An Anniversary

Tomorrow is the anniversary of one great love long ago. The circumstances of today align with the past, but this time say no, and yet I grieve:

O

succulent one

full ripe I write

cheek in hand

elbow propped

on table top

I write about fruit

and fecundity

because I am not

writing about you

or the pillow

between my thighs

or the echo of kisses

and lustful cries

I write words

like velvet diadems

and emerald robes

because you will never see

words that brush, flush, and flutter

words that hum in swollen breasts

you will never see caress.

I write about Susan and Emily D.

words over backyard laundry lines

words between the sheets

I write word song cabarets

smoke ringed illusions

of tuxedoed women

poised on the edge

of their straight backed chairs

legs spread whisky

voices blended in fifths

unlike our Gregorian fourths

I write about Sister Clare

on bended knee

in poverty

in chastity

in Lenten contemplation

seeking God’s words

as distraction

from your lips.

I write a vow

a convenient

a promise

I promise to write

You and Yahweh

instead of you and my way

and yet

O

More letting go

"Secret" by Wang Wei, translated by Graeme Wilson

No. It is not enough to despise the world.
It is not enough to live one's life as though
Riches and power were nothings. They are not,
But to grasp the world, to grasp and to feel it grow
Great in one's grasp is likewise not enough.
              The secret is to grasp it, and let it go.

Selky's Dive

“The blue jay is fearless, and it is because of this that it can help people connect with the deepest mysteries of this earth and the greatest of heaven.” ~ from Animal Speak by Ted Andrews

 “Gaia, Gaia, ha, ha, ha,” the blue jay cackles as the woman dips between dream and awake.  Salt water laps at her manicured toes (what an odd thing to notice at this point in the dream). Beckoning sunlight, soft and unsquinting, lures her ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep, further and further out into the ocean until she tastes brine on her lips. “I will surface only to breathe,” she tells herself, “like a large seal, or one of those Selkies, from the Shetlands, mysterious sirens of the sea.” Only in moonlight will I come to shore, shed my sealskin and dance, beautiful and desirous, limitless, on cool, white sand.

She relaxes her knees just enough for the water to wash over her ears and spread her fine hair in a whorl around the crown.  Lighter than life she floats, bobbing easily in the slight wake.  Her mind quiets to weightless lines of poetry.  She wants to be here, only here, always in the space between, floating on the horizon, away from the heat of her days, fearless of what might happen or what already passed.  A sea- muffled, “Caw, caw, caw” invades the loud silence of her underwater get away.  “Caw, caw, caw.” That nasty crow has now joined the annoying blue jay.

“The blue jay is a reminder to follow through on all things –
to not start something and then leave it dangling.”

“Come down here on one knee,” her mother instructs.  The cement blocks lining the pond scratched at her boney knee, but she really wanted to learn to dive like her mother: elegant, athletic and competent.  Some moms are nurturing, some smothering, some non-existent; her mother was an instructional mom, one who teaches you what you need to know and then sends you at least 500 miles away from the nearest relative to make your own way in the world, independent, needing no one.  She comes from a long line of instructional mothers.

Her mother could have been an Olympic diver.  Three precise steps toward the end of the diving board and on the third step she bends her right knee up parallel to the sky, toe pointed.  Then both feet join at the edge, knees bent, the board bows under her downward thrust.  Her arms extend to the sides and she springs needle straight into the air.

“On one knee, lift your arms to your ears and lock your thumbs together.  Elbows straight like an arrow.” Her mother places her hands on her elbows to lock them tight around her ears --perfunctory, purposeful touch.  Not too tender, for any touch too tender would have melted her into a pool of longing and she would not have been able to focus on the learning at hand.

At the height of her jump, her mother folds in half at the hips, jack-knifed in mid air, fingertips touching toes.  Her mother’s hands were small; fingertips calloused, stained brown from paring apples and sculpting clay.  Her fingers were long and slender.  Her feet would soon outgrow her mother’s shoes and she would eventually look down on her mother’s compact frame, half a foot taller.

“Bend at your waist, keep your head between your arms, fingertips touch the water first.  Ya know, if you go head first, not arms first off the high dive, your head will slap so hard that you’ll have a headache for days.  Protect your head.” Her mother’s head was covered in short, black curls.  She was blonde until first grade, hair long and straight.  The boys in the family got the curls; the girls, at best, sported a natural bend.  Her mother had silky brown eyes, hers were hazel.  Mother, right-handed, she, left.  Sometimes she wondered if she was adopted or somehow switched at birth.

Her mother’s body, still in flight, would open again to an inverted blade moments before slicing into the water.  She and her brothers used to count the rings rippling out from their mother’s point of entry.  In the beginning of the summer, there might be seven or so rings, but by the end of the season, there were only two or three.  “Admirable,” they all thought.

“Head between your arms.  Head between your arms.  Now just roll into the water, 3, 2, 1, go.”

Her mother could have been an Olympic diver.  She could have been an Olympic swimmer or ice skater.  She could have been a professional artist, sculpting, sketching and painting her way to fame.  She could have been an actress, a naturalist, a biologist, a costume designer, a seamstress like grandmother, a quilter, or even a teacher.  Her mother could have been many things, but she chose to be a wife and mother.  After her sophomore year at Denison University, she chose a man, Dad.  She got her MRS degree, had four children, led Girl Scout troops, volunteered at the Nature Center, and taught swimming for the Red Cross and the Y.  She taught ice skating to the neighbors, sewing in 4-H, made hand-drawn Christmas cards, one-of-a-kind quilts, and most of the children’s clothes until they were in Jr. High ~ all these talents bestowed only to her family.

