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When I was the forest, I thought I’d be young forever. It was easy to undulate when the breeze flirted by, feeling lovely and large. There is nothing more beautiful than green leaves in the spring and I was drunk with power. But all things end, nothing is as it seems, and now that I am a desert boulder, rough and grayed with no softness inside, I have nothing to hold onto except this graffiti skin and the bright sun in my eyes. 
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Letting her go is impossible Until I taste the truth of it Holding her close Like a dog chained in the back Barking when the storms come But not welcome in the house Has given roots to this grief I take what I love inside Sugar sauce seeping down In the warm kitchen  Every golden morning, the latch in my fingers is sticky with orb and optimism. The spider and I are each either resilient or ignorant, the line between them gossamer as ever. In order to leave this peacock place, I must carelessly tear through the web, swing open the gate, and shatter the dappled shade. Did she work all night building this beauty, (hook, spin, toss, finish, bind, repeat) and now lies panting on the adobe? I know there is a metaphor here - rise / shine create / destroy open / close human / arthropod - but all I can think is that I want to climb the wall, do whatever it takes to leave that fragile beauty in place. I need to do my small part to slow the wreckage of this world.  I love the sound of the ocean crashing. It reminds me that sometimes beautiful is raw and powerful, driving toward the shore with absolute persistence and focus. When I hear small children laughing, it makes me think of rainbows and a twenty dollar bill found unexpectedly in the pocket of my best worn jeans. The sigh of a person sleeping make me want to give them safety on a silver platter, makes me wonder how any of us sleep at all with this world so off kilter and unkind. Silence then crickets. Silence then crickets. I adore the soft hitch and scratch of book pages turning, a feather slipping into the wind and lifting itself to the very highest places. That sound that is no sound at all. When everyone you love is at home and asleep and not one of them is striving or struggling. They are each wrapped in sheets and bundled into blankets in their own particular way - a neck snugged atop too many pillows, a foot sticking out with blue nail polish on scuffed toes, dirty laundry in piles on the floor. Sigh and snore, the best sound of all.  deepdown running, the wildest eye, the one that knows what the clematis is thinking as it makes its way up the rusted archway bluesky nodding, holding court with sprouts and buds, drinking loudly of sunshine sweets and greengrass love Sunday morning wheelbarrow hands, moving rivers of rock between gangs of sharp-tongued cactus, weaving like a drunkard because I’m so tired of the quiet broken only by birdsong and chime then the words come to me on the desert wind, blown in rough like tumbleweed, they say we have been speaking to you all day, whispering your name from the tips of the prickly pear what if you listened?  bridge, brook, bird my throat has been clogged with dust for so long that I dream of deluge icy waters covering me pouring over my tongue, loosening my words and turning them to poetry  for Lucille Junkere This blue is also deep red. Rich with blood, the cries of babies and entire peoples torn from their home places, bloom of anger, drop of heartbreak, music of spirits staying strong through too many dark nights. This red-blue is the steady stroke and beat of uprising, of holding steady and passing love through blood and bone.  As I slept, we lost an hour and I woke this morning knowing that loss is the soft underbelly of love, that we can roll it over to pry out the sweetest parts but can never pick it clean from the hollow bones of grief. I seek solace in the land, gather mountains in my arms while geese float through the thin morning. The sun fails to properly rise. Birds still called as if the world weren't breaking at the seams. A river running coyote, gray-white in the iced air, passes close but doesn’t look my way, just steps like majesty through the silent Sunday. I do not truly belong to this desert place but the river always welcomes me like a cherished guest.  This is for my daughter, who has always loved to go too fast, and too high. Every summer your shrieks reeled out from the roller coaster, in equal parts joy and terror, charmed by those wild forces. Remember when you cried because we couldn’t save that one tiny kitten? Now it’s you who requires saving. You, who cannot abide to be alone, and you, so easily convinced by boys and men. I found you sleeping once, in a house of trash and graffiti. Your hair was feathered across your cheek, and for just one moment, I could not bear to wake you. I’d been looking for two days, and I was overcome by an urge to shake you hard. You were probably dreaming of cotton candy but the room smelled like whiskey and old cigarettes and I realized that I had forgotten to tell you that carnivals aren’t as much fun in the light of day. There are cords to trip over, stinking cans with circling flies, and men with spaces for teeth who are happy to spend your last dollar. The carnival is over. Please come home now.  Inside of here, I hold on too tightly Fisted clenched and toes curled, I white-knuckle my way through this life. I cannot wear this skin well, I don’t know how to rest these bones, and it is so hard to walk through this world when nothing lasts long enough for this greedy heart. Love puts its ear to the ground and listens closely. It knows my weaknesses. I’ve always been worried, secretly, that love would take me down. Sideswipe me out of nowhere, knock me to the ground, knees bleeding and tears streaming. That it would reduce me to something lesser than. Desperate and clutching, like my mother. Broken and spent, like so many others. I’ll have none of that, thank you very much. And so I have spent a lifetime practicing the art of taking leave. I have rehearsed goodbyes the way one would approach the piano. I take out the crumpled sheet music, flatten it with open palms and take a deep breathe before I begin. I say so long over and over again sort of like when I learned my multiplication tables. You times me equals 69 and fireworks of the best sort. I know my math is a little creative. Sweetheart, I thought the scrambled eggs were delicious just don’t make plans too far into the future because I’m scratching fondness and farewell onto dead leaves, matchbooks, bar napkins, and the palms of each one of my lovers. I slip out in the quiet hours of the night leaving notes in eyeliner that say things like catch you later thanks for the French fries and the fuck you’re awesome. smiley face One must practice goodbyes. Stand in front of the mirror and try them out. Do this every day for many years. Part ways with the graffiti and the dirty snow, with warm lips and kisses in the dark our clouds of breath spreading like haloes in the streetlight. Walk away from tulip bulbs warming in the ground like small furry fists. Abandon the lover who stroked your cheek as if it were a newborn baby just placed in her arms. Turn your back on that deep sinking black of day leeching into night as the ocean laps at your skin. And in the morning run. Run like a river raging full in spring and do your best not to look up at the windswept sky so full of tears and loss signaling the storm to come which will surely take you away from me. So tonight, I will do what I must. I will wrap my arms around you, lick my love song into your ear, and then I will tell you goodbye before you have a chance to leave me.  |
Who am I?I’m a systems engineer and creative coach living in ABQ, NM. I believe that we can intentionally design our lives to align with our deepest dreams and desires. 
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