Shifting Sands
Poems From the Delta
Lisa Maraventano
For LaLa Craig
my first friend in the Delta
copyright 2024
Table of Contents
I Winter
Amanda’s House
For Andy
Today
Self-Acceptance
For my neighbor
Doris
To Heather
Chosen
On the Death of a Musician
Last Night
No Fairy Tale, No Ballad
From the Air
Cancer
II Spring
Smells like spring today
Chaos Theory
I remember
Error of Omission
Spring Cleaning
Finding a Picture
Deprogramming
Here Be Dragons
Ides of March
The Path Through
For Sale by Owner
Even the butterflies are untrustworthy
The Abyss
III Summer
Summer
Don’t be good at something
Sirens
Clarksdale
Alluvial
Poet
Nothing Less
I
Southern Gothic
The blues is a feeling…
Communion
Welcome to Earth
I am Not Mary Oliver
IV Fall
Memory
Halloween
Love
Money
Sex
Religion
Politics
Arrivederci, Umbria
Per Il Orso
Alpha and Omega
Endurance
Prayer
Weaving
§
Amanda’s House
Years
Slide by
And conversations
Around the table
turn
From hopes and dreams
To stories of what has been
And still the seasons pass
Without asking my permission
I find each day slow
Each part of the day
Morning noon and
Night
As I pass by
The mirror holds a woman
I don’t recognize
Only her eyes
But hopes and dreams
Boil like the grits
I am cooking in my friend’s kitchen
New Year’s Day
And the conversation at the table
turns
Revolves
Full circle
To what might still be.
§
For Andy
So many things are missing
Misplaced
and it turns out
I can live without them
Just fine
I have ceased wondering
Where I put this or that
Or whatever happened
To some lost thing
I don’t need to know
Each day brings its own
Finding
and its own loss.
So I wander through the hours
Days
Long moments, short days
January
Each one a little longer
And the sky is blue enough
This frozen time
To compensate for all the things
I’ve ever lost, and never found.
§
Today
Life used me up
A bit, as I used it
My days numbered—
How many pages
are written for me
I slow down, savoring the end
Skin is changing
Into old lady skin
So thin
While the thickness of my hide
The leather that bonds
Heart and soul and mind
Is the exact measure
That much tougher
Mother bird has fledged
Maybe it is hard for her too
Emptying the nest
Maybe it hurts her heart as
She sends them out
And it isn’t the metaphor we think
Maybe mother bird is blue
Even as she knows it’s time
Empty
There will be no
Uplifting end to this
Poem
That says how the nest will be rebuilt
My little birds are flying free
Mother bird can find a new mate
And hatch some future
That is not today’s poem
Today, whatever page I am on
In the story I inhabit
The emptiness
And aging skin
The quiet of a winter afternoon
No birds
No birds
Peace, peace
Is the destination
§
Self-acceptance
I look down at my
Post-holiday gut
And say “it’s all right.”
Then I say
“It’s not all right.”
I have quit lying to myself.
Some things are just not
All right
And that is
All right with me.
I don’t have to be
All right or okay
All the time
Because I’ve learned
I will make it
Through whatever that day’s
Adventures might be.
I quit lying to myself
I used to say
“It’s all right, it’s okay”
Whatever I had to do
To survive
My late-night holiday glut
To soothe the unknowable savage beast
It is that moves inside
Fears or failures
Addictions
So I packed on a few pounds
And now I will try to take them off
Seeing clearly
Seeing myself more clearly
As each lie lifts like a veil
And the evidence of my fallibility
Is all right with me.
§
For My Neighbor, A Beautiful Soul
Beauty exists all around us
Including in the mirror
But reflections of who we are
Can’t match
What is real
Battle-scarred warrior
In triumph, and defeat
The trajectory of time
Radically shifting
Expectations
The sun still shines
On your garden
The wind feels different
Now
On the skin you wear
The air feels tighter
When you breathe
Breathe.
Your victory is assured
Over time, in beauty
And the scars
Tell the story
Of how you’ve won the war.