“3, 2, 1, roll.  You can do it.” Easy for her to say as the eldest daughter summoned up the nerve to complete her first semi-dive.  The daughter couldn’t see the murky bottom of the Pennsylvania farm pond.  She had no idea where she was heading or what she would find when she got there, but the instruction time was over and she could feel her mother getting distracted. “Lift your bottom, fingers first, 3, 2, 1, roll.  You count this time.”  The daughter’s anxiety bored the mother who wanted to get back to the diving board for a smooth swan dive or the ever perilously impressive back dive.  Skinny and shivering, the daughter’s blue lips whispered, “3, 2, 1 roll.”

Warm, algae-green water slid easily up her arms, her hair smoothed along the back of her neck and shoulders, sleek like after a Sunday night bath.  She eased into the water until only her toes remained exposed to the afternoon sun.  Finally, fully submerged and successful, she slowly released her breath, sending bubbles to the surface and letting her mother know she was okay and had remembered the swimming lessons from the previous summer.  She sunk in the weighty weightlessness until her lungs pinched and then she sprung to the surface like a frog between lily pads.  Her first dive.  She’d done it right.

“Okay, good, let’s try again from standing this time.” No time to bask in success.  There was still much to learn in the nine years before college.  Learning to dive was only the beginning.  There was learning how to: cook, sew, iron, garden, write newsy letters, save money, spend money wisely, get a job, keep a job.  She needed to learn about: the Vietnam war, Watergate, Legionnaire’s Disease, the birds & the bees, the Amish, the Bible (although not from her mother on this one), and about how to survive the cruelty of junior high school girls.  She needed to learn how to: handle disappointment without sour grapes, success with humility, and problem solving with her own creativity and initiative, independent, needing no one.

Protect your head, lock your thumbs, take a deep breath, bend at the waist, 3, 2, 1, roll, she told herself.  Dive, surface, dive again.  She will surface only to breathe like the large seals, only covering her ears with her elbows.

“Seals have no external ears…Ears are the center for hearing and balance.  If a seal shows up as a totem…it is time to do some questions.  Are you getting out of balance? Has the imaginative faculty open so much that you are not staying grounded?  Are you listening to things and people you shouldn’t?  Are you not listening to that which you should?  Are you listening to the inner voice?  Are you following the words of others rather than your own?”

“Gaia, Gaia, ha, ha, ha.” “Okay, okay,” she gurgles, a pool of sleepy drool on her pillow, “Another five minutes and I’ll get up.”

The woman listened to her mother and became a teacher.

In her dream, the woman teaches a friend how to body surf.  “You want to catch the wave before it crests.  See how it is still rounded and rolling?  Start your ride on the front side of the curve.”  They bob through a few innocent waves that barely break on the shoreline.  Warm sun increases her friend’s confidence.  She cannot teach confidence, but she wishes to instill trust.  Her friend might not be comfortable in the water, but she wants more than anything for the friend to feel safe with her.  “Water is the creative element.  It’s a symbol of the feminine, the emotional, the imaginative, and dreamtime.”

Her friend rolls her eyes.  “Why does everything have to mean something to you?  Can’t water just be water?”

“The archetypal force of the seal helps those with them as totems to learn to balance the inner imagination with the outer realities – making both aspects more colorful and beneficial.”

“I want you to feel safe in the water like I do.” Secretly, she wants to vow, “I will keep you safe,” but it is a promise she cannot keep.  She knows the ocean’s power is no contest for her desire to care and protect. And, safety, security is an illusion…warranties, car insurance, marriage contracts, nobody can keep the promise of complete safety and anyone who says s/he can is a charlatan, not to be trusted.  Trust must come from the willingness to stand by, no matter what.  She can make that promise ~ to stand by, fearless, protective without being possessive.

Her friend attempts a few waves then trudges back to the comfort of dry land. 

She wants to surface only to breathe.  She wants to live in the legend of the Selkies, seals by day, sleek, black, graceful and inviting with their large brown eyes.  Appearances can be deceiving, however.  Seals can be quite dangerous if you get too close.  The ocean can be deadly if you go too deep.  “Are you getting out of balance? Has the imaginative faculty opened so much that you are not staying grounded?”  The appearance of her friend in her dream, the practical friend who holds on to her ankles so she will not drift too far away from reality, her friend reminds her to stay balanced. 

She follows her friend to shore, wakes, lifts herself out of bed, separates the blinds to look out at the world, sunlight, soft and unsquinting, she remembers, water is the creative element and

“There are no limits to the creative energies stimulated by the seal totem.  They enliven dreams and awaken the imagination so they can be applied to the outer world.” ~ Animal Speaks.

5 years ago

I entered my first term at Goddard to study Transformative Language Arts and get certified in Poetry/Journal Therapy.  Five years ago this month I gave myself five years to "finish" this journey, to be the person I was meant to be, to sell my house and delve in the healing power of the spoken word.  I didn't finish Goddard, certification, or a poem a day.  My blog posts in 2007 were so hopeful, so positive, so certain, so clear, but again, life got in the way of my ideals.  This March, I will know if I can continue my journey in with the transformative power of words - if I can begin again.  Paulo Freire said once "...to begin always anew, to reconstruct, and to not spoil, to refuse to bureaucratize the mind, to understand and to live life as a process--live to become..." to do all that is what?  Is courage? Is Transfiguration? Is living life? Is human?


Big sigh!  Today I begin again.

Coming Out

Toy Box

But you can’t be a lesbian

her mother cried:

You played with dolls

not footballs.

You curled your hair

in pink foam rollers.

You chose,

from the hand-me-down box,

smocked and flowered dresses

instead of your brother’s blue jeans.

But what mother didn’t know

is that all the hair-curling,

and dress wearing

was so that Miss Wilson would

adore her, pet her, claim her,

kiss her.

What mother didn’t know

she cried

was that when Ken raped Barbie,

Barbie turned to Midge for comfort.

