Stems

And they don't know that mentioning them
is always an insult to me.

Shall I wear my loss as a badge
on my sleeve; tell them
how it grieves me, how I wish
they could see

the fragility: frost-weeds
easily snapped at the stem, easily seeded
and grown again, not so easily freed.

On watching Shakespeare

Watching them act, there are a thousand ways
and a thousand words to explain the heart;
watching them be, become, be undone
by scenes at the end
of that marvelous play;

play on words, play on minds, play on
me, sweet waves of visions through windows
enraptured by faces. I know all of you
better than the play knows itself--

for these are the words of a spirit entranced, who never dared dance;
the road of one who shies when they walk,
who yearns when they talk, who leaks, who becomes only
what has already been made.

I want to know, where in this life do I fit
like a piece, when so many pieces have fractured. We
reach across the stage and bright lights to
another, breathing, playing, acting
the part: living the dream, dying the death.

Death, teach me what it means
to dream. What it means
to lose hope, like white roses
falling to the ground.
Show me a road forward, a root
to a tree, a tree,
now fallen, now split at the trunk, now broken.

Plant seeds at my feet
that I might walk forward, crushing
the roots I have made;
show me rivulets of water, show me
rain run-offs, deep rising cliffs, mountains
born of mist and fog, crowned by winter,
here risen from the ground.

You flow through spring in a vibrant undertow;
threading forward, you teach me of roots,
of abandon, of endless yearning; you know
what the heart needs, and I, afraid to say it, afraid
to move forward; here is dusk
and I stand alone. Moving forward--
why? Why must I leave all I ever loved
behind.

I followed the river back to you,
no easy stretch through choking leaves,
Still, I reached
as branches do.

For trees cannot let loose their limbs,
and roots remain where tree trunks do;
our separate roots, grown far apart
still find the water, as love does, too.

* * *

The heart is struck
by skipping rocks,
The earth is turned by
careless feet,

A garden born
of many seeds,

Decomposed, then using hands,
then feeding birds, then growing wings.

landslides tore apart the house
which stands no more

beside an ocean, but was risen up by cliffs
beyond a vanishing tide. They bore me upwards

through wooden planks
and shattered boards, dropped hallways
endings everywhere
as mountains lifted to the sky.

yet the stars prevailed, and you came

as an anthem, a crusader

to build a house, a monument, a home

to grace His mountain.

* * *

I have peace to thank you for, following through the knot
and pulling the needle out the other side.

Just as well, I am Your fruit, fallen from a branch to taste
the ground; I am beyond blooming.
Your nectar, fermented, is bittersweet
and brings joy to the tongue.

I have tasted you, Oh Lord.
I have cringed and bitten
and burned lilies for fragrance
but You, My Lord, bring bounty
from Winter to Spring,
from bowing, to standing
to blooming, to ripening--
from fallen, to flourished, My Lord.

From Spring 2010

10/29/10

Surely, this is not silence
to which we have
fallen, but knowing;
for we cannot say
what grows a bond, nor why a year
has led me to yearn
to complete that sentence,
yet that which calls us
to act upon words
must not be enacted. In this,
speaking will lead us
astray.



10/30/10

You have not said
my name--

there is a tremor,
a certain rush
to speak, to say
though you will not say it;
drowned of air
you must have silence
to breathe.

for you don't love
me (not too much)
and yet you would
take me (could you)

I still tremble--
I swear--
not speak a word.