silky wings
slip through choppy flight
I release and pause
with momentum under
a quiet moment
a kindling in my chest
to tell you I love you
like a breath so natural
an exhale with your name
but instead I seal my lips
turning to face inward
with my heart so open
there can’t be words to fill it
and with silence I fly
into new and old wounds
I will do more than recover
not knowing the next unfolding
I can surrender without losing.
i’ve seen it for years
the light that flickers
when your stream
reaches my shore
it yanks
on what we both know well
call it what you want
a spark that flew
somehow survived
a firefly in a jar
with poke holes of air
often asking
to fly freely
in the summer woods
with a dawn
that never arrives.
i peel back
the skins of our distance
and wonder at the kernel
of where this began
at where things grew
into twisted knuckles
holding gold and crystal
so tightly our palms bled
until it corroded
into silt and salt
pouring onto the future
of everything that will always
happen without you.
this isn’t mine yet
i’m groping for it
wishing at it
but there is a line here
and you are on the other side
and i’m asking
but there is no forcing
this arrival.
a pinched scream
to remind me
of the lies i kept
my moments of choice
where i leaned in
while pulling back
fraying at the edges
of my neatly stitched existence.
and now my life smeared
with cooling balm
i heat up
and probe the details
once again
i could falter
and re-enter
the gaping hole
where pieces
of a truth
linger and limp
only to find
that cutting out my heart
was the best choice
all along.
to get unstuck
outside parts of yourself
that stick and harden
fool you into thinking
a different way
is always escaping.
i want to unstick
because perspective
is not a flash light
onto reality
but is the core and creator
of all you give and get.
yes to give
i want to give more
give to everything
not just me or someone i love
but give just to give
by being with and working at
what i love
and have created for myself
not dealt
to me by some unnameable force.
you are what you give
you are what you love too
and it’s hard to say which comes first
because when i give i love
and when i love i give too.
Jul 10
I am writing on paper
from the bearded lady
she has stamped it
with a leaf and some velvet
making my hands
want weightlessness.
This porch and this blue sky
with autumn in its creases
erodes Saussure and his comfortable
delegation of arbitrarity
and things like the trees
with their flustered
state of coral death
become fine tuned.
~~~a lovely poem, not mine~~~
by Erica Jong
You are there.
You have always been
there.
Even when you thought
you were climbing
you had already arrived.
Even when you were
breathing hard,
you were at rest.
Even then it was clear
you were there.
Not in our nature
to know what
is journey and what
arrival.
Even if we knew
we would not admit.
Even if we lived
we would think
we were just
germinating.
To live is to be
uncertain.
Certainty comes
at the end.