Choice at Transfiguration

A Thin Place

Saturated in release

we lie

while the world

swirls around us –

an ocean of evolution.

Later comes the choice:

to linger deep

or surface

to preserve the moment

or simply swim on

to sidle up to mystery

or congeal in the known

to persist with gills

or breathe air.

Transfiguration

Ascension

I prepare the way

with a clean house

a rested body

a clean conscience

Darkness visible

I am ready

after years of shedding

I am ready for release

Ready to let go

all the strands of hair

the blood and breath

all the shadows of wrong

doing, I let go

Keep Away Girl

Who resides at the shoulder
of that keep-away arm?
She does not know.
She only knows the figure
on the other end of the fist.
She knows only her heart,
a bruised peach
that continues to beat and desire
and press against
that hardened, stay-away fist.
Why? Venus asks, Why
does she keep
subjecting herself to hope?
As if that handful of coal
will brilliantly burst into diamonds -
as if the knuckles will un-gnarl
and that ossified elbow
will miraculously bend and release.

In Words Matter

You are my living mystery

the inexplicable constancy

of sunrise and awe

of a bleeding moon

You are my wonderment

my robin song in winter

a fantastical poem

of atom splitting effervescence

and joy

O Yahweh

You are

the riot of my soul

that spins me into oblivion

amazed and perplexed

I tremble at the mountainous

miracle of You

foundation cracking

floor creaking

fullness of You

my fences fall

in a tornado

of temperance

a thunderbolt of love

doors burst open

to You

exultant

ecstatic

over and under

whelmed

by You

my dove

my fire

my God

You are

alive

in me

Another Epiphipoem

(Wo)

Man-i-

fest light.

May I possess

epiphany –

seamlessly celebrate

reason and mystery –

together in one luminous

corner of un-i-verse, to claim

my own

my whole.

Recovery

Sun Catchers,

You who have braved loss
                of lovers
                of motherhood
                of houses
                and Sweetpeas

you who have trudged through amazons
                of anxiety
                strangling vines of insecurity
                and adrenalin surges that snake up your spine

you who have traversed darkness
                while the unwanted
                press their urgent, metallic bodies into you,

you have sought relief
                in shiny bottles
                and long-stemmed glasses --
                a night-life held delicately between fingertips
                until cracked into chartreuse shards of morning light.

You have bloodied your feet
                on that broken glass
                limped along through sallow days
                wallowed in self pity
                until finally you pulled yourself from the depths

with mud-sucking honesty, you
                gathered the shattered pieces
                to fuse them bit by broken bit --
                to make useful and pretty again--

you have made sun-catchers from shadows.

Encountering Dangerous Beauty

Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands,
parched places of apathy, or are you
agitated in desert wastelands ~

awake in the dark light where mystics stand,
or do you slump in your usual Sunday pew?
Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands?

Do you fill your life with privileges of every brand
or do you empty your cup of all you once knew ~
agitated in desert wastelands.

What do you require to acquire? How do you fill your hands?
Can you reduce possessions to just a few
or are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands?

Commercialize, privatize, merchandise: your life in a can.
What do you get from all this? What do you construe ~
agitated in desert wastelands?

To bloom in the desert, don’t you understand,
you must let go of the last hope of morning dew.
Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands
or vitally agitated in desert wastelands?







Wendy Thompson 2/2007

January 2007

White Light of a January Morning

Snow today and I am not eager
to drive to work down Sandy Boulevard
because cars park in the middle of the road here,
even with a mere two inches of powder,

so I delay and watch from my upstairs window
while fat flakes rain down on the bright light
of 52 year old Donna and five year old Jackson
sledding on the white sidewalk

this pallid day, another northwest winter,
sky, as always, a pewter gray, but today
children unfurl through red front doors,
full of oatmeal and enthusiasm

with more than a hint of ecstasy
stuffing their Michelin-man snowsuits
while parents gather on the corner,
a veiled vigil to snowball levity.

Nobody is going anywhere today,
except to ski in the cemetery,
wave hello to the dead,
and etch angels in grass-speckled snow.

Outside my window, between SUVs
and a few enduring maple trees,
three days past Epiphany,
tiny white Christmas lights still blink hope;

overflowing, feet-stomping, snow-shaking, door-slamming
hope; Donna shouting ‘woohoo’ with neighbor boys -
a tribe of the uncensored; hope
leaves white footprints in their abandoned wake.

It's a Sign

One aqua plastic Easter egg
landed in my spruce tree.
Thrown, dropped, placed, unearthed?
How it got there I can only imagine.
The landlord, a neighbor, a past lover, a crow?
I want to attach a person
or storyline to this message of hope.
She's back, love you best, free rent, you win?

Robin egg-blue, nestled in evergreen branches
just out of reach ~ simply, spring always follows winter.

I Open My Blinds to Your Light

Jan Richardson asks, "What does it mean
for my own life to become
a path, a way of welcome
for the Holy One?"

It means
I pry open my rusty jaw
to sing again ~
the tip of my tongue
flipped on my teeth
to form the Ls
of light, laughter and love ~
in song
in prayer
and preparation.

It means truth
stretches effortlessly before me
and peace enters
like a warm shower
on tired shoulders,
a loving hand
at the nape of the neck,
or a kiss on the forehead.

It means the everyday
becomes more
more verdant in summer,
crimson in autumn,
or crystalline in winter.

I smell spring,
lilacs mostly,
and I can breathe again
on the threshold of home.

Sacred YES

Today was annunciation Sunday. I finished the final of three concerts with Aurora, which was an opportunity for me to say YES to life again. I also had this poem read in church:

Lead me in the way that time has proven true

You made me
now let me
love me for that.
Let me shake my wet wings dry
and fly each dawning day
across all the oceans
You intended me.
Let me muddy my feet
along every mountain trail
You intended me.
Let me utter the words,
sing the songs,
dance the dances,
and love the ones
You intended me.
Behold me in daylight
as well as dark moonless nights.
Unveil each hidden corner
and covered capacity to remind me
there is no escape
from all
You intended me
to be.
Let me be that
and I will be true.

