a Wendelise production

Trailing

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

After Smith Rock

Apophatic Desert

What is not basalt is bone

What is not bone is glare

All that is not glare is juniper thin air

I come here to empty –

stark end of ego –

refulgence of discomfort

I sweat. I burn. Oxygen deficit

There is no shade under scrub oak

no respite on rocky crag

What is not sage is cleft

What is not cleft is death

All that is not death is luminous end.

Walt Whitman 150 Poetry Contest Award Winner

"...there was a child went forth every day;
and the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;” ~ Walt Whitman

there is a deer in me

   so I am told

doe eyes, moist and wide

   tender listening eyes

alert, yet often avert

   acquaintance

a fragile fawn

   curled in a spotted C

along the edge

   of a forest-lined road

there is a deer in me

   of spindly grace, innocent

so I am told

   by a woman long ago

who caught me in her lusty headlights

   a stark and raucous invasion

a barbed wire intrusion

   on my leafy moon-lit life

she insisted I expose a downy side

   my underbelly to her, for her

to spy, to pet, to own, but she

   could not perceive

there is a deer in me

   only to be verged upon

with open palm and cautious step

   only a wish for possibility

of a nuzzle.  She did not distinguish

   she could not see the deer in me

wary and alarmed

   vigilant as the antlered buck

who knows exactly when to retreat.

Lenten Journey

Perimeter

Austerity begets ascent

acrimonious deserts

or mountain crests

horizon and apex

all challenge my inner edges

a luminal wilderness

white-bone simplicity

raw, stripped bare

belligerent and insistent on leanness

in disinterested deserts

on oxygen-thin peaks

I disrobe self-consciousness

and seize the undefined

Lake Chelan 2013

Winterfest: Fire and Ice

I am she, who pauses under a winter sky cluttered with stars,

ice-breathed Lady of the Lake, black-blue with mystery.

Night of the new year -- oaken night of chimney smoke spirals

Night of woolen sweaters and plaid blankets

Night of ice sculptures: coyote on Echo Ridge, blue-white

Scottish terrier, a tower of ice bricks with a bonfire heart

Night of cold hands wrapped round mugs of reassurance

yet still I wonder how the world ends, if, or when:

by desirous fire or icy hate?

But on this night, Chinese lanterns are aloft with flame,

hundreds of gold-red papery balloons

bear wishes, wishes, wishes, only wishes --

a constellation of wishes on this sliver-moon night --

this one night of fire and ice.

On Epiphany Sunday

Power?

-the wealth of poverty,

an empty abundance –

like one red Indian paintbrush

in the Bitteroots of Idaho

minute, nascent, humble,

callow amidst hoary wisdom.

Power is a yearning

for salty justice,

a cumulus hope,

a bent and tarnished star,

the imperfect grace

of fault lines in this terrain.

Scumbled Lines of Loving

she allowed herself to sink

and jell into heartbreak

like tar in a tin can

why ever

did she waste

all those years

on fire

when she knew

she would get singed

and burned

and burned again

it was the third degree

it was the end

until out of the ash

and rain

and sun baked summer

came a new foundation

built on forgetfulness

and sand

she scumbled the lines

of loving until memory

no longer pained her

On the way home from Rogue River

Fleeting

The moss is there, I believe,
on the north side of the Douglas fir,
I assume. I have to trust
it is there, believe it because,
traveling from the south,
I cannot see for sure
what is ahead. 

The old growth forest
whisks by like a Bev Doolittle painting--
those rows and rows of straight bare birch
with camouflaged appaloosa ponies.
Out of the corner of my eye
I catch brief possibilities
of wolves hidden in the woods,
or deer, or even nymphs and sprites
in the spaces between. 

A 4:00 p.m. sunlight
flicks like a strobe
and I am disoriented--
something about the past
being done, karmic overload
resolved, the Belladonna poison
of old loves expunged.

So what are these tears?
Muddy-brown regret for what is gone?
The past is grip-less,
yet the sage moss ahead,
invisible just seconds before,
is now at my back,
also behind me,
before I ever had a chance to touch it.  

Rogue River Realization

We have found ourselves through torrents of ash, smoldering memories, and waterfalls in the Siskiyou.  How long we have searched, strolled along paths, pine needles soft under foot, trillium by our side and wondered, “Where is the other side of my face? Where is my completeness, my motivator, my muse, my brush, my pen, my heart for making art again?”  Now, here, among towering Hemlock, we stand, shoulder to shoulder while the Rogue River spray over snags and boulders washes us clean, douses the flames of past pains and we smolder in a greenness, an emerald light of “Ahhh, finally.”

Triolet in Lithia Park

Glory clouds arise --
turbulent mountains of air.
Thru collisions of breath, we realize
glory clouds arise.
Ecstasy no longer disguised,
we collapse in reality, so rare.
Glory clouds arise --
turbulent mountains of air.

The road reaches every place, 

the short cut only one,

a hard space between  

the rock and a brick wall.

The short cut, only one

Oceanside cave opening.

The rock and a brick wall

yield to you, beach primrose.

Oceanside cave opening,

crashing waves of darkness

yield to you, beach primrose.

Wind and sand, like diamond cutters.

Crashing waves of darkness.

Who can resist the shortcut?

Wind and sand, like diamond cutters,

polish my hardened heart.