§
Doris
Somewhere over the rainbow mountain
Is the name of the polish
I wear on my toes
But in this little shop
My neighbor Doris
Owns
Wisdom and compassion
Love and communion
A higher plane that we see
In operation
The words mingle
Into a spiritual cloud
Of conversation
Stories shared, pain and sorrow
Beauty and plans, family
Friends
My toes come out pretty
And my soul gets washed clean
We live on the same street
Different lives, sure
But on the same street
Heading to the same place
Catching up with each other
On course
For somewhere over the rainbow mountain
§
To Heather
Musicians, my friends, onstage
You speak to each other
In a language without words
Mute, I listen and watch
If I could speak I would ask
How does it feel
to pull that note out of that string
to make that chord
to find that groove
to hear what is not already there
in the structure of the music then
to put the breath of your soul
into the harp
to hear it sing
to know what comes next,
The solos, the keys
to touch
to take two sticks
to Keep Time
to solve therefore
Life’s most complex riddle
to play love songs
With your ex-lover
to decide how to split the Pot
and when to end
to not get too old
to cling to life
Bend pitches
Hook
Slide
Play the licks you came up with
What applause feels like
How not to fear
The watchful eyes
And ears and cameras and critics
to keep playing to an empty room
to get the movers dancing
to load out what you loaded in
How heavy an amp feels
At the end of the night
I am learning from you
how to do that, how to speak
How not to feel shame, embarrassment
At being, to listen
To that language
To find my own voice and
Sing.
§
Chosen
I prefer to
Sit here
Bored broke and alone
Staring at my patch of bright blue sky
Through the old and dirty window
Than festoon myself with your degrees
And accolades and bend and scrape
To check all of the boxes
On the forms you create.
I would rather
Live and die alone
On my patch of dark delta earth
But free from expectation commitment
Obligation
To a system designed to entrap and control me
I retire to this place
Where no one cares what you do
There’s always a drink in your hand
And someone singing
The blues
Somewhere
Sure, I am dreaming
Of Seville in April
And Rome in May
I may get there, I may not
Let’s see if I can even
Take the dog for a walk today.
Because there is something gravitational
About this blue chair in my kitchen
And the luxury
Of having to do nothing
But stare at a patch of sky
And the stack of dishes
From last night’s revelries.
I am confident
They will get washed.
§
On the Death of a Musician
Life is brief
And full of sorrow
Joy too, don’t forget
Joy too
Life is brief
And full of sorrow
Joy too
Joy too
§
Last Night
Gaslit, bullied, threatened
Ostracized
Rich white folk at their finest
True colors
Last night, so today
I went to the scenic overlook at
Moon Lake with my
Child and three great dogs
Stared at the grain of wood
on the deck
And the swallows’ nests in the
Rafters
Got drunk on sky
So blue, so blue in January
I’ve been in love with it for years
Remembered there is Light everywhere
It is not owned
I am not owned
You are not owned
If they come for you
With hate-filled words
Ugliness
Violence
If they manipulate you
To doubt
Your own memory, sanity
Whoever the “they” is
Lover, husband, friend
Boss, neighbor, parent, kid
Everybody else—the whole
Wide world of terrorists
Causing chaos, trauma
Please remember
You are not owned.
And you owe them nothing.
§
No Fairy Tale, No Ballad
I am forgettable
Unremarkable
Passing unnoticed
Through a careless world
The whip of your indifference
And neglect
Has scarred me some
But free
I wander
Enduring
Material as mist
§
From the Air
Miles and miles of white
An ocean of snow
A blank canvas
Upon which to write life’s moments
This intricate weaving
wave upon wave
Cloud snow wind
Sky
January’s hard freeze
To reset.
I have faith in what is to come
The spring thaw, the runoff water
Cascading
In the ditches and deserts
Down, down
Gravity’s pull
The flow of water
Current
Tide
Lord, bind me to you
Tie me in love-cords
So no matter how many miles
And days I wander
We are inside each other
And I see through your eyes
While you guide my steps
Upon this blank canvas of white.
