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Grandmother

When I age, I will shed the skin of my youth for the cloak of my grandmothers.

I will trade soft skin like moss for hardened wrinkles of rock like canyon walls full of buried fossils.

The supple sapling limbs which cradled my babies will grow into bones that creak like an ancient maple, softly swaying but never bent.

The fresh bubbling brook of my springtime will rise to a mighty river, rushing and roaring and ready to spill over its banks.

Upon my head, my sun-kissed braids will become a nest of silver where ravens roost to whisper their secrets in my ear.

The fragile May blossoms I wore in my hair will give way for a crown of January balsam, whose rich greens are unfaded by winter’s trials.

My womb which grew life will be a tabernacle for wisdom, a portal to eternity.

I will mark my brow with a paste of ash and rainwater and walk confidently on a sunset path of orange and purple,

until the earth brings me to her bosom like the sun at dusk and my body becomes stars once again.

Visit

If you stop in to visit with god,

Don’t enter bringing the list of rules you’ve followed.

Instead, come in and spend time stroking the cat lying lazily on the windowsill.

Drink in the scent of the fresh lilacs in a vase on the table.

Marvel at the light streaming through the window glass, and the way its warmth feels on your skin.

Smile at the miracle of your own breath.

Bring a snack to share.

Midwife

I am a sentry of the thin places; I guard the bridge between the worlds.

I am a wisdom keeper, like so many before me.

Their memories are inscribed like calligraphy on my ribs.

I will walk with you to the center of every wound that brought you to my door.

I will see what you see, tender seeds sprouting through the soil, bugs, burrows, the “little things”.

And I will hold your hand as you journey into the briars.

               I, too, have seen the darkness and I am not afraid.

I will rub your back and wipe the spit from your chin as you gag and gasp and grasp for safety.

               I am the midwife attending your (re)birth.

I will cradle your brokenness and lend you what strength I have,

until you deliver yourself anew among the stars.

And then, in ecstasy,

our hearts will study the constellations,

               elegantly laced across our shared sky.

Mosaic

We pay heavy tolls on the road to becoming.

The versions of who I was,

broken like pottery, shattered into shards

To form the mosaic of who I am.

If only I could hold this knowledge close,

Remember the picture is still unfinished.

I would welcome the falling apart with gratