All Grown Up
I’m all grown up now
or so they said
while their eyes admired
my white dress in the hall
(as though that dress
ushered me into adulthood
buttoned up the back)
I must be a woman now
or so I thought
while life sprung from me
and looked in my tired eyes
(as though giving birth
bore
me into adulthood
a
baby at my breast)
“Look who she’s become”
they say impressed
while I raise and teach
these molded minds
(as though shaping lives
graduates
me to adulthood
diploma
in my hand)
But still he could not see
the little girl who cried—
she just ached to be
noticed and admired
(I don’t want to wear
the white dress, I just want
to
be his bride)
________________________________________________
Hibernation
(All seasons come to an end)
February 2011
What new thing is this
Springing up from the ground?
The scent of the new season
So strong it clouds your head with pain
But you’re not ready
For winter to be over
Finding comfort in complacency
It’s so easy in the cold and dark and wet
You don’t have to make an effort
Like those silent bulbs stretching
Green fingers through brown earth
You can’t do that—not now, not yet
And still the scent lingers
Reminding you: wake up!
At least the headache is something
Not the numbness of winter
Oh, to see the earth rent with new growth
The darkness split with hope
What is this pushing through black soil?
A good to blossom into good?
Or that which tears the heart
As easily as it does the earth?
The bare dirt of winter is the easy bed
Lying calm, untouched
Except by the rain, the snow
The freeze of inactivity
You are not ready to wake up
(And yet this garden atilt in sunlight
Is not so easy to escape)
In the Ninth Hour
The last time I saw
Your head on my lap
Was the day your dreams
Ended in passion
I remember the tears
Warm drops of sorrow
In pools on the ground
And I remember the dance
You bequeathed to me then
So full of sharp sadness
Love, pain, and regret
I remember forgiveness
Forgetting the frenzy
Inflicted by your eyes
I forgave you
But you could not perceive
The truth of my piety
So now I remember
Awake and asleep
Flashes in darkness
And visions so clear
I remember the drops
Never scrubbed out
Seeing foul as fair
With your dagger smile
I remember your head
Lying cold in my lap
My hands on your face
And your blood in my eyes
_______________________________________________
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________________
Broken
Will there be baskets to collect
when all have had their fill
of this broken
when all have had their fill
of this broken
(into a million cliché pieces—
I cannot count them
but I hear their
names—
and now those particles are
slowly
being ground into
being ground into
--nothing—
a powder that lifts
with the slightest breath
the briefest <gasp>
--motes upon a sunbeam, perhaps?
no, wrong movie, this time—
merely a feather of ash
and that pinprick, pinhole . . .
light illumination
a miniscule projector sending
the dance of this life
into the dark still
unbroken)
heart?
Daphne’s Regret (forever in progress)
You gave me this
boy
—I couldn’t see the
man
You gave me this
man
—I couldn’t see the
boy
He hunted her too long, I guess
His longing ever a step away
Her petrified heart looked
For so much more
—or so much less—
In places distant from his burn
With her back to her pursuer
—this man, this boy—
She did not see him tire
Sweat and tears and pain
Loosening the arrow
Lodged golden in his chest
But as she ran the leaden arrow
Clawed deep into her stony heart
—it turned cold—
She cried for transformation
Through days and weeks and years
And then the cry was heard
—No longer needed—
For he had stopped and weapons
Clattered to the trodden ground
The golden arrow dangled
By one clinging desperate barb
But as if a cord connected the two
Her last step took up the slack
The distance lengthened
—one last time—
As once-triumphant arrows
Fell blood-tipped to the trampled grass
Beside the cold and leaden arrow
Her foot plunged into the earth
Toes expanding to search
For hope for life for escape
And her upswept arms
—lifted for relief—
Spread ever higher
Blue-divided fingers reaching
Green-bursting seek the sunlight
But drenched in light in life in hope
Her heart of stone broke open
Molten and soft through the cracks
And though unmoving her eyes glanced back
At her hunter her pursuer
—no longer seeking loving—
And she could see what she had lost
—the cost of running—
Once unmoved by faithful longing
Now sessile and with little
A melted heart and dropping tears
From bark hard and unyielding
As her once-frozen soul
Barred from his fire and touch
By a forever barrier of cold
The hunter stares down
At the golden arrow at his feet
Unsure of it
Of where he stands
Of what he feels
Of why he is.
Breathless and aching
He seeks for rest
A tremor in the breeze
Sunlight and shadow shift and beckon
The graceful tree glistening with tears
Invites him
“Come.”
And I will stand
beside him
And offer him my
shade
He could be my
Apollo
And lay his head
against my bark
But he is not a god
But just a man
—or just a boy—
And men cannot be
gods
Nor would they want
to be
__________________________________________
My Life of Broken
Wings
Resurrected in response to the Me Too movement
Resurrected in response to the Me Too movement
you may ask me on your knees
but I don’t
I don’t have time
to sit and
dream
and feel you whispering
of romances
and desires
and kisses
that always end
and roses that still have their thorns
thorns that
bite into my arms
the way my nails dig
into your neck and your chest
as I struggle to deny love
to deny the
passion
to wander alone
forever
to not be subject
to one such as
you
until my self has been destroyed
as my heart
was
one moonless night in February
when my trust in life broke down
before the
dawn
in tears shed naked
on another’s
living room floor
atop a rug of bear’s skin
where a fire burned
unquenched
and no, I don’t have time
or strength
or courage
to sit and dream
and feel you paint
landscapes of
starry nights
within my brain
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