§
Cancer
My mom, my only faithful reader
Has just walked by this bedroom window
To get another biopsy
She has been diagnosed with breast cancer
Stage one, but still
She is seventy-four years old
And I am fifty-two. It has been
a ride, this
Mother-daughter
Daughter-mother
Dynamic
I have four grown daughters of my own now
I have learned a lot
I have learned compassion
Finally
My mother isn’t perfect
Neither am I
My daughters are not, either
We are all flawed
All trying
How I ever could have been attached
To the idea that I knew what I was doing
That I was right
Is equally painful and ridiculous
These days
I know I know nothing
I know I fuck up daily
I know I will make it,
Whatever it is
The confidence produced from
Survival, trials
Is humble, but also
The foundation
Of faith
I went to Spain nine years ago
I met an old man
He said at the end of my visit,
“I will see you again,
Here or in the sky.”
El Cielo, probably heaven
But I learned it in school as
Sky
My son-in-law’s name
So as my mom and dad are in the car
On their way to her appointment
To have cells removed from this tumor
To determine her course of treatment
I listen for the words to come
The words of Life
And know
I will see you again,
Here or in the
sky.
§
Smells like spring today
Smells like spring today
And I saw the first daffodils
Roadside and at Rowan Oak
In Oxford
I had lunch there
Yesterday
On the square
With my friend Kate
At Ajax Diner
I drove home
And realized we are all
On the same journey
Cradle to grave
I stopped at a broken railroad crossing
And joined the other drivers
Navigating our fear and programming
Find a solution, keep
Moving
I passed Quitman’s School Bus Shop
And realized exactly where I was
The past isn’t dead,
It isn’t even past.
A new season starts,
The season of newness
The renewal of mind
In opposition to the pattern of this world
We are the universe
Becoming conscious
We are here
Only to be
Only to be
§
Chaos Theory
Flapping my flimsy wings
Trying to start a hurricane
And all there is
Is a little wind
I quit flapping
Float on the breeze
In a clear sky
Looking for the next bright flower
To catch my eye
Maybe this flower will
Bear my little feet
While I prod and poke
And discover its secrets
Delicious
Delicate
The dance of air,
Flower and flight
Find me wind
Find me flower
I am brief
A wanderer
And a benediction.
§
I remember
I remember as a child
Trying to stretch my feet
to the end of the bed
To see how long it was
How long I was
I shimmied down toward the middle
Stretching arms overhead and feet to the edge
Taking up space
Taking up all the space I could reach
I grew
And my toes could
Find the edge
Fingers stretched wide
Ready to grasp
Now I hook my feet over the mattress edge
To stretch them
Tired, worn after so many
Years wandering on earth
My fingers like to curl now
Toes too for that matter
We’ve grasped enough
Now I stretch
In leisure, not curiosity
Not ambition
Now I know how long the bed is.
Now I know,
no matter how I am measured,
I am not long.
I have reached the edges
In all directions
And I remember
I am not long.
§
Error of Omission
I met someone at a party once
There’s still music and dancing
One of those silent discos
In a quiet, walled-off space
Safe, and sound.
§
Spring Cleaning
Be free little birds, old friends
From the past
Fly away
Be free
Old things that served me well
Live elsewhere now
And free me from holding on
Let me go
As I let you go
All of us free
From the burdens we’ve carried
Too long
On this journey
My life has been rich
And my heart is full
Time to let go
Pour out
like water
Like water released
from a full reservoir
Make room for the coming flood
Make space for new life, new love,
New waters
A fresh spring
§
Deprogramming
It is the ultimate in vanity
To attempt
To record time
To hold onto memory
To dwell in past
Or future
To worry to yearn
How hard it is to learn this
How hard to trust and surrender
Our own
To the One who already owns all
§
Finding A Picture
The face of love changes
With the passage of time
Eyes that once met yours
in wordless exchange
Look into another soul now
My child, my husband, my dog
All gone, elsewhere
New eyes
See me, I see
And the face of love changes
My own face, your face
Time erases them all.
§
Here Be Dragons
I wear my heart on my sleeve, sure
But there are parts of me
My heart
Hidden deep within
Hidden from even myself
A labyrinth, high walls going into
a locked chamber
No one, not even I, will find.