Adventure

I didn't think Grace would come again in my life, but I'm beginning to at least feel the memory:

You enter my life

like a northwest snowfall,

fickle and inconsistent, one

moment an incessant

rain of winter turns

thick and whitens

rooftops then thins

again into rain, more walls

of rain, a vexatious mix

of opposites You are

here now You are gone.

Oh come oh come

oh Glorious, oh Wisdom

oh Love

oh One, stay,

please stay and lift me

from my darkness

ordain my shadows to flight

I beg, in the cleft

of my being, waiting

for awe, for You

magnificent You

stay, stick to the still

green grass dotted

with golden birch leaves,

stay and light

on my tongue

like the first snowflake,

then melt into nothing

into me so I can believe

You are gone forever

and I can believe

You will come again.

Lunar Eclipse part 2

I rush past the wreath on the front door into the dark house, my breath creating ghostly wisps on the settled air. I’ve got to hurry and unpack my briefcase and put away the groceries so that I can enjoy the full moon. Around my little yellow house I flounce, preparing for a moment of communion and sacred calm with nature. Isn’t that just like Advent, all the industriousness, anticipation, and hectic preparation for the BIG EVENT. A white gold streak of light presses through my closed blinds: remember me? Remember awe? Reverence? Centeredness? Transcendence? Mystery? Poetry?

Yes, yes, I do remember, but first I have to check my email and Facebook – it’s been an hour since I last logged in. Oh, and I need to wrap those presents so I can mail them off to Pennsylvania. I am looking forward to a moment with the moon…maybe the five minutes before “Grimm” starts, that new show filmed in Portland. I’m really hooked on that show…I get hooked on a lot of things, actually, and I do remember being hooked once on the moon.

I walk wistfully away from the moon shadows that vein across my hardwood floor and wonder what happened to the woman who would drop everything to stand in awe of the miracle of the full moon, its light and shadow, mystery and metaphor.

Later, after Grimm, I set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning to see the lunar eclipse. I’m determined to re-find that woman who marvels in nature, deeming it more important than anything else in her world, nature and poetry her first priorities.

I wake to the shrill of the alarm, feeling a foggy virtuousness about being up so early on a Saturday. I throw on a jacket over my robe and think about stepping outside barefoot—I’ve done that before, into snow, just so I’d know the full chill of Earth’s winter—but not this morning. While pulling on a hat, I’m already charting the words for the poem I’m going to write about the lunar eclipse—before I even step outside…something very backwards about that. It’s been so hard for me to be present these days. I’m constantly future tripping or back flipping into the past, constantly documenting experiences I haven’t fully experienced, like an American journalist reporting on the tsunami in Japan, I’m detached.

Outside in the still morning I look for the moon. Street lights to the east shine like Bethlehem stars in an urban tale of miracles. The neighbor’s Christmas lights cast a golden glow on the tawny grass of their front lawn, but where’s the moon? I walk out into the middle of the empty street – a comfort in being alone while surrounded by sleeping bodies—a privacy encircled by humanity. Through a misty veil I see the moon, ¾ eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow and a towering cedar. The light is sallow and unimpressive—the eclipse obscuring the light of the moon’s glory. I think of Jan Richardson’s poem:

Prayer

God of the two lights,
I love the sun,
its revealing brilliance,
its lingering warmth;
but in the dark of night,
let me learn
the wisdom of the moon,
how it waxes and wanes
but does not die,
how it gives itself
to shadow,
knowing it will emerge whole
once more.

I am reassured that behind the less than brilliant light of the moon this morning, amidst the Earth’s shadow, behind towering cedar and a morning mist, wholeness remains. The moon is always whole, despite its curving, curling, waxing, waning or non existent views.

I am reminded that I, too, am always whole, despite the many eclipses and half-lit dim views I present to the world, despite the gibbous glimpses of brilliance I put out there, the waxing and waning of energy, motivation, desire, passion, and focus. Behind it all, I am still whole.

At 5:30 a.m. my phone chimes a text from a friend trying to detox on her own: “just know i may need the troops (meaning me coming to get her) im embarrassed im gross this apt is gross its all just gross and its so hard to ask for help” I can only pray that she finds her way clear to receive the help that has already been offered. I remember being that eclipsed by alcohol, seeing nothing else but my misery and desperation, giving myself up to shadow. It wasn’t that long ago for me. But this morning, although I may not be fully back into my wholeness and still can’t quite be still in the present, I did just step out into the frosty December morning to look for the moon. I stood in silent darkness, trusting that beneath it all, behind it all, with or without my light shinning, I am whole and I will emerge once more.

Lunar Eclipse part 1

If I were to stand on the moon tonight

what light would I see from Earth?

Would it be strings of colored Christmas lights?

Or streams of headlights racing to the mall for

some last-minute, hectic consumerism.

Would it be the golden glow of childlike wonder?

Or sparks of anger from the drunken lady across the street,

who resents the doctor who cut off her cancerous breast.

Would it be the Festival of Lights at the Grotto,

or the Star of David at the synagogue,

a menorah, Kwanzaa lights, Advent candles,

a solstice fire burning,

or would it be the blue light of a television

that keeps the widow company

during her first Christmas without

the love of her life?

Would it be the green light of forgiveness?

Or the blazing red, white, and blue artillery

across an ocean of loathing.

Could the light from Earth

simply be three candles lit:

one for gratitude

one for longing

and one for clarity

in this mystery?

Lunar Eclipse part 1

If I were to stand on the moon tonight

what light would I see from Earth?

Would it be strings of colored Christmas lights?