Who can resist the shortcut?

A cautious entry into the cave of unknowing.

Polish my hardened heart.

When we linger and kiss salty lips, together,

a cautious entry into the cave of unknowing:

finest grains of sand transform to glass art.

When we linger and kiss salty lips, together,

our road reaches every place.

A Haibun for the Morning After

I’ve made you dinner

my specialty casserole -
cheesy polenta.

The kitchen table hasn’t been cleared in a year; the hand-blown glass salt and pepper shaker I received last Christmas, never filled with spice.  You say nothing about the cobwebs in the corner; don’t even surreptitiously brush them away when my back is turned to pull the casserole from the oven.  I don’t notice the webs until the morning after when I’m re-arranging the table for one again,

perhaps the last time.
Between kisses and polenta
we said yes to us.

I recently read about a couple who got engaged eleven days after their first date.  We haven’t even dated three months; I’ve become a cliché lesbian bringing the U-Haul on the second date.  We each have our doubts, but I’m choosing to set mine aside and trust. “You could move in with me if you sell your house before we find one we both like.” 
“Really?”
Yes!

Still yes this morning
after.  Summer breezes, soft
clink of open blinds

against open windows.  Rightness reigns in the robin chatter. The long winter has finally ended. 

May 2012

Spring is the time of almost-
the not yet
the not quite
slight tug
at shoots and roots alike.
Even when we know
every year the tight pink
Rhododendron bud
will always bloom
an unearthly white-
still, we anticipate
that Broadway sensation,
somethings comin’
don't know what
but it is gonna be great.

Paradox

In darkness, we are
but one being:
one bedblanketpillowdreamer,
indistinguishable
from the closetwindownightmare
or the fourleggedsnoringsweetpea.
It is the moon
that separates us -
illuminates our differences
in muted shades
and variations of shadow.
It is the stars
that individuate.
It is dawn
that breaks us apart.
It is light
that distinguishes us
and sets the stage
for the long journey back
into oneness.

Tango with Gaia

on this, this simmering day

filled with expectation

and wild anticipation ~

a cello stringed tension

of O

you are

I am

wonderfully

and beautifully made

in the garden, veiled

lush light blossoms bloom

and who knew

who we

would become

would come

along this path

this trail

fertile and moist

who knew

all the paths

we would roam?

She knew

all in the all knowing, we

would meet

should meet

in this lifetime

for this, this dance.

A Pantoum

Pursue Truth with Passion

She seeped in on crimson arterials
and oxygenated my heart
her Psalmic words, my Rumi words
we conjugated in a circle of cedar

Oxygenated my heart
and the Word was made flesh
we conjugated in a circle of cedar
learned ourselves together into tapestry

And the Word was made flesh
scripted scripture, words in red
learned ourselves together into tapestry
lectio divina, our morning song

Scripted scripture, words in red
until covenant stopped her cold
lectio divina, our morning song
funneled away along lifeless blue veins

Until covenant stopped her cold
I never doubted the divine truth
funneled away along lifeless blue veins
I feared death and clutched at what was

I never doubted the divine truth
until she told me she didn’t love me enough
I feared death and clutched at what was
like a breathless runner in pursuit of the finish line

Until she told me she didn’t love me enough
beauty breaks open the human heart
like a breathless runner in pursuit of the finish line
Finish line? finish line? What is the truth?

Beauty breaks open the human heart
I thought she said she spoke the truth in love
Finish line? finish line? What is the truth?
She seeped in on crimson arterials, and

To not possess

Rondel instead of rondeau

she covets openness of form

freedom of being:

gray, grieving tear space

instead of fenced emotions

precariously unclaimed

instead of “Will you be mine?”

She covets a dancing solitude

heart to the wind

instead of family dinners

same time same place of security

instead of firm footing

a wobbly walk on the edge

leaping lapping flames

along spinal curls she craves

every night

every night

every night

she craves and covets

a wild abandon

wild flowers in spacious fields

a sunlit gold in a heartbeat

she could possess

but if she does

would the shimmering desire

the dandelion puff in her palm

lose the glory

as she wraps her fingers round?

Triolets

drawn through moonlight

imagine me

nerve ending white

drawn through moonlight

entangled limbs of life

star song ecstasy

drawn through moonlight

imagine me

Oh no!

Electric blue

Comes the big O

Oh no!

Now I know

The aroma of you

Oh no!

Electric blue

Big bang cosmology

The universe in rapid expansion

I have come to know your physiology

Big bang cosmology

Mysteriously lusty theology

Ecstatic release of tension

Big bang cosmology

The universe in rapid expansion

Pearls slip from a necklace poorly strung

not so with the silver threads of you

where opal essence slides between teeth and tongue.

Pearls slip from a necklace poorly strung,

clatter to hard wood floors and roll away, unsung,

lost, unlike you, my throated ostinato jewel.

Pearls slip from a necklace poorly strung

not so with the silver threads of you.

Brushed like a chime rung and sung

by your meandering hand.

Tonight I want to be your one

brushed like a chime rung and sung

again, in my mouth, your talented tongue

and straddling your naked body, I stand

brushed like a chime rung and sung

by your meandering hand.

Suliah Psalm 318

In evening moonlight

early east and full

in morning moonlight

early west and full

through out the night

full I stand

alone with you

barefoot

and unafraid