I think many of us have this
I’m certainly not the only one
This hidden room
where our darkest pain
Lies dormant
Resting
Like a dragon in her cave with her hoard.
Shadows, secrets, fire, scales
No treasure is worth the pain and fury
of awakening
The sleeping dragon locked within.
Is there anything I’ve lost in life
worth following the invisible
but tangible
thread of memory
Into this dark place?
Seek sunlight and surface
Perhaps
And tell anyone who will listen
Dragons aren’t real.
§
Ides of March
On March 15, 1987,
I was a fly on the wall
At the devil’s planning meeting
for the twenty-first century.
“Congratulations,” he said
to the table full of his head henchmen.
“The twentieth century was fantastic.
Now let’s really turn it up.
We had world and social chaos
But now we are going to focus on
Home life: marriage
And family.
Friendship. Romance.
Fuck all those things.
We will tear them apart.”
He assigned each head demon
An area to work on.
They came up with ideas.
“Television,” one said. “It’s been pretty restricted
and wholesome. Let’s make it available nonstop
with better shows.”
“Pornography around all the time.”
“I have an idea—they can carry it around with them, the little black box
Containing all the ills of the world.
They will be right next to each other and never see or listen—
just hooked on the Pandora.”
“Well, we’ll need a better name,” the devil replied. “But I like the idea.”
He was excited. He could see
the potential.
“I think we got it this time.
We will break them from within.
They won’t even notice.”
And so it was.
I died that day
As flies do
but part of me lives on
and remembers
Listening to the board meeting
that got us here
on the Ides of March.
§
The Path Through
I learned something
just now
through the Spirit
One tear I cry
for another
Is one thousand of theirs
Bear each other’s burdens
in Love
Cry for your neighbor
Cry for your friends
Cry for your enemies
Cry for those in foreign lands
One of your tears
is one thousand of theirs
Share and be lifted
As you uplift
We are not meant to dwell in sorrow
But in joy
And Love
is the path through.
§
For Sale by Owner
I have nothing left
To offer
If my heart mind soul body
Were not enough
And so I take them off the market
Not for sale
I will live in them
As is. Maybe a little renovation here and there
See if the value increases with time
§
Even the butterflies are untrustworthy
I hit a wall the other day
in my own head
A place where
I could go this far
and
no more.
It hurt, crashing my head
into this wall.
The wall itself
was built to keep the pain
out.
But I thought I was ready
for freedom, open spaces.
No, Lisa,
you built the wall
for good reason
To keep yourself safe
And out of pain.
So relax, enjoy the
garden you’ve made
Inside your wall
Let the vines and flowers grow
and all the plants that bear fruit.
It will never be Eden
But it will be pretty, and tranquil.
And remember even the butterflies
might let you down.
§
The Abyss
I reached the bottom
of myself recently
Like reaching the end
of your feed
On slow wi-fi
No more scrolling to do
The big, black hole
That lives within
Each of us
Whether or not
We choose to look
It’s scary there
I peered over the edge
This edge I had avoided
For my whole life
It is Holy Week
The Passion
And finally I saw
Jesus is in the abyss
with us
That’s what he came to do.
We are so afraid
Of our own sin
That’s the only thing
We wrestle with
We are bad
And can never be good
To put it as simply as possible.
So we go around lying to ourselves
and everyone else
All the time.
But maybe if we can
accept that is who we are
screwed up beautiful messes
See our own shades
Darkness inside
and that Jesus went down
in there with us, for us
He who was without sin
Still went through the
Suffering
We can get it,
Understand.
Have understanding
That the only thing that
ever matters
Is faith
Expressing itself
through
Love.
§
Summer
Etymology
Entomology
Wind
Wonder
Wandering
Study a dragonfly
a stitch, fabric
the light and water
Watch the sky
I like it here
upon the earth
Day by long
Endless summer day
Sometimes
I crave
home
To return
To where
I’m from
The land of
stars and
dreams
Distant
galaxies
The air
But I try
to make
the best of it.
Bathe in light
and swim in water.