Or streams of headlights racing to the mall for

some last-minute, hectic consumerism.

Would it be the golden glow of childlike wonder?

Or sparks of anger from the drunken lady across the street,

who resents the doctor who cut off her cancerous breast.

Would it be the Festival of Lights at the Grotto,

or the Star of David at the synagogue,

a menorah, Kwanzaa lights, Advent candles,

a solstice fire burning,

or would it be the blue light of a television

that keeps the widow company

during her first Christmas without

the love of her life?

Would it be the green light of forgiveness?

Or the blazing red, white, and blue artillery

across an ocean of loathing.

Could the light from Earth

simply be three candles lit:

one for gratitude

one for longing

and one for clarity

in this mystery?

Advent Waiting

An on-your-tiptoes anticipation --

does it come from within

like a giggle brewing

until suddenly you realize

your endorphins hit a high

and you smile, spontaneously,

at nothing?

Or is the thrill, the unexpected happiness,

something you put on with intent

like a polar fleece wrap?

You heave yourself off the couch,

away from the television

(It's a Wonderful Life)

to say, "I'm cold. I want to be warm.

It's nearly Christmas and I want

wonder and awe and newborn

light amid the gray and early night."

So it didn't snow like Storm Watch 20…

predicted, so we're still

at war. But, peace is still

a possibility. Is this when

you put on your cheery red vest

with purpose and resolve, saying,

"I am ready. What's next?"

It's Advent again

I was telling my Advent reading partner that every year at this time I feel re-integrated with myself, more whole, even though I am standing on the edge of darkness. So much has happened since I last posted here. I have been releasing myself from the chains of addiction, both alcohol and relationships and just this weekend I re-entered my poet self, the artist in me, the singer, the seeker, the healer, the leader. I stood in front of 100 women at the Aurora Chorus retreat and shared my poetry, sang to them, thanked them, and I was not afraid to be myself among all those powerful women. I felt the belonging again that I have so struggled over my years to feel. I believe it is this sacred time of quickening that leads me here every year. Although I have probably posted my Advent poems before, maybe it is time to send them out again. Here is one from four Thanksgivings ago when my traditional plans for hiking were abated, so I took a retreat up to the coast, the site where Lewis & Clark thought they had reached the ocean, but weren't quite there. For all the years I thought I was there, but not quite, for all sorrow and disappointment that I now understand is merely a dissatisfaction with the way things are, a sign of the need for change:

Sunday Morning at Cape Disappointment

inspired by Wallace Stevens and Kilian McDonnell’s Sunday Morning

Toward the edge of the west

at the confluence of the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean,

away from complacent prayers,

I am weary of forgiveness.

Can’t I just buy my mercy with a sand dollar

or shimmering coins of the sea?

One ship on the horizon; one woman on shore

dreaming among a graveyard of driftwood,

bleached white piles of bone.

I can’t keep saying I’m sorry.

I don’t want to keep listening to apologies for humanity,

not among the superficial noises in church,

the chaste chantings of songs mesmerized too long ago.

I can’t keep saying I’m sorry for who I am.

That is not my way. My way is among slapping waves

where everything else can wait except the morning poem,

the morning praise.

I wander along a cloistered walk of ancient knowing

to the sheltered circle of cedar.

I manage my tribute so much better here, at the Cape,

away from that cheery fluorescents of denial,

toward a Chinook blessing:

We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring heights, its vitality and abundance of life, and together we ask that it

Teach us, and show us the Way…

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields and we ask that they

Teach us, and show us the Way…

We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly to the sky with the earth in their roots and the heavens in their branches, the fir and the pine and the cedar, and we ask them to

Teach us, and show us the Way…

through a chilly November light, after a night of sorrow,

teach us that we are not so different here. Show me the way

to the raw wonder of my being. Why can’t we just admit

that sea-life stinks when washed to the shore, as do we.

And so did the sweaty prophet, born in a fetid stable, so real.

We all reek of fallibility. Why can’t we just admit it.

Why can’t we just sink our differences, eat our bread,

drink our wine on the shores of unknowing, smile sheepishly

and go back to work on Monday,

plowing through our week with all our disheveled divinity

displayed for everyone to see.

More Summer observations

His skin, an historic shade of gray, hangs in folds over his neck and in wrinkled pendulums above his elbows. In one hand he holds a walking stick, the other a closed umbrella he uses like a cane. He can’t afford a walker, but that doesn’t stop him from inching his way down SE Salmon on a sunny Saturday. Pausing to catch his breath, he peers into the blue spruce to look for the Junco he’s certain he heard calling. He hikes his pants back up over his rib cage, the make-shift crutches dangling from his arthritic wrists. Nothing stops him from finding a shade of joy on this July day.

Break open my heart.

Her hair is an historic shade of salt and pepper gray – still perfectly coifed and ample. She pushes a walker with an attached oxygen tank. Bent like an oak branch, brittle and dignified, she inches her way up SE Salmon. Nothing stops her from greeting her boyfriend on this bright July morning.

Break open my heart.

Jupiter in March

There, that red spot, that’s where I am and who –
that one immense high pressure band
swirling above the calm blue curly-cue
sea. I’d rather be the sea, salty and

expansive, but I keep spinning around
myself, a counter rotating vortex
at odds with my core and all that surrounds
me. I am Jupiter’s great red spot, vexed,

irritated, a cosmic blemish, hives
a bruise, a zit, a corpuscle, blood
red molten mass of sunset and sunrise,
both in a hurry like a racing flood

of ruddy mud, undefined, I am that,
but I’d rather be the milky blue calm
of the Earth’s surf, surrendering to flat
shores, a slight white rush of foam, then a balm.

Ebb and flow, wax and wane, in and out,
I’d rather be that consistency,
moon tide, breath upon breath, yes, I’d rather be
one breath of the sea.

