peace

Garden

“I’m gonna get my mom flowers for her birthday.”

The little one I’m watching for the evening
is telling me her secrets
as we drive home in the summer heat.

“From where?”
I’m curious.

“From my garden.
That’s where the flowers grow!”

“They do?”

“Yes! And love.
I’m going to give her love.”
She turns her palms up, imploring.
“That’s where the flowers grow.”

“I had no idea.”

She brushes the bundle of peonies
against my ear;
the scent of a mild sweetness
politely invades my nostrils.

“Where is my grandpa?”

Her grandmother
continues gazing out the window.
She was born on the other side of the world.
“He go to see God.”
As if it were a road trip.

The little one
looks out her own window.
“Oh.”

(A day before he passed,
my own grandfather opened his eyes,
cognizant,
searching for a window.
The blinds were shut.
“I don’t want to go.”

“Why not?”

“Because.
I know I’ll never see her again.”

She had passed
a few years before.)

We tell our children
there are no such things as monsters.

The little one clears her throat.

Raucous stormclouds gather in rising fists
towards heaven.
The heat outside is hell.

“The storms are spirits!”

“What?”
I wasn’t aware of this.

She leans in to tell me her secret.
“The storms… are all made of spirits.”

She points
at the approaching immensity
of water and air
bringing gifts of life and of fire.

She whispers,
“That’s where the thunder grows.”

Paladin

Years later,
he feels the vial
against his chest
that holds
the only fragment of lightsong
given freely to him.

At night, sometimes,
he drifts
to a dead and thankful sleep,
as it melts,
the glass unvitrified,
the sand photonic
hourglassing inside him.

Always,
the next morning
it is whole,
emanating the piece
of the light
of the heart
of the hand
that sought to clasp his;
and even to raise him up
out of darkness
everblack.

Shaking his head,
he pushes forward,
raising his shield;

the demon is already swinging.

Rising Sign

So,
I do not think
any longer should wonder
be entertained
in this waking dream
as we apart
seek that bridge that spans aeons
and even stellar cradles.

I have figured it
in the alchemy of
quantum entanglement,
on the blackboard of the heart,
inside the mandala of time.

Listen,
for water seeks to give.
Waves throw themselves
on the shore of the land.
Rain falls to the skin of the earth,
liquid seeking the embrace
of the deep
and sanctuary of the bedrock;
and roots to drink it,
feeding the hungry pulse of life.

Water gives; so what is water
without a heart-receiver
but only a universal solvent?

Into water one may throw
infinite strikes;
ever will it resume its shape.
Onto water one may project
mountains of rage,
and it will only reflect
what you already know.

Fire,
fire is simpler still,
and only seeks a hearth
with the fuel of an endless heartbeat.

So,
while the free winds
strike their vastness upon the sky,
and paint what they will,
a vessel of water and flame
would be only placed at the altar
before the ancient tree
whose roots grow deep
into the sod and stone…

…combusting growth into dreams
and gifts eternal and warmth in winter;

and silently,
offering a song of praise
for the birth
of earth on earth.

Caesarean

And I was conceived.
That was the first time
I lost you.

I know, now.

I was rent from the pages
of the ether
from the universal fabric
as were you.

Torn? Oh yes.
Torn from the dark
torn from the valley
and the enervation
and the deepspace
beyond this visible incantation.

That was where I last held you.

And thus was I given this body;
these raiments of oxygenation.

So this is why
I am friends with Charon,
and why my two cents
count for something at least.

This is why
whenever I saw the evenstar
break upon the last light
of our sun,
I felt the wind
and breathed deeply;

and why I lost my mind
in sheaves of cotton
and plugged the cables
of adventure
direct into my brain;

and why
when my gaze was swallowed
in the arm of the Milky Way,
I missed you
far below my words.

Time is the mist
before me on this path,
and all I know is
when I held your eyes with mine

one thing out of all
made sense.

Orison 5:22 AM

Christ, these bags are heavy…
what exactly did you get?

Come look, I got
10 things they don’t want you to know,
and my god could beat up your god,
and 50% off,
and at least I’m not a deviant,
and she’d never think you’re
a good dancer,
and you really aren’t married yet?,
and they hate our way of life,
and that’s not what I meant,
that’s not what I meant;

static,
and these dreams go on
when I close my eyes,
static,
and rock my world little country girl,
static,
and let’s stay together,
static,
and they stab it with their steely knives,
static,
and lovin’ is what I got,
static,
and fire is the devil’s only friend;

1,000 days, 1,000 drops
of my saltwater ocean
hitting the ground,
and you’re not good enough.
Did you know that?
I’m and You’re not good enough.

I used to keep my drawings
under the bed. I never showed
anyone
the
burning running biting broken sheetrock lover’s footprints falling breath of evening illuminates the smell of bread in the oven colliding with rainwater tracked in from the science museum where the Most High God smacked my ears and eyes and lungs with the burden of dying stars and gave the final joke as a Christmas present tied up with a perfect bow.

My cells want to fall asleep.

This still makes no goddamn sense,
even though your head fits
perfectly
in the crook of my neck
and everything else matches
like Lego pieces
and dust settles
on my grandfather’s desk
(a middle finger LOL to entropy
in this universe of endless light).

Peacefield

What of these words

printed in a darkened room,

what of the light coming in under the door,

what of the field beyond,

and you; what of you?

See the moon, who looks down upon us;

she watches her children

without remorse or direction.

We are seedlings under the summer willow-

me, thrown with the rocks

as the horse paws the earth

of the field that lies fallow around us;

and you, rooted in the rich ground,

bending in the wind, arms raised

in appeal to heaven each night.