Watch the sky
§
Don’t Be Good at Something
Don’t be good at something
You don’t want to do
A line from a kid’s movie
Packed with truth.
I don’t want to be good
today at all.
No, that’s not true.
I want to be good
But not do good
Productive, grown up things.
I want to stare at the sky
And listen to the birds
Feel the wind on my skin
and in my hair
As I lie in the sunshine after
swimming.
I want to cry like
a baby
Seeking comfort
Someone who loves me
answering my cry
Taking me in their arms
to care for and fix me up.
Those days are gone.
I am lucky when I
get to be the one who
answers these days.
Even those days
are gone—
The days when
it was my arms
Someone wanted.
Every day lasts
forever
Somewhere unfolding
in time & space
Those days are recorded
And the Universe
can replay them
anytime
But for me—
this little woman
with this pen
no crying
no lament.
Press on,
eyes on the
road.
Be good at the
things I want to
do.
Be good.
Lie in the sun.
Watch the sky.
§
Sirens
My daughters are 25, 22, 20, 17
I have navigated time
Almost 52 years
Sailor
Adrift
Waiting on the wind
Through tempests
and starry nights
Moon
new
waxing
full
waning
bright night sky
full of dreams
Wander on
the Sea of Time
Circumnavigating my life
Full circle
Oh wind
Zephyr my love
Blow
fill my sails
Send me forward
Underneath the
golden sun.
Bright blue sea
sparkle for me,
And I will sing for you.
§
Clarksdale
The magic can not be forced
It can be lubricated, facilitated
With alcohol
But patience is required
It is slow magic
That unfolds petal by petal
Like a rare lotus
You must be still
And wait
Admiring the unfurling
Not with bated breath,
No. You must breathe
Deep inhalations
Held
And released like a yogi
And then, on the exhale
That sounds like a sigh of surrender
The flower blooms
And there before you
Is all the magic
You’ve ever dreamed of
Reflected on the water’s surface
Twin flowers under a full moon
§
Alluvial
There’s a place in Clarksdale
the Quapaw Canoe Company
that takes folks out on the
mighty Mississippi
I’ve never been
I know myself
I know my limits
But I imagine the people
living huckleberry dreams
Picnicking on sand bars
Camping out
I come from a land of two rivers
With its own fertile delta
And grew up being warned
about undertow
Because the rivers change
the shifting sands
In constant motion
from the energy of the current
The eddies and vortices
holding on, and
letting go.
§
Poet
You
shook the stars and
I
landed
upon this flat earth.
So here I am
molecules and miracles
Colliding haphazard perfection
To shine carbon light
Through black ink
into the corners of souls boxed up in
flesh cages and fear.
Just like me.
You
shake the heavens and
I
tremble, shaking
upon this page, blank
Pour out the lightning
Set fire to
Anything that burns.
You
alight galaxies within and
I
pour them out in ink.
§
Nothing Less
Knowing there is something more to being alive
than a popularity contest
I will not win, I have
Dared to go deep within
A solitary journey
Riding this cosmic wave
Universe revealing
Her treasures to me
The hive
Animation
Memory
Ecstasy is the right word
Although it has been corrupted
Through improper use
Just like the rest of us
§
I
I
Might lose the troubled souls
Placed under my wings
No,
maybe one of the troubled souls
Placed under my wings
Will not make it
No,
Maybe one of the bodies of the troubled souls
Placed under my wings
Will die
From suicide or overdose
But today I found out
That the wings I carry
Proudly, shoulders back
Sending my wings out
Have collected little ones under them
Little birds
Little birds
So I have learned
Not only do I have wings
But how to carry them
I have learned not only do I have wings and how
to carry them
But I have learned to carry them. I have
Carried them
Outspread
So that little bird souls
Find shelter there
And we fly
My little birds and me
I hope we all make it.
I hope we all do.
I have learned my judgment
I am worthy of wings and souls
And flight
And not one will fall.
Not one will be lost.
