Month: July 2012

I choose to love you

while you are dying,

which is now…

entropy slowing your cells

without evidence,

the ginger of your hair

flashing on the trampoline,

the inexhaustible passion

of your curiosity,

the soft curls of your white hair on your scarf,

the sexy baldness of your tidal lust,

the delicate blond of my paper bag princess…

all these loves

dying while they live,

and me with the midlife gift

of softening to the tragedy,

letting in the tears

that water each breathtaking petal,

rooted in this peaceful garden,

shrivelling to dust

or some timeless nurturing soil.

I want your light

to bounce along the walls of my soul,

reflect off my hiding diamond

… and yours, and yours…

come let us magnify

the twinkle of our days,

open the dark caverns;

more space

for the intensity,

bright dancing.

My teacher,

this clenching gut

demanding attention

… not the most refined

nor credentialled

but deeply wise

when I get past

harsh admonition

to listen.

Midlife friends

with dying fathers

or missing mothers

or similar hidden gashes

wounding the day

with a deep desire to please,

to successfully wrap our days

in a beautiful bow, impeccably resolved

and well-taped

to offer back

as a tidy and generous ending.

There is no box,

no fussy camoflague,

and lids prevent seeing

the bright sparkles,

incoherent flotsam of our treasures,

unstrung pearls and macaroni necklaces,

grotty trove on offer,

messy gratitude.

How slowly can I walk,

how much langour

and unbecoming,

trailing my feet through the woods

like water on fingers while someone else rows

… how slowly can I move and still go forwards?

The chickadees,

the dogs,

the leaf miners munching through their moments

all seem full of purpose,

vitality in flow.

Soft sari of the wind,

my feet listen to your warmth,

move to your light touch

with a slow reversing dance of infinite tomorrows.

How deeply creative

to hear a story

in a well known voice

and slowly rub

words away,

crafting vacuum

where coherence thought it lived.

Let awareness

scalpel its way

through symbols

to make new sounds.

Let silence

ring out essence

of what lies buried in babble.

This winnowing

calls before dawn

in every life,

inviting

reductionist harvest.

In the windstorm

there is fear of toppling,

desire to grip the earth with toes,

stay rooted

with a net protecting everything around.

There is fear of being tossed,

a rough, uncontrolled turbulence

yanking all we know and love,

the mighty push

that shows us as debris.

There is fear of flying,

spinning in unknown relationship with sky,

at the mercy of a wind

that knows no mercy

and a penchant for rough landings.

In the windstorm

there is joy,

a cold daring,

an open adulation with the trees

that wave their spangled bodies

in surrendered supplication.

This wild dancing

in one spot

shakes off months of waiting in stillness,

ushered by the wind

to bend in helpless abandon,

twisted and stretched

from deep roots of reverence,

the buried succulence

that sweetens any storm.

A fresh hibiscus

plucked before its time,

folded in on itself,

dried and fragile.

Wrapped in a cocoon

of sacred happenings,

musty blinding coverings,

accumulations of debris

that look like bits of dirty leaf,

the flower waits for years

until the slow boil

with its steamy heat

and patient attention

creates delicate space

for the blossoming.

Nowhere safe

for women to pee in Mumbai;

even the men fighting for their basic rights,

but the women

afraid to drink water

because they have no access to relief.

Surely even lush feisty girls

will wither,

lose their will to fight and grow and nurture,

dried out in the heat,

ignoring their own urgency.

All this wireless flow,

new capacities to understand,

deep layers of science and perception

opening vistas of possibility…

we need real shovels,

real water,

sustainable circles for sharing our power,

wind and sun delivering

more than inspiration.

Like the satisfying struggle

to cut through an old credit card

with barely adequate scissors

I tussle with my thoughts,

wrestling back on the reins.

Pulling in the possibilities,

cutting my ties with the past,

allowing more room for cool dark syrup

to flow through my head and body.

My compulsion to distort the flow of time

by living in a borrowed future

can be momentarily snipped

so I fall bravely into now.