HonesTree

Belly is a-buzz;
I lift your head to dreaming
And ache to make you smile.

My heart is an estuary
Fill me with salt-water
Spill, spill
Your rivers until they quench forest fires.
If you can make me laugh, then,

The sea will take it all back.

March 19 -

"Shall I
rant and rave
about the status of this

deep chasm
we are in?

Shall I fight for all of the children
who did not choose parents who
still act like children?
All of the cells in our bodies, embroiled in plastics
and inflammation, slowly growing cancerous?

Shall I fight for the people who don't care
and the people who don't know enough
to care and the people
who can't care else they be swallowed by the fury of themselves?

I feel swallowed, at times.

I feel blue-screened at midnight,
helpless to industries and systems of greed.
I feel never-enough,
too afraid to place my body as a blockade and scream
all of this devastation from my throat
until the police come to take me away.

Such an action of violence against peace
is a
bold-printed yellowed newspaper headline,
a press release written to save face
by an underpaid intern, blue-screened-and-helpless

who is learning
that caring makes her young and foolish
and too loud -
and caring feels like anger and bricked backpack straps
when instead you could stride, high-heeled, down obedient halls
and caring is a futile sport, you naive
imposter

that doesn't

matter

anyway."

It is in these slow-rising mornings
That the earth buries our paths,
Tells us:
"Leave
Your black-steel monsters put,
For just one day. They will go nowhere without you."

She says:
"Come
Down to the river's edge and watch
How the machines you have crafted
Make my waters rush and spit yellow
Instead of lying serenely. Even
My rivers follow your rush."

She pleads:
"See
The tallest tree laden
Still and gazing over your whitened rooftops
Drink him in. Sit beneath and
Let your cheeks go red."

"Become the watcher.
Listen to this silence.
Practice solitude,
My little learner.
You are but one in 7 billion
Ants, ever-moving.
Let me cover you today,
So that your long-worn trails might
Elude you.
Imagine the breadth of the whole world,
If you simply looked up."

"The sky is cotton candy;
I walk past ivy growing lazy
In the crack of brick

River is running, running - and I, at its side
Am too.
I chase the sun all the way here,
Hoping to hold perfect in frozen fingers.

The river never stops
He tells me
There is glory in the rush
There is only mud at the bottom, stuck.

I listen to the river
Until I see him sleeping one night,
Glassy like a dead thing
Frozen time
But so goddamn beautiful, just pulling in
Light
And throwing it back into the air.

The sky is inkwells,
The sky is cotton candy;
A sky should not know how to be this colour
So human.
But the sky knew before we did, remember?

And the river is a liar, dazzling me
With glittered reflection
Letting the wind push it down, down always.
Pretending it's a choice.

Slowness is a bigger challenge.
To trickle, not to tumble
To walk gently and miss the sunset, maybe.
Maybe to arrive
Just in time
To watch the river sleep."

It's been a while since I've posted; I haven't been writing much for myself, let alone anybody else. Just a reminder to let yourself feel:

"JUST FU***NG SULK.

Be the weathervane; spin madly.
You will feel the air if you fly off
And land tattered

He will be ok
Not watching you turn, predictable
On a pale-skied day

I am muggy blanket air
I am snowflakes on eyelashes,
Frozen hair, straight, just washed, SNAP-ABLE.

I will cry in the bedroom, if I so choose.

I will pour buckets, I will stand out in myself, t-shirt only, sobbing, cracking like insolent thunder, sparking telephone wire,

Laughing."

Whenever life keeps you inside,
When hailstones beat on the door for refuge,
Snow piles by the welcome mat
Like unwanted mail,
And wind screams wicked insult
Through the drywall
It is in those days that you will miss
The sprawling river and its hush-hum,
Grand oaks and their shades
The sun and its constant complaint.

The east side still sees the morning, though.
It is then, my dear, that I implore you:
Grow greens on the windowsills.

"Good morning, sleepy stone -
Please
Curl your eyes at me again today.

