
I stare at passing moons
No stillness beneath the ways
The moths move
_______________________________________
A new song sung
Of the folly in a disbelief
When bound to the self as one
Felt in the pride of a knower,
Of all seen
And so be it so, simply and done
Here though, by the stream
I greeted the greens
In shapes and shades eyes had yet seen
Never had they grown like these,
The gift of ambiguity begun
_______________________________________
Red sight
Sunlight
The impossible chore
Of setting aside ego
In the daylight
Rather,
Play with her
As she’d like
There is no shade
As beautiful
As the red seen
With softened shut eyes
Resting closed
But still seeing
Behind eyelids bathed by
The sun
_______________________________________
Carrying through the summer
Heat unfurling at the door
The cats are gone to night’s prey
And in the heat
And her surrounding bath
A chicken falls heavy in illness
The woods are beckoning a goat’s touch
Heavy in looping roses
With tall stilt grass
To trip small toes
I steal from what’s planted
A small squash
Two pumpkins, from a seed in food matter,
Green beans,
Their leaves sheltering a mass of
Green beetles
Then greedily gripping basil
So as to not let flower
And tearing up the mint
Twisting and hanging
Laying to dry
Knowing how it’ll fill
When in dark silence, I dream of new growth
But now in an untended dream of present,
Burdened by the limits of time
And the constraints of heat,
A mold grows on the perimeters of home
I miss the seeds that never sprouted
And long for the bounty that never came
Aching for a rest
To come with lessons learned
And the further passage of time
It is the pain of growth,
When growing too fast, too heavy or wide
To then topple
while eagerly reaching for the sun
Continuing to flower, while laying
An underside rotting
And giving, already, to winter
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Oh, my oh my
as the summer’s gone by
I’ve seen them die,
the swallowtails by suicide
‘Seen them resting in wait
warmly greeting a cruel fate:
black wings slowing in lament
lives short and insatiate
with time passing, but not spent
I’ve seen them go
severed and then gone,
I’ve seen them leave
without need to repent
_______________________________________
The empress tree blooms in purple erection
My guy, he groans at the heat of the spring,
welcomed into the home all day,
while I was away
through windows, hoping the guest could bring
a promise of warmth to stay
Spring, a sister to enter my home as she please
and lay about, as she please,
leaving behind her weight in watery air,
kissing the tuft on my son’s head
with a curling care
and each of my pores, in equal share
My guy, he moans at the heat of spring,
but the Pink Moon comes in a golden parade
and with it, the iris as vulva in a violet display
countering heated fatigue
with a taste of sensuality at play
_______________________________________
The hen with the blistered back
Too big a world of
aching men
wherein,
are women
Who carry boys in their bellies
and the weight of their mens’
follies
Too big a country of
aching men
wherein,
even the philosophers tore
all known through
Woman
Crass, a crazy
Woman
and all her intuition
[let us laugh as a class
at all spiritual musing,
faulty womanly emotional thought
and her undoing]
Equality as a disguise
humility forced,
and bodies deprived
of knowledge within,
further pressed within
Then left unmothered, to mother
Sister, I’ll hold you
‘Til a mother’s born
so large
her arms hold all
the aching men
taking them back
within
Too big a world of
aching men
wherein,
are women
_______________________________________
The cockfight
Torrid, are the waves
the rooster throws my way
happy, I sing to them
about the eggs they lay
But he,
he waits with my joy
until my back’s turned
to teach me the lesson
I ought’ve learned
Possession, in all he plays
dutifully, I pray
for knees on dirt could cast away
the rooster, at the break of day
Dutifully, I pray
I beg, as I may
all simply,
come my way
Instead, I fought
and still I fight
hoping with effort
and given might
a pole to head might knock him down
Or should I stand over him
and flip him ‘round
No more hell
give me heaven
and let the light stay
I’ll ripen the soil
where it’s all washed away
I’ll leave earth in full bounty
for my pay
no more hell
give me heaven
and I’ll let the light stay,
kiss merrily any heart
fallen astray
_______________________________________
Apology to misery
I’ve found no way out of the rot
though I have gained,
that which I sought
I bathe again,
hours on end
mind impure,
and morals obscure
physical body will not mend
still to contend: I will endure
I’ve found this place,
to have killed me alright
it held onto my throat too tight
and kept me awake,
long through the night
It’s the ghosts,
when they play and preach,
glaringly white,
It’s the hawks and sparrows
who screech
darting through the sky
as they fight
And all those,
I once did beseech,
who only stared back without speech
The moon is glowing wide tonight
Misery cannot hide,
not in the light,
I’ll take her out in the sun
throw her around and have some fun
and when she starts to come undone,
all black and blue,
and broken too,
I’ll kiss her and hold her close
to undo
the pain I put Misery through
_______________________________________
The warmth of November,
the orange in all dying,
the fog all around
A fat river flows,
the wider she grows
the more she can carry,
She pulls a whole tree downstream
I throw to her what will flow,
emotion left in throat
And I sit with an emptiness,
not to be mistaken for sadness
Instead, like the fog
both heavy and light
A cloud within,
a cloud without
There are the birds
the bluebirds, with their handsome red chests
and little brown finches
fighting and flitting about
in naked trees
What have I to offer, little winter chickadee
soon another starts to sing
and fills me with
Doo do, do do
and higher: doo do, do do
Only once I stop listening
do I realize I am cold
_______________________________________
Present, gifts from sons
He untangles green beans
from their knots
stealing speckled seeds
from dried purses
The beans, printed with black,
where their skin
darkened and wrinkled around
I see he’s grown, but can’t date when
Found in the length, at his hair’s end,
twisting in golden curls
around his one dimpled cheek,
and butt of a chin
_______________________________________