Sonnet

Some of you were asking for the most recent poems submitted. This is a classic sonnet.

Calla Lily

Dear calla lily, how he does ascend
into your lingering, gilded beauty,
you and you alone are his fleur-de-lis.
Unassuming grace, never to offend,
you bring an aged and wounded life to mend.
Without, you see, he can no longer be
so has sworn forever your devotee.
Wishing this blissful union to suspend,
your ardent worshipper plucks a full stem
to quill his still and clutching cobalt heart
and claim you, Calla Lily, all his own.
But, man’s transfusion is lily’s requiem.
Colorless and wilting, you soon depart,
fertile gifts aimlessly drifting, un-sown.

I don't write much in January

only this silly little poem:

The baby robin
begins her job in
hunting worms outside my window.
Cheer up! Cheer up!
Oh, fill your cup
she chirped, insisting I do so.

I have nine months of practicing new life and I no longer cling to anything that drags me away from the present.

Anna Akhmatova

Sunday morning, October 31, 2010 -- I have many chores to do and yet I cannot put down this book of poetry, this book of answers. I flip through the voluminous Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova for a thank you/gratitude poem for the friend who gave me this book. I know Akhmatova’s poems from ’96, when my passionate, painter lover sent me:

2

And as if by mistake
I used the familiar: “Ty…”
And the shadow of a smile lit up
Your sweet features.

From slips such as these
Such glances can blaze…
I love you like forty
Fond sisters.

Page 115, I tore a scrap of paper from my to-do list to remember, just a small piece to mark a moment between chores, a memory. I must get back to work. The coffee is cold. I am cold. Having stripped the bed for wash and not turned on the heat, I put in a load of laundry. Feeling less guilty, I open the book again. Shouldn’t I feel guilty that I haven’t written anything but lesson plans and meeting minutes for over a month? I am the poet. My friend gave me this book because I am the poet and yet I skim the shorter poems thinking I really don’t have all day. I should buy Halloween candy and write this thank you note. Where is the poem of gratitude?

Maybe page 93? But first, some context. My friend bought this book for my birthday. I turned 50 this last May. We, just two weeks ago, October 15th, found time to finally meet. She joined me for another birthday, six months of sobriety and brought me this book. I was grateful to have her there to honor six months of ridding myself of those profligate companions, whiskey & wine. The challenge, oh the challenge of saying goodbye to my toxic love. There is no replacement right now, only faith that “placid happiness” will again lead to some form of sober bliss. Thank you, Karen, for recognizing both of my birthdays:

When you’re drunk it’s so much fun –
Your stories don’t make sense.
An early fall has strung
The elms with yellow flags.

We’ve strayed in to the land of deceit
And we’re repenting bitterly,
Why then are we smiling these
Strange and frozen smiles?

We wanted piercing anguish
Instead of placid happiness…
I won’t abandon my comrade,
So dissolute and mild.

A woman in my recovery group was asking if this contentment and serenity was pretty much it or would she ever again experience those adrenaline rushes she identified as happiness. I worry about that for myself. What if the quivering passion I’ve known in the past was purely alcohol induced and I will never write another love poem or even marvel at the warm night breath on the other side of the pillow, so much so that I never wish to sleep again.
Such a thunderstorm, of course,
Promised me little joy,
I learned about the eyes of happiness
Accidently.

I cannot choreograph my happiness, but I am aware, this chilly morning, that poetry and music are stirring something richer, sweeter than wine in me.

Broad and yellow is the evening light,
Tender the April coolness.
You are so many years late,
Nevertheless I am glad you came.

Sit here closer to me
And look on joyfully:
Here is a blue composition book –
With the poems of my childhood.

Forgive me that I ignored the sun
And that I lived in sorrow.
Forgive, forgive, that I
Mistook too many others for you.

After my lover introduced me to Akhmatova, I ingested as many of her poems as I could. Given that I am not Russian, not political, do not read Pushkin or Brodsky, I wondered, at first, if I could find any connection to this poet. Then I found her love poems. She understood the dialectic nature of love. She reminded me that a lover was not my ticket to happiness. She wrote what I couldn’t say, that conflict in me of “I want, I want, I want, but not too close, not too long, not too deep to rip open those old scars.” I battle my need for love and companionship every day. I fight this desire to belong to just one and the pain of exclusion when I discover I am only one of many. I DO NOT NEED anyone. I know the absurdity of that statement. I know I will love again and again and again. By the time I die, my heart will be stitched together so many times, patches upon patches, that even Goodwill will refuse its capacity to warm anyone anymore.

Love

Now, like a little snake, it curls into a ball,
Bewitching your heart,
Then for days it will coo like a dove
On the little white windowsill.

Or it will flash as bright frost,
Drowse like a gillyflower
But surely and stealthily it will lead you away
From joy and from tranquility.

It knows how to sob so sweetly
In the prayer of a yearning violin,
And how fearful to divine it
In a still unfamiliar smile.

No wonder AA suggests people in recovery not enter love relationships until at least a year. And yet, the irony, if God is love, and in AA we surrender to a loving God, we surrender our hearts, first thing, to both the dove and the snake. Yes? Hmmm…maybe that IS the point of that little Eden/Apple story! Where is the freedom in this understanding?

One heart isn’t chained to another,
If you want to – leave!
There’s lots of happiness in store
For one who’s free

I’m not weeping, I’m not complaining,
Happiness is not for me.
Don’t kiss me. I am weary –
Death will kiss me.

Days of gnawing tedium endured
With the winter snow.
Why, oh why should you
Be better than the one I chose?

