Mother's Kisses

When I was small I would run and run
Until my legs and arms sped faster
Than my little body could navigate.
Then, a very moveable force came upon
An immovable object, to my legs' chagrin.
Then, my mommy would kiss the booboos away
With the magic elixir that only mothers possess.
Is that a woman's birthright, or is it bestowed
In some secret rite to mark the passage from
Maiden to matron? She was Woman and all women
Not knowing what else there might be
Not understanding that all others would deny
To me the soothing caress of healing power.

When I was a stripling, conflict with
Paternal power grew large to fill my world.
Confused between desiring approval and receiving none
But for the echo I could be of his frustrated dreams.
Still, the magic from mother's touch sustained me through
Barbs and arguments and capitulations and victories.
Regardless, there was only one way out, all roads but this,
Anywhere but here; and so I was gone with neither force
To guide or protect. A wanderer without a compass,
A seeker without a clue, a sailor without the stars.

Now, with the weariness of battle-scarred veterans
Telling tales of long-forgotten wars and deeds,
We can face each other again, and both sorely miss
The life force that once glued us tight together.
All that remains is the sapling, now sturdy,
With wandering branches gently enfolding
The scant traces of long ago children, who
Danced and played in its comforting shade.

A Hiding Space

Who can I possibly be if I chameleon my way
Through conversations. So easy to slip back on
The mask there ere I wore
To even notice as it occurs and like a falling stone
Unable to stop or even slow the maddening descent.

I guess I’ll have to be content
With awareness as the consolation prize
At least for now until a better one can be conjured.
Still, like a comfortable old jacket that easily conforms
To my shape, I conform to the shape of the conversation.

The performer in me takes charge and, egged on, continues
Since I cannot resist the enticing drug of approval,
So tempting, so immediate, so irresistible.
So I accept the falling and the masks and the rewards
While the rest of me hides safely away; for now.

A Space to Unfold

“I’m just not sure what I really want,” she said,
With eyes glancing up, a smile curling her lips.
“It’s all so new and enticing to be able to
Just show up as me!” The flash in her eyes lit the room.
“And yet there’s still a part that gets spooked
All too easily when it gets too deep.”

A shuffle of papers to a letter from before
Written as someone to herself, divorcing as it were
The inner demons that tormented and flayed at her insides.
Some have been banished, some just paroled.

She licked her lips and gazed wistfully beyond
To new possibilities now unfolding, the underbrush parting
To bend to newfound strength.
“Who was I, then, to have been so frightened…
And yet with power comes discomfort;
But I shall never go back to how I was.”

Muse Takes a Holiday

Where did you go, will you ever return,
Or is it something I must earn?
Have you gone away to stay
Or will you return some day?

My words now stumble
For them I fumble
They slide and elude me
And won’t come to me.

Please come back, I need you soon
Or I’ll sit forever in this room
Searching for the outward track...
Oh - there you are; welcome back!

a single clear drop
clings tightly to the twig end
then gently lets go

after rain, clear air
pale grey ocean waves splash high
rocks stand stoically

otter floats on back
all whiskers and matted fur
only for my sake

sandpiper scurries
ocean’s heartbeat caresses
do I only watch?

Out of the Depths

From the darkness of death, relinquishing any hope
Seemingly stuck in the dark pit of despair
With no life, no air, no chance for redemption
The vessel broken beyond repair

Yet once again there is the empty tomb,
Yet once again does light break through
Yet once again is a ray of small hope
Yet once again does spring of life ensue.

The word made flesh to be consumed,
The bloody drink to comfort anew
The aching thirst for life restored
Diverts the death march coming through.

I cannot find the way myself
Though fear keeps me gripping tight
To the chains that fetter me to darkness,
The sacrifice shines the healing light.

So I am softly led from darkness
Through the warm and gentle grey
Where release, though undeserved, is given,
Redemption in the crowning day.

The Summit

How do I find myself in this dark pit -
No light, no hope, no way out
Try as I might top push away
This searing band around my soul,
It drags me deeper into the pit
And holds me down with no remorse or pity
A cold, heartless, place in which to shiver
With no other choice but to resign to its
Cold iron casket enfolding the corpse of my heart.

A young boy reaches through an iron gate
For a daisy beckoning brightly in the sun.
His pudgy arms are but inches short,
His fingers curl on empty air.

After the long cold climb to reach the summit
Slogging and picking through steep cliffs
And dragging a pack through heavy drifts
The pinnacle lies but a short trek up
But blocked by rocks and overhangs too acute
To traverse. So it remains in sight yet
Unattainable, only to be made into a memory
Of what might have been.

