I am not braveMy eye is not so bright as to illume all my heart would encompassStar song now discordant in the uplift of my voiceAnd I am broken These shards dance, reflecting the stories we tell ourselvesTo lull us back to sleep, clingingSafe, we say, back to flame, holding cindered the hands of our … Continue reading Refraction
Category: Poetry
Threaded
The world is rent open;I would mend it.And if I cannot, I will decorate the edges,a fine tracery, veined to feed us.We all of us need those wild places,after all,where our own brokenness may settle again into that strange song that is our self.Let it arise in you,and in each other.Nurture the bramble and the … Continue reading Threaded
Salt in the Well
The mirror crackedNostalgia, like grief, lancing poison I want to hear that something in her broke openthe first time she held meThat all her rage and pain somehow sublimated into a fierce protectivenessI have her chin, after all, and her smilePerhaps that is why she raised me to know heartacheWild-shy, a stranger in a world … Continue reading Salt in the Well
Succulence, or Golden on the Tongue
I haven't been writing much recently, really, and it has felt like a waiting space or like being poised, listening deeply, rather than preparing to speak. And today I had something simple and maybe slightly unfinished arise and I wanted to share it. It is called, for now anyway, Golden on the Tongue, and thus … Continue reading Succulence, or Golden on the Tongue
Hour Nine: The Oppressed
I give to you the gift of a seedThe seed a thoughtThe thought a seeingVision into, behind, beyondFrom depth of night through pearly dawnFrom noonlight's glare to the dusk of dreamI give you the gift of a heart a-wingA-wing it sees with raptor's eyesSustaining truths, rends what hidesRendered flesh to bone to ashFeeding soil that … Continue reading Hour Nine: The Oppressed
Place
Noticing is it seemsThe truest of magicsWe look at things as they look backIn open wonder that we see them so constrictedlyHeld so carefully inside ourselves that we become parasiteSymbiosis rejected for submissionYet the hunger remains in us, gnawingOur bellies contract painfully at the voidAnd so they cry out to us, who will not hear … Continue reading Place
Across the Threshold
Skin-slipped snake-likeUnused as I am to allowing the simple grace of tenderness, of transition.Struggling against sensitivity,Callow, gawky without my sharp-edges,No longer a creature against which the world may break itself,I am instead broken open.With a finality like birth, like dying into myself,Strangely conscious of everySingleMoteGlistening diamonds in the web.Trailing fingers as across the lips of … Continue reading Across the Threshold
Sap Rising
Choking wordsCold, claggy at the back of the throatCoating all with the would-be eloquence of the web-walled volubility evinced by madmen and poetsA magpie mind chattering half-recognized associations illuminated by dustAnd the half-eclipsed silvering of a howling moonHowling, head-shaking cries, syllable-veined and shatteringI long to illume life in the darkness of a hand clasp, a … Continue reading Sap Rising
Sky
Beatific, you greet us In all your seasons, richly enrobed in splendors Cloaking us at dusk, kissed rosy hued as Sun departs Washing all in silver with the bright eyed majesty of Moon's light Reaching forth, ennobled, pearlescent with the dawn I sense your many moods in the tones of your silence A thousand thousand … Continue reading Sky
Wingless One
I have made myself small Hiding, cringing inward Still, I hear you Fingers of light teasing gently at the edges of the world I allowed myself Peaking out behind flinching eyes Enraptured in you, tendrils of wind ruffle the feathering of wings Launching, power in the joy that springs from my lips As storms rage, cleansing … Continue reading Wingless One