Okay, I hear the sarcasm in this poem and the implication that the only true freedom is death. I was drinking myself to death. I wanted to die, not obviously by my hand, but surreptitiously, so I might be able to include others in the killing and blame; obliquely, “they” led me to this…all those who would not claim me as their number one love and concern. (Can you tell I’m working on Step 4?) Well, Akhmatova has a poem for that, too.
Page 99. Ironically, the lover who introduced me to Akhmatova, also introduced me to the pain of ultimate exclusion, returning to her husband, introducing me to the bitter cheap penny side of her love.

To the Muse

The Muse, my sister, looked into my face,
Her glance was bright and clear,
And she took away the golden ring,
The first springtime gift.

Muse! You see how happy they all are,
Girls, wives, widows…
Better to perish on the wheel,
But not these chains.

I know: yes, no, even I must tear off
The delicate daisy petals.
Everyone on earth is destined to feel
The torments of love.

I keep the candle burning in the window till dawn
And I don’t long for anyone,
But I don’t want, don’t want, don’t want
To know how they kiss each other.

Page 99. The tears of loss brewed again, trouncing on this morning’s hunger pains. Ten years gone by and still I cry on to page 99; “a blissful bird” has not yet “sang his fill/About the way we define our love.” And yet, I am finally able to say that I DO want again. I am willing to drain out that blanket of inebriation that kept me from feeling pain OR joy. I am willing to confess honestly, my needs and my manipulations.

It is 2:15 and I still haven’t eaten, still in my pajamas, still a bit dry-mouthed from the fear of exposure and the fear of rejection that I feel certain will come from these Step 4 admissions and from putting off what I think others expect me to do today. But I am the poet and I am the lover and maybe today, October 31st, I should not wear any other costume. – the independent Girl Scout, the dutiful daughter, the empathetic healer, the conscientious teacher, the stone butch, the housekeeper, the even keeled grownup, the overly generous friend…Just me today. The tears have cleansed me, readied me for the banal, the laundry. Thank you, Akhmatova. Thank you, Karen.

Frienemies

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace
-David Rakoff

Nathan, at one of the outlying tables,
his feet tangled up in the disk jockey's cables,
surveyed the room as unseen as a ghost
while he mulled over what he might say for his toast.
That the couple had asked him for this benediction
seemed at odds with them parking him here by the kitchen.
That he turned up at all was still a surprise,
and not just to him, it was there in the eyes
of the guests who had seen the mirage and drew near
and then covered their shock with a "Nathan, you're here.."
and then, silence, they had nothing to say beyond that.
A few of the braver souls lingered to chat.
They all knew...
It was neither a secret nor mystery
that he and the couple had quite an odd history.
Their bonds were a tangle of friendship and sex.
Josh, his best pal once, and Patty, his ex.

For awhile he could barely go out in the city
without being a punchline or object of pity.
"Poor Nathan" had virtually become his new name.
And so he showed up, just to show he was game,
though, his invite was late, a forgotten addendum.
For Nate, there could be no more clear referendum
that he need but endure through this evening and then
He would likely not see Josh and Patty again.
Josh's sister was speaking, a princess in peach.
Nathan dug in his pocket to study his speech.
He'd pored over bartlets for couplets to filch,
he'd stayed up until three, still came up with zilch,
except for instructions he'd underscored twice,
just two words in length and those words were: "Be Nice"

Too often, he thought, our emotions and betray us
and reason departs once we're up on the dais.
He'd witnessed uncomfortable moments where others had lost their way quickly,
where sisters and brothers had gotten too prickly,
and peppered their babbling
with stories of benders,or lesbian dabbling,
or spot-on impressions of mothers-in-law,
which, True, Nathan thought, always garnered guffaws
but the price seemed too high, with the laughs seldom cloaking
hostility masquerading as joking.
No, he'd swallow his rage and he'd bank all his fire,
he knew that in his case, the bar was set higher.
Folks were just waiting for him to erupt.
They'd be hungry for blood even though they had supped.
They'd want tears or some other unsightly reaction
and Nathan would not give them that satisfaction.
Though Patty, a harlot, and Josh was a lout,
At least Nathan knew what he'd not talk about.
"I won't wish them divorce, that they wither and sicken
or tonight that they choke on their salmon or chicken.
I won't mention that time when the cottage lost power
in that storm on the cape and they left for an hour.
And they thought it was just the cleverest ruse
to pretend it took that long to reset the fuse.
Or that time Josh advised me with so much insistence
that I should grant Patty a little more distance.
That the worst I could do was to hamper and crowd her
that if Patty felt stifled, she'd just take a powder.
That a plant needs its space just as much as its water.
and that I shouldn't give Patty that ring that I bought her.
Which, in retrospect only elicits a 'Gosh,
I hardly deserved a friend like you, Josh'.