§
Southern Gothic
They descend
Like locusts
Drink until pickled
Roll the party onward
Mouths never stop moving
Destruction in their wake
I’ve said they are like
Characters in a play
And we shall see how
This play turns out
Tragedy or comedy
A little of both, this world
But I wonder if to you
They are real
With passions and intellects
Empathy and charm
Maybe
Maybe they are real
Like in The Velveteen Rabbit
A little worn
With care and cares
And I am a bitch
For not seeing the humanity
Beneath the veneer of gentility
The broken cracks
Gold can’t mend.
§
The Blues is a Feeling…
Take the broken pieces of humanity
Shards
Worn down by time
And friction
Edges will not
cut
Like beach glass
A good thing to find
Oceans
The blue bottles broken
Washed toward shore
Blue, green, amber, gray
Filling the trenches
The drop off
Take all those broken pieces
Collect them
As you dive and wander the sands
And store them in a blue Ball jar
In your Clarksdale kitchen
And remember
The blues is a feeling
And feelings come and go
Like any wave
January and July
One
Unbroken
Unbreakable
Wave
Gathered, held
Held like a note
This is the blues
This is the feeling
The blues is a feeling….
§
Communion
The blues is soul’s lament
The courage to stand in front of others
Bared soul
All pain and anguish and despair
Transmuted into vibration through the human
Vessel
An instrument, healing vibration
That pacifies the fellow souls
Lament
Lament
Freeing sorrow
One story
One song
§
Welcome to Earth
We are the monsters
Created to inhabit the place
The bad guys
Wreaking havoc
We are the monsters
Created for the story
The villains
A story is only as
Good as its villain
And we are
Written very well
Sympathetic, relatable, human
Complex and multi-dimensional
Motive
Method
Opportunity
No believable alibi
Criminals, all of us
Trying so hard to be heroes.
§
I am not Mary Oliver
I am not Mary Oliver
nor Maya Angelou
but I got something to say
My pen stops.
What do I have to say?
It’s a long, lonely road
sometimes
This road in the woods
whatever path you choose
Sometimes you walk alone
And wherever you go,
There you are
I remember reading
Hillary Clinton was walking
in the woods upstate after
the election
Was she alone?
And some folks ran into her.
She was gracious
even in Defeat
That in itself is victory
I’ve see some real bullshit
in my time
Which I guess we all do,
every generation
every generation goes through
Something
This Test of Time
Do we wallow in the mire
Rise above
Clean
or contribute
A little bit of everything
I’ll tell you
This infinite You
So many cliches
advice
No one likes
Lessons
no one learns
We walk alone
for a reason
It is the only way
to discover
we are never and never have been alone
The illusion, distraction
cannot separate us permanently
from what we carry
within
§
Memory
Memory stretches
Like a muscle
A winding sheet
Of all the days
Sunsets to sunrises
Long dark nights
When I couldn’t see the stars
Memory unfolds
Like a bedsheet
Stretches like a new thing,
New to this world
A baby, a kitten
Reaches for the light like a plant
One long unbreakable thread
One
Woven into this
Material world
Memory unfolds
all around me
The pattern of
the fabric
now evident
The complexity of
the design
Resolving into one
simple
beautiful
Truth.
Love
That is the name we’ve given
this thread of energy
That stretches through all
These are the memories
I carry
The fabric of my life
I am wrapped in
Night and day.
Hours of solitude, music
Drilling deep into the core
To find strength, keep going,
faith, faith, faith
Searching, searching
Finally seeing the only
Thing to find is right in front of me
at all times, and within.
Memory stretches
all the way back
Long before I was born
to the dawn of time
The foundation of the world
The world itself was new
And time began to spin out—
Woven spiderweb on a fall morning.
§
Halloween
Time is drawing on my face
with a dark pencil
or permanent marker
Lines only he and I can read
Lines that tell the story of all my misadventures
Escapades
and romances
that fizzle out
Days are getting shorter
the nights longer
colder darker deeper
Shadows on my soul
I try to expose to the light
And fail.
So each day I look in this mirror
and I think ah, fuck
Who’s ever going to love this old witchy hag?
