Stand

The woman speaks
of the futility of hope –
the necessity of
some substitute
that cannot so easily
be lost.

I wait for the clock
to sanction correspondence.
But then
just can’t bring
myself to it.
How you hurt,
without knowing you hurt.

Watch the moths
beat their wings
against the glass.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.

Should turn them away.
Should turn off the lights.
Should find my pillow,
and maybe sleep.
But wait.
And wait.
And pray for the sense
to turn away
from this suspense.

Because she was right.
To hope is useless.
Wiser to take up these weapons,
assume the warrior’s pose.
Hope is useless.
And waiting, pointless.

And if you can remember
to forget,
perhaps someday
you might forget
to remember.

Achilles

Damn.
It was a short path
from hoping
it had all been imagination,
to not knowing
whether to laugh or cry
at such bitter ironies.

I was the warrior –
the hero of all the realms
of grief and glory,
but there is no fighting back
from this.

In slow sweetness
of the 19th century
morning rituals,
discover skin rubbed away,
the tendon raw.
Pierce it with a nail
to be sure,
and it is not imagination.
Watch the blood and water flow,
and feel nothing.
Nothing.

They lie in wait,
and no one will wind
the flute to draw off
those snakes that circle
round the ladder.
I want to run from it
or run it off,
and wait for spirit shoes,
growing more human
in the battle.

Those medicine men
left me broken.
And there is no respite –
no remaining healer
to draw off these arrows.
I must either succumb
or find a way to believe
in my own healing hands.

Splinter

The day rises brilliant
in the storm’s wake –
its clarity a splinter
driven straight down
to the bone.
And grasping my pen
like a needle
I have at it –
while the wind gets
high and sweet.

I lay it so bare
before you
but still go
unseen.
And you have
the mirror obsession.

Open these jars of night.
Spill blood on blank pages,
and still,
you do not care to look.
And if you will not look,
you cannot see.

I sink your voice
down to the root,
and save it for days like this,
when I can face the work –
strike flesh
with this needle
to dig out
what cannot be used,
what does not belong,
until I am again
grown receptive
to the world,
but with a better guard
against your barbed words.

Unconditional

Sister snake
pauses in our path
to remind
how pushing is pointless
until we’re warmed
again by sun.

Like hers
our blood is cold,
recognizing this place —
and how we must first
learn to love low.
And it’s strange
how these two –
sacrum,
sacred –
share the root.

We need
to get down deep
and then up
out of both –
and it’s okay.
Low or high,
we can find
where we fit.

The wide world
will always want us.
And this Motherlove may be
the only unconditional thing
there is –
and to reach it,
all we have to do
is breathe.

Strange Devotion

My back was turned
when the sun got up
and burned off the clouds.
That cardinal called
just once
from the hedge-rose
all in flower,
and it was like
an echo of your voice
asking me
to come outside
and play.

And in this wet air,
my hips get loose
and I’m back
on my feet again
and shedding nine years’
worth of rigidity,
because I am worried
that you’re worried.
(And it only matters
a little
that you don’t know
it’s for you
I make an effort.)

I thought all along
I was well settled
but in this wind
find that for your sake,
I would be
still malleable –
that, were it possible
to loosen these ties,
I would gladly be
something yet unformed
taking shape
under your veined
and dancing hands.
And I would likewise
use my own
to call forth and heal
those hurts you hold.

Can we see beyond
this place?
This air?
This sun?
To find what sustains
or releases us?
Lighthearted again,
it is so easy to trip
from walking into dancing,
especially with those songs
still echoing round my head.

And so here we are.
We make these offerings again,
and watch how they
always seem
to go astray.
And still, we are here,
waiting to know
what you would have
or make of us.

Steady

Shall we measure
the tyranny
of this icy water?
In cursing it,
her signs at last
become clear.

Grown cold-blooded
in the strictest sense –
every muscle seizes.
And there is nothing wrong
with defense
or with seeking out
the warmth you’ve missed.

Make allowances
for instinct.
You don’t need to hurry.
But you do need
to survive.

Consultation

We leave our doubts
with our dirty shoes
at the temple gate.
These questions
are for the old gods –
and we aim to transform
intention into action
through these prehistoric magics.

Together,
we raise each objection
and destroy them all –
the altitude and oxygen,
the tangled wires,
the singing blood.
And overcoming entropy,
call back the wind.

Now –
now when the heat rises
and a green air
makes everything easy –
now it is time to begin.

And this is not
walking backward,
or starting over.
It is a homecoming.
We arrive more full
than when we left –
but we still have room
for more.