Journey

The road beckons with its enticing promise
Of what lies and it end; and yet I still feel
Weights holding me rooted to this spot not moving
Do I doubt that what is there is real?

Checking every few minutes to hear if any changes
Have made the trip unneeded or the return moot,
Despite knowing that it matters not in the end.
What will it take to put it all on mute?

At last a click, a shift, a step, a motion
To initiate the journey north to where
I know my heart will have to break open,
That to my love its wounds lie bare.

Hell in a Box

Hell is a box that we crawl inside
Not a place, not an eternal fire
But a choice we make to either see
The light or the dark desire.

When anger is wrapped in a bubble of pink
What lies beneath is revealed
To be but but sadness and fear
That can be held and soothed and healed.

But when it is thrust in a dark black box
It lingers and festers and glows
So that no matter how much it is wished to hell,
It remains inside and grows.

To crawl in that box of darkness with
The cast off and disowned fears
Is to be in hell of one’s own design
And pierced with one’s own spears.

The Path

Sometimes it is easier to turn away
From the path that must be made,
To hide inside my thoughts of fancy
And play out the charade.

Inner Critic

Where did you come from
And how did you get into
My head? I never invited
You there, I don’t want

You there. Jabs and knocks
From outside I can handle
The ones from inside bruise
Where no one can see and

Yet hurt far more and linger
Far longer than the lumps and
Bumps and contusions. You know

All I know and see all
I see and yet you are much
Harder and more hurtful than
I could ever be. I wouldn’t

Treat my worst enemy the way
That you treat me. Where did
You come from and why won’t
You go back there for good?

I to I

Eye to eye evokes a sigh
With an eye to ‘aye’ with what comes nigh.

Aye to I is sign of sly
When I to eye may lead to lie.

I to eye a trembling thigh
When eye to I deserves a cry.

So Eye to aye to I to eye.
All that leads to I to I.

Hear Me Out

Those may be the words I say,
But that is not the thought I present.
I get frustrated when what I say
Seems to get all twisted and bent.

I know very well what it is
That I mean to say;
Its not my fault that your poor ears
Simply cannot hear it that way.

I know you’re trying hard to get
My meaning and my feeling,
But maybe you are trying too hard
And your mind is lost and reeling.

I know I often say I say
Just exactly what I mean,
But now I know there is something else
Hidden behind the scene.

I want to feel that I am safe,
I very much want to dare
To take a risk with what is in my heart
To take a chance and share

The thoughts and feeling deep inside
Where light has never shown -
The dark recesses of my mind
That only I have known.

So please be patient, hear me out
And my secrets you will learn.
It will all soon make some sense -
Then it will be your turn!

Learning to See

All my life I kept thinking
That my problem was merely physical,
Although insurmountable by even our modern means.
I had long resigned myself to an outcast
Banned from the altar, refused from the temple.

It’s easy to learn to embrace self-pity
Like a dear friend
And eventually stop asking
“Why me oh God”?

At times I blamed myself and wondered
What had I done wrong to deserve this?
Or had this been some twisted birthright
Bestowed unwittingly by parents
Too blind to understand the consequences?

You may think it’s a cliche
About seeing the light
But you have never witnessed that first brilliant blast
For the first time being overwhelmed by
Sensations and dimensions only imagined.

I had felt and smelled mud and clay before
I thought I knew all there was about it
What little did I know
Was this the same stuff that existed
Before God breathed life in it?

At first it hurt too much and overwhelmed,
A meaningless noise of strange unnamed sensations
That I could only open my eyes
A little at a time.

For a long time I knew the what,
Although it seemed incredible even to me,
And I could cling to that what like a reed
In a stormy sea,
Being able to discern the blue and green-flecked waves
In addition to their wetness.

Gradually I became aware
That the what was the least of all
And that there were still more eyes to open
Before I could behold the What.

The Mask

For whom do I wear this mask:
To hide myself from you,
Or it hide myself from me?
Peering out through tiny slits
Only allows for narrow views
And somehow it is more comforting
To pretend that all I see
Is all there is.

I feel safer knowing that what you see
Is not what you get, and yet
I somehow get upset when what I get
Is not what I see.

My hand hesitates at the thought
Of pulling this off and revealing
All the pain and shame beneath
And I see your hand trembling
At the very same thought.

So I pull off one mask
To reveal another beneath.

April 1

Once the start of a new year cycle
Now just a day for fools
Otherwise ordinary, nothing special
Yet each day one for new beginnings
A new cycle afresh can start
Where yesterdays are a fading echo
And for the billionth time
Another opportunity to begin right here
Right now