But then I remember
I love me
Time loves me
We are having a great time here on this planet
I’m just gonna keep on going
And let him color away
With age spots and dark lines and wrinkles
By the time I reach the end
We will both know
I lived
§
Love
Setting you free
From inside
The prison we’ve made for each other
Chained
My words won’t be the bars
To hold you
My love won’t be some shackle
No my love, be free
Be air water fire earth
spirit electric
Whatever pleases you
You have given me freedom
To be
And I would never try to trap the
lightning nor catch the elements
To satisfy my whim.
§
Money
Money makes the world go round
So the song goes
In Cabaret
Life is a cabaret
Enough plagiarizing—just
Setting the tone
For this floor show, entertainment
Of this most delicate subject
My friend told me
You never mess up on people’s money
Or their hair
Satisfaction derived
Utility
Is what it is for
As we live like kings, even richer
Fast food dropped at the door
Romans reincarnate
To spend to owe to earn to grow
I hope we remember it is just a game
Points on the scoreboard
Please remember
We are here for other reasons than
Chasing or running
This grand, electric spectacle
On the Great White Way, Broadway
Currency flows
As it should
Like any wind or water
I will do my best to never tell you
what to do
Or think, who or how to be
But simply hope
The song and dance doesn’t fool you
We are the engine of the world, what makes it go
round
And should not be ashamed.
We light it up, my chum,
With our own music and fire.
§
Sex
Everywhere
Dripping
From the trees
Hanging from the branches
like ripe fruit
Or monkeys, one arm hanging on
the other outstretched
Sex everywhere, dripping from the trees
I am fruit
to pluck, to fuck
Consumable flesh
I like to play the game
Sometimes
Play little monkey games
with words
Preserve my flesh even as
it dries in the sun
like a raisin, a prune
We have a plum tree here
laden in the early September days
With fruit that’s not quite sweet
And a grapevine beautifully
trellised over the dining table
With fairy lights and candles, the moonrise
over the hills
Very romantic, ready for romance
But all there is
is sex everywhere
Hanging like monkeys
in the trees
Not men.
Not men.
§
Religion
Healing in its wings, the sun
Yielding its fruit every month, Tree of Life
from the throne of grace, the river flows
All tears wiped away, no more
Death sorrow pain
We shall see clearly
One God, all is One, the great I am
Who was and is and is to come
There is no separation, time
past present future: no
all is occurring at once
Hear O Israel The Lord is One
Love the Lord, love one another, one love
My love endures forever
Every vision will be fulfilled
Whatever I have said will be fulfilled
All faith is substance of things hoped for,
Evidence of things not seen
The one begotten by the spirit,
begotten not made
In principio erat Verbum
The Word of action, through which
all things made, spoken into Being
Breath of God
God is not even the name
The roots of that word come from pouring out,
invoking
It is Love—
it is
The One who was is and is to come
Tenses of to be
The Being
Universe, one story
One woven thread
Like yarn
Knit into a masterpiece
Into which each of us
Is perfectly threaded
in the design
Life is not your own or for you to direct your
steps, only follow the Way
The path before you
Accepting the Provision
Call to me and I will answer you
And tell you great and unsearchable things
You do not know
Simply look for me
I will not give you a stone, but
Good gifts—seek me, I am right here
With you, always
You my children who see
Who I Am
The sun will rise…
Yes, with healing in its wings.
§
Politics
It is election year
In this country
Into which I was born
It is not politic
To speak of such things
As love money sex religion
In finer company
To speak of how I lost my country
All the things I believed
One fine day—long ago
Freedom, freedom
Nevertheless, she persisted
So here I am debating
What to say, what not
Liberty and justice for all
My country, ’tis of thee I sing
I looked for life
Beyond the borders of
What was once mine
And found all invented
There are no walls
That can hold the divine within
There are no boundaries
To the infinite and eternal, by definition
Space and time constructed
Like the set of a Hollywood production
Walk on, play your part
Shakespeare told us long ago
In the times
Our New World, as it was once called
Was being founded
All on lies we told ourselves
To survive.
I shall not compromise
I shall not
I shall not compromise nor waver
in the search for truth, the desire to love
And the pursuit of what is required of me:
To do what is just, show constant love, and live
in grateful humility under the Sovereign
Dominus
That is good.