Curl your grays across the hairline
And your legs around my body
Stretch that smile up, up
And curl laughter through my ears.

I refuse to count
The laws of gravity which
Hold us down in these short moments...
What rules the world has curled
Around our ankles.

I love you
Like cucumber tendrils
And all my fears trellised into thin air
Short of breath but hanging on.
We will let go in the fall, little vine.
But curl for now."

Today I am
Just as weary as the clouds -
I guess.

I thought, I would give
My best,
That my sudden shine would blaze from
Some fear of being less
Than perfect.

Instead, I was simply,
Less than perfect.

I sing to the plants this evening
Stroke their drooping limbs
And marvel at the way they feed on my exhale

One has tiny blossoms,
Peeking out from its crown of thorns
Trying to prove that it is
Flourishing
Here in a new home,
With me, weekly visitor.

I give it benefit of the doubt,
That it might feel my gentle fingers
Vibrate with some strange frequency
Of my voice
And thirstily claim this new air -

Just to fortify its waiting
For seven more days.

"How sincere
One would be to
Tiptoe electrical wires
So stark on the sky,
Only set you afire if you touch the ground"

It was only after I left my
White painted walls
And knelt on the grass
And let the bugs spin and whirr in my ears
And prick my skin a thousand times over
That I began to wake up.

And when I woke,
I could not only see the anger,
And the anger toward anger,
And the disbelief of the anger,
And the anger again...

I could not only see
The confusion and betrayal
Disappointment and despair
For the world we thought this would be
For the world we think it to be

But I could also see the pride
The transformations and the grace
And the anger
And the action
And the hope and the hurt.

And as we all walked away,
Heavy lidded and knees creaky
From a taste of discomfort,
We prided ourselves that we had risen,
Out from under our feather-filled duvets
And come to look at the black of the world

And the sun started setting.

Shall we stay up all night,
Just to truly know
How dark it can get?

And all the puzzle pieces
Fall into place
Settling and letting the dust
Fill their cracks

Caffeine zigs
Zags
Down to my toes
And I let excitement take my body over

I will please everyone
I will fulfill each
Of my terrible and weighty commitments
And maybe if I pay enough attention
To the rise and fall
Of these steel walls I war with
Eyes downturned, peeking over hard fences -
I will not disappoint myself.

When he's gone,
I notice scuff marks on the baseboards -
I am sitting here with chin in hand.

This house is so full
And somehow so quiet -
My mind, similarly evasive
Just clenched jaw and the empty
To tell me something's wrong.

Why does my own heart not blossom with sound?
Why does he have to leave to get his fill?
Is it pretending,
To expect that one person could ever
Complete another?
Or are we just pretending
That
We're not looking for something else?

I want everything.

I want lilacs and poppies
And vegetable beds in the back yard
I want time
But I want action and I want
To work and play and learn
Everything, everything.

I want to wake up deliciously in your arms
At 11am with nothing to do
I want to be up with the sun
Like a farmer.

I want to speak like a wise woman,
Play like a child,
And discard all of the inhibitions between.

I want to tell you exactly how I feel
And own
My own body
And stretch you so you change.
But I want your eyes to stay bright.
And I cannot own my body without
Pushing on your space,
And share my fire without
Burning you,
And plant dandelions the whole yard wide without
Stealing the soil.

I have been hiding.
I have been hiding in my heart;
For she is too hurt to be hurt again.

She was hurt when the sickness took away
The strongest man I knew
And I was too small to save him.

She was hurt when I saw plastic in the ditches
And plastic in their words,
Tin-foiled laughter in their mouths. I coated my teeth
To camouflage.

She was hurt when I began fighting
And no one was fighting with me
When I was CEO and administration and hiring manager and spokesperson and human resources and therapy-after-the-fact, and alone.

She was hurt when I was asked
To quell my flames and simmer my boil
And take the moderate path toward reason.
She is not reasonable; my heart.
She is raging and torn and she has always been
Raging and torn for the whole, wondrous mess

Of this earth.

