It all must go to come again.
The tree, the soul knows
the turn of leaf, the letting go.
Each moment, memory dropped to earth
becomes part of something greater.
Copper hued ground, life returns
to the maker. 🍁
Tag: poem
Old Souls
I call on old souls,
complex and raw.
Centuries old –
Millennia old.
Those that see the world
with new eyes and familiar feelings.
Gut warnings and wishes.
Lessons of parallel dimensions.
Learn,
or come back again.
Portugal
We took a sunset hike
up the Algarve cliffs, sincere
and ancient and strong like our grandmothers.
Red clay marked up our legs
as proof we didn’t stop climbing,
all just to see the azure
from a new angle.
We were told secrets by seabirds,
perched on the eyelids of the ocean.
We gazed down into a cavern
as seawater pumped blue blood into the heart
of the cliff.
The sun, midday and sleepy
looked bigger than I remembered,
steady.
And I stood like the seabirds –
The beauty of how small we are.
NYE
New Year’s Eve was mangled
in heaps of bodies heaving back and forth
like an angry sea –
We beat the rain
but were stopped by the cover charge.
Everyone pushed around in such a way
where some were trying to make it to the new year first –
And others wanted to hide in bathrooms
and corners
and alleyways
and under lovers.
Abandon your purses under bars,
lose your identity so the spirits of the new era
don’t recognize you and you can start
with a new name,
a new mission.
Drowning in liquor and kisses from strangers
we spill into the streets of Queens
with her 24-hour fruit stands
and public indecency.
We wake up with our IDs tucked neatly in our pockets –
Hungover –
In places foreign to us.
But we are as we were only hours before
when we had more time
and less headaches.
Twenties
I thought my 20s
would be when everything
made sense –
I don’t know what I was expecting, though,
since my 20s began with the death
of my mother
and ended with the death
of my limitations.
My 20s held funerary services
of who I thought I was –
who I thought was worthy of me.
It was the death of ignoring myself;
My 20s ended with me coming to life.
My Mother’s Prayer
A good beer
and a sticky August night
are all I need
to pay homage to my
Mother.
I am the daughter
of Patricia –
Of dragon woman, blue eyeliner
with limp and easy cigarette hands
and mascara wand swords.
Mother to children –
All hers –
But only two were really hers.
Her alter is the dashboard
of an ‘03 Mustang
with offerings of classic rock,
a Bic lighter or three, one probably empty,
and coke bottle eyeglasses
to see how she made most days
her bitch.
I can still hear her say it.
Her prayer.
Do no harm,
take no shit.
Amen.
Sacrifice
We stand shorebound and watch
fishermen hold tight to rocks,
their faces smooth like beach glass
from years of meeting with the sea.
A wave will crash
and more and more –
Applause for the morning’s bounty.
Even icy dawns
when we saw the sunrise
over wild spraying sea –
And biting winds threw birds
towards the end of the earth
and the horizon lay as if it were under the tide
ignoring the seabirds fights and cries,
she still accords with fishermen
trading patience for salt.
Their steady, tired feet and tired eyes
meet the wind and take its bites
and respect where the horizon lies.