So hang your chads, red and blue
Decorate yourselves with garlands
Claiming victory where there is none
She wore purple that day
As one day I hope we can see
The Son of a Royal house
On clouds of glory.
§
Arrivederci, Umbria
I don’t think
I left anything
Or lost anything
Except my money and
My heart
But in the end
I don’t need money
I don’t even need my heart
In the end
I still have
What I brought with me
And gained some memories
And more—
Friends, lovers, adventures, art
Created and destroyed
As if anything matters.
But I am here on this train
to Rome
The magnet drawing back
To the ancient place I belong
And the mountain I left
Will still stand. The leaves will fall
From the trees and come back
New
In a season hence.
And Italy only gives so much
Then no more.
Her boundaries are fixed and
She keeps her own.
I know this. We have peace between us
I am only part of her
And she is only part of me.
We share a season
And then part company
Poorer, richer
Heart full, heartbroken
And I know
Absolutely
I have lived
in Italy.
§
Per Il Orso
I begged you
To cut my heart into
A thousand pieces
Like a jigsaw puzzle
Just so I could
Put it back together.
So you did.
You took your blade
And sliced away
Cutting me
Into fragments
I guess I asked
For the pain
Thinking it would distract me
From all the other pain
And it did.
It was my way
To survive
Pain layered on pain
Testing my endurance
Because I am sick like that
A longtime sickness
Chronic illness
The way I have made it through
All the days and years.
When I took the little pieces
And examined each one
Trying to find where it went
In this fucking puzzle of my heart
An unexpected thing happened.
I could see each piece
For what it was
So as I finish
putting my heart back together
Scored with the lines you carved
I will try
To forgive both of us
You for the cutting
And myself
For the asking it.
§
Alpha and Omega
December 28
Silence
Stillness
What is this unfamiliar state
we are in
Is this peace
The mad rush abated
Consume, consume,
consume
More
Coffee, information
Feed the insatiable
Desire
for More
Full
finally
Full
This strange time
At year’s end
Which is just another
Moment in time
Nothing special
Except that Moonstruck
moon last night
And the silent stillness
of cold stars
And the unquenchable fire
Within
I surrender this morning
To peace
Silence and stillness
Fullness, completion
The Whole
God’s wordplay
Always entertaining
In all ways
hole, whole
The end made known
form the Beginning
§
Endurance
I have a list of things to do
That are not getting done
Time will eventually win this battle—
I will do them
Or not do them
And they will no longer matter.
I know this
as I fritter minutes
Hours days
I could be productive
I am in a war with Time
long my enemy
And I will lose many, many battles
But being made from Eternity
and stardust
I’m not worried.
So I listen to the rain
and wait
patiently
as Time soldiers on.
§
Prayer
I have found
In that space within
This reckoning
The war of world and spirit
Material and divine
The battle between them
White flag, surrender
There must be peace
There must be
The world must not win
But I must exist in the world
Eat drink and be merry
Use language, pay bills
Give account of actions
Reconcile with God
Let go
Let go of mind and mine
Holding fast to what is good
Love mercy, do justice
Walk humbly
Guide me, Spirit
Direct my steps
I ask in the name
of my Savior
Amen
§
Weaving
You’re never going
To not be alone
Unless you go where the people are
Such a lovely paradox
Alone in a crowd
I said good morning to a wren
Which reminded me of my breakfast sparrow
Three years ago now
I went out among the people
Said buongiorno, good morning
Laughed that sparrow
Is a homophone of spero
“I hope”
We are born through woman
There is one: your mother
We are not born alone
Our family
No matter how messy and complicated
Like birth itself
The blood and anguish
Washed away, wrapped
In soft blankets
Years—days really
Until our independence asserts itself
And we know better
This morning
I sit alone in cold sunshine
Preparing to send my own daughter
Off into the world
With her love
And youth
I have done all of these things
And more—so much
I wasted some of my days
But I have lived a lot of them
Every minute full
So that the empty moment now
Feels new and open
To possibility
This morning
There are different birds
And a whole day to discover
How my little thread
Joins the tapestry
How today's story is written.