After supper, I went for a walk along the trail and sat to meditate facing a huge expanse of soft green field and towering clouds. It looked truly "heavenly", the sun gazing down on just one patch of farmland, the rest of the sky gathering into thick folds of purples and grays, the rays of light slicing through it here and there, bathing it pale blue and yellow. I found my body softening into a relaxed anticipation of 'come what may', and felt my eyes fall on people passing me in a similar way - gentle, with no expectations. It was easier to meet their eyes, be part of the banality of their slow stroll and to not shrink myself to allow them more space on the wide path. I did stop and let one cyclist pass later; we were nearing a tight section, and momentum was asking more of him than me. He gave me a beaming smile as he passed, as if to say "I know that your action was full of intent. I know it took consciousness and empathy and decisiveness.". And even though a thing like that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of global conflict, environmental disintigration, and the terrifyingly secret abuses that can happen just next door - well, a smile is always something. As he rode off, I emerged onto the main road, and there was a couple dancing playfully in the parking lot, unencumbered. I smiled. And that was something.

"Blazing orange beauty peeks
Tenderly over grassy hills
Oh, our short 12-monthed memory
Had forgotten that colour could be
So bright

Thick wind on bare legs
Seeds through hairs and whispers sweet promise

The trees are not dressed yet
My fingers still cold
But the summer will come
Soon"

"This evening, as we let the sun die on our faces
We debated the singing of the birds...
If they spoke for beauty
Or just for sense.
I felt my limbs come to life
Felt my throat quiver
And my mind spin
And I burned for the meaning of the music.
It has been a long while
Since I spoke just for beauty."

"Wake,
I cry first thing
Too cold for a feeling
Long lost

He holds me,
Wet head to neck
Flat hand to heart
Beat

Return
To our soggy breakfast
Metal of guitar strings
Sings me to calm

Roll
Sour dough under
Hard heel
I steal the time for nothing
Today

And crunch, she moans
When finally, I hold
Her between thumb and palm
Soft, when my lips close 'round
Tang, like the sound
Of his voice

Chirp
Go lonely street signs
Rocking on their hinges
In tonight's wind
It's quiet in the world of fear

But I am walking
Unhindered
Still winter? My nose wet
Like this morning
I warned him
In small red shorts
Thighs sting
It's
Not spring
Yet"

"How could a not-lover
Have hurt me so
That I'd be dreaming of his warm chest
Reassuring embrace, easy talks...
It has been five months since he let me go
Only one since I realized it myself
And still he has yet to admit.
So he stays, pretending in my dreams
Pretending that I have not hurt him
In some irreconcilable way
That being me is not too much
For him to handle
And that he would love me, given the chance.
Perhaps he has left because of the love.
Because it was easier to love others.
Because it was hard to love himself.
Maybe I loved him wrong.
In any case,
So here I am
On a rocky precipice, wind
Howling in my ears
Unabating.
And the black dog comes to sniff
Wide and warm and unconcerned
With me."

Curbed, teetering on the precipice
Of pain and satisfaction
The pad of one fingertip, oscillating
Wrist, left, right
The balance of a twist, arms to sky
Reach, left right
The slam against sunned pavement
Fists raised to challenge
Feet, left right
Hard rhythms, breaths
Thick words, left
Down the hill now - and
Look at that valley.

I was just sorting through journals and remembered that I like to write them even when it seemed nothing interesting happened, because I can always, without fail find something interesting in the mundane. Or something to be grateful for. One little flower in the springtime mud. What happened in your life today that made you feel alive, awake, happy, melancholy, burned, grateful, or thoughtful? What small thing made today unique?

A poem of gratitude to enjoy on this sunny Easter day.

"I figure myself a tree sometimes, my friends.
Knotted at the growth points,
Warm with the sun

Stationary and solemn
Watching ants crawl at my feet.

I see myself an ocean, darling
A seed, half-cracked,
Aching toward earth

Do all these dead branches, lying
Become particles of the soul?

Am I the only one, here?
Are we all only one, dear?"