No, I won't spill those beans or make myself foolish
to satisfy appetites venal and ghoulish.
I will not be the blot on this hellish affair."
And with that, Nathan pushed out and rose from his chair.
and just by the tapping of knife against crystal,
all eyes turned his way, like he'd fired off a pistol.
"Mmmhmm, Joshua, Patricia, dear family and friends,
A few words, if you will, before everything ends.
You've promised to honor, to love and obey.
We've quaffed our champagne and been cleansed by sorbet,
all in endorsement of your ‘hers and his-dom’.
So now let me add my two cents worth of wisdom.
I was racking my brain sitting here at this table,
until I remembered this suitable fable
that gets at a truth, though it may well distort us,
so herewith the tale of the scorpion and tortoise:
The scorpion was hamstrung, his tail all aquiver;
just how would he manage to get across the river?
“The water’s so deep,” he observed with a sigh,
which pricked at the ears of the tortoise nearby.
“Well why don’t you swim?” asked the slow-moving fellow,
“unless you’re afraid. I mean, what are you, yellow?”
“It isn’t a matter of fear or of whim,”
said the scorpion,
“but that i don’t know how to swim.”
“Ah, forgive me. I didn’t mean to be glib when
i said that. I figured you were an amphibian.”
“No offense taken,” the scorpion replied,
“but how about you help me to reach the far side?
You swim like a dream, and you have what I lack.
Let’s say you take me across on your back?”
“I’m really not sure that’s the best thing to do,”
said the tortoise, “now that i see that it’s you.
You’ve a less than ideal reputation preceding:
there’s talk of your victims all poisoned and bleeding.
You’re the scorpion — and how can I say this — but, well,
I just don’t feel safe with you riding my shell.”
The scorpion replied, “What would killing you prove?
We’d both drown, so tell me: how would that behoove
me to basically die at my very own hand
when all I desire is to be on dry land?”
The tortoise considered the scorpion’s defense.
When he gave it some thought, it made perfect sense.
The niggling voice in his mind he ignored,
and he swam to the bank and called out: “Climb aboard!”
But just a few moments from when they set sail,
the scorpion lashed out with his venomous tail.
The tortoise too late understood that he’d blundered
when he felt his flesh stabbed and his carapace sundered.
As he fought for his life, he said, “tell me why
you have done this! For now we will surely both die!”
“I don’t know!” cried the scorpion. “You never should trust
a creature like me because poison I must!
I’d claim some remorse or at least some compunction,
but I just can’t help it; my form is my function.
You thought I’d behave like my cousin, the crab,
but unlike him, it is but my nature to stab.”
The tortoise expired with one final quiver.
And then both of them sank, swallowed up by the river.
The tortoise was wrong to ignore all his doubts —
because in the end, friends, our natures will out.
So: what can we learn from their watery ends?
Is there some lesson on how to be friends?
I think what it means is that central to living
a life that is good is a life that’s forgiving.
We’re creatures of contact, regardless of whether
we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.
Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more —
since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore.
So we make ourselves open while knowing full well
it’s essentially saying, “please, come pierce my shell.”

Breitenbush Labyrinth

Grasshopper in the Rain

Before you enter the stone labyrinth you ask, “What’s next?”
With palms pressed together in prayer
you step in; step by intentional step
toward the first curve, the next bend.

Eyes to the ground, you repeat, “What’s next?”
A new job, a move, the laundry?
Stay focused, breathe one foot in front
of the other. Breathe, “What’s next?”

A row of cairns piled along the stone wall,
worries piled among weeds,
and a penny placed purposefully heads up.

That northwest rain pelts your head
and the Breitenbush River tumults past,
a raging river of want, you are
afraid of the rain, a reminder of what’s next:

winter depression, isolation, loneliness.
Stay focused, breathe, one heavy foot
in front of the other, “What’s next?”
The calm center of the labyrinth

and an alter of plastic Mary’s,
more pennies
and Queen Anne’s Lace.

On your return from center, a grasshopper
springs across your path, portending
both scourge and abundance. “Take a chance,”
she chirps with tympanic rubbing.

“Get off your haunches and move. Trust
the inner voice.” How is it she appears
in this shivering rain? A grasshopper
is sunshine and warmth,

but in this moment, this now,
there is only river flow, cloud release,
and the question,

“What’s next?” A grasshopper never
leaps backwards, so you press your heel
into rain-soaked loam, then the ball
of your foot rolls to the first toe, weight

shifts, anxiety shifts, your mind shifts
into another step forward, palms open.
You look up through droplets on your lashes
and realize that what’s next is simply now.

Saturday Night

There's No Getting Over the Loss

Rain strokes the nape of her neck,
trickles down the furrow of her spine,
washing her clean of mourning.
Rain is her boy child, grown only in spirit,
his first smile caresses her wet cheek.

She baths in a night pool, weak with wonder.
Sword ferns and zebra grass sway.
Rain is the poplar, re-seeding. Rain
upon her bare shoulder, she blinks away
heavy droplets, eyelash kisses of relief,

and opens her body to remembering.

Sunday Morning

Wet web of morning
a delicate greeting
from the space between.
We do not oppose the weaving
nor protest the capture
of last night's tears,
glistening in today's
un-foretold light.

Confessions

Don't kick my shadow

such a shady story

in the bright light of day

elongated like an El Greco painting

pained in purple gray

or stumped into secrecy

my shadow

is as much a part of me

as the detail you see

in the face

facing you

in all honesty

Sentry Dream

Unbridled chestnut

mare. Forehead to forehead, we

press in reunion.

Then she comforts me with her head in my lap

as I stroke her long neck and the cleft between her breasts.

What I Lost

Spirit of Spirits

With my lover, the barefoot bandit, I lost

that wretched gift of time,

swallowing only a liquid limbo

until the fog of inebriation cloaked

that wretched gift of time,

and I, soused and insouciant,

until the fog of inebriation cloaked

wanton wanting with languorous longing.

And I, soused and insouciant,

embodied a poverty of spirit,

wanton wanting with languorous longing,

my soul, yes, but this glass, never empty.

Embodied in a poverty of spirit,

sweet grapes, divine:

my soul, yes, but this glass, never empty,

a timelessness without bitter absolute.

Sweet grapes, divine:

nourish me that I might become full,

a timelessness without bitter absolute,

fermented in celestial firmament.

nourish me that I might become full,

quenched and clean, my barefoot lover,

fermented in celestial firmament.

But with this masked bandit, I cannot see,

quenched and clean, my barefoot lover,

the blurred delusion of naked surrender.

But with this masked bandit, I cannot see

adorned thieves who break in and steal

the blurred delusion of naked surrender.

I am still clothed in want and need

while adorned thieves break in and steal.

Oh, but they cannot triumph over the undressed poor.

I am still clothed in want and need,

so more quickly ensnared, I

cannot triumph over the undressed poor

who live un-seized by desire.

So more quickly ensnared, I

am defeated at the vine by the ones

who live un-seized by desire.

With my lover, Barefoot Bandit, I lost.