Musings

Love is just a word someone carved on the street
people walk over it, cover it in dirt
they don't know what it means
and I thought that sweeping it clean
would make me complete
that planting would cause the red earth
to grow
but instead of smiling daisies
I got a dried and hanging rose.

Witchgrass

Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder---

If you hate me so much
don't bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything---

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
one enemy---

I'm not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
is a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost everyday
and you can't rest until
you attack the cause, meaning

whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion---

It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.

I don't need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I'll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.


---- Louise Gluck

Getting There

Love is carved into the street
but people step over it
they don't know what it means

Under the Lone Star

after Gerry Murphy

I lay awake under the lone star
green light on my face
3:33 AM.

I can turn the minutes into days
that measure the distance
til the moment of your smile.

You, somewhere laying awake also,
are always just out of reach.
Always an hour, a hand,
a state of mine, ahead.

(Yet, the punchline -
actually a year behind.)

Restless I switch sides
leaving the left and
settle right where your body
would be.

I cloak myself in the sweatshirt
of your memory, burying my face
in the water that leaks from me
and dive into the reservoir of reverie.

My skin tingles with the echo of thunder.
My cheek with the cool of breeze.
My lips reminisce about the hiss
of rain falling softly through trees.

And though, I'm not entirely sure
whether this cerebral cinematography
is a dream or mixed up memories,
it's a beautiful picture.

Myself, sailing across an ocean
like the sea warrior I used to be -
before I became landlocked
before I left what is dearest to me -
but the salty hydrogen and oxygen
nourishes synchronicity.

In my vessels, the rose
of the compass always points North
and though I wade through nautical imagery
my heart doesn't belong to the sea.

It is where there are Adriondack lakes and rivers,
It is where deep brown water encompasses me.

And it's blessed FACT!
not fiction, that sings me to sleep.

I do not know what about you
it is that undoes what about me
I was convinced was so - I don't know what
I was thinking because

You are looking at me
and suddenly I can feel red
and my eyes are no longer - I don't know what
I was thinking because

Your eyes are so deep
and suddenly I can feel brown
as I am sinking down into - I don't know what
I was thinking because

things that used to make sense
suddenly won't do and all this
hard-earned negativity doesn't
seem to be true because -

I've forgotten the words.

I know that there were names
of the things and people that were here
because suddenly you're closer
and I can only feel you're near.

My skin prickles with the electricity
in the air before the storm
and like the hush of rain across water
I can feel my goosebumps form
All the magnets that hold me together
are now pointing to your North.

And I've forgotten what I thought
about the stuff that used to do
that other noun I used to verb
because you're holding my hand
and 'love' is the only appropriate word.

4 AM

Hard twist of fate -
first bed big enough for two
but only A body.
The word is cruel.

Lie supine I
stare at the reverse of you(s)
waiting for sleep
to cover me in numbness.
My comfort is a white sheet.

Then, inevitably, I
will dream a grey smattering
of secret fantasies and fancies,
cerebral cinematography

but good fiction always makes me cry.

Patrick Creevey, II

It's a game of dice for pour young Pat,
waves crash and make boots wet
ivory holds a great surprise
the dice, they say snake eyes.

So it's twelve months more for pour young Pat,
least a full year 'til he rows on back
she'll marry him when his ship comes in
and Creevey's baby be.

Well Jack, that man dressed all in black
made port while pour young Pat
was working of his debt, you see
Jack found dear Molly McGee.

Jack teased her with bags of gold
her father he asked, too bold
for her hand which was promised already
to pour young Patrick Creevey.

A year went by, Pat bought the dye
to color Molly's dress white
and when he came into port
there was a thing or two to sort

So, it's a duel on land for pour young Pat
if he wins this fight, he gets his lass
draw your sword and let it be,
dear young Patrick Creevey.

"Women Who Run with the Wolves' Excerpt

We are all filled with a longing for the wild. There are few culturally sanctioned antidotes for this yearning. We were taught to feel shame for such a desire. We grew our hair long and used it to hide our feelings. But the Shadow of Wild Woman still lurks behind us during our days and in our nights. No matter where we are, the shadow that trots behind us is definitely four-footed.
-

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Phd. Foreward.