Sora

A poem of prayer

So much of work 
Has been heads down
Focus
On all the minutia
Built up 
To mechanize
A routined output

I see this
Even as I know
It will all crumble
Into the dust 
Of obscurity…

dear friend
you have waited so long
for me to hear the call
of home.

a sweet singular note
steady low beneath
high-pitched tremolos of worth
beyond all those songs
not in my key
named “you don't belong”. 

yes, finally…

I chase and am chased
A circle with no end
Running ceaselessly toward
Away from each
Shape-shifting iteration

I have been the hare
Nimbly alert
To the initiated venery
Of this earth body home

and

I have been the hound…

It is the time of water
Ice cracking
The thunderous rush
Of held emotions
Breaking down
Static stoicism
Rushing past
Careful cultivations
White-foamed galloping
Toward a merging
With the sea

I take a deep breath
Plunge into the tears
Bursting…

Solstice breathes
The slow heartbeat
Of earth sleeping
Beneath drifts
Of time and space

Darkness calls
Opening secret rooms
In the rooted shadows
Between surface
And the deep

I enter
Tenderly curled
In the chthonic embrace
Of whispered dreams
Beyond…

 I saw a dragon 

On an ordinary winter morning 
While walking the dog 
Snow crunching beneath my moccasins 

I saw a dragon 

Sleep still blurring my vision 
Breath curling into 
Serpents of November mist 

A glorious red dragon 
Streaking across…

Nemetona

She says:
Hold on to yourself.
You are not done unraveling,
pulling thread
upon thread from the ply.
Trust, have faith.
Soon all the stories
that were not yours
will be spun out
pulled from the liminal edge
of…

Have you walked on the liminal edge 
Of early morning light? 

Seen 
Mist cloaking 
The sleepy face of the river 
Before the day pulls 
Aside her white veils? 

Heard 
Haunting calls 
Of the geese lingering 
Beyond the cattail quietudes 
Of…

I didn’t know I needed to grieve 
Until the blackberry grove 
Opened itself within me 
Thorny dome entangled 
As it was with all the sharp 
Rage that had held me together 
And kept me apart. 

Enter it said, 
Move within…

Midsummer day
The leaves shimmy
Beneath a changeable sky
This moment, these moments
Cycling year to year
Threaded through the 
Eye of the solstice
Despite my tired countenance
I connect. Into the legacy of
Our sun rhythms
The tilted dance…

I am more than an opposite force 
More than a definition of absence 
I am not the negative space left 
    by your expectations 
I am presence. An additive
Whole 
Even with all these mosaic pieces 
Scattered colours and patterns 
Held…

Palm-marks press into soft moments 
A feathering lineage outlining  
The hands 
   Heart 
      Hearth 
Of me 

I trace these branching wonders 
Proof of passage 
As delicately as I hold all the 
Entwining joys and sorrows 
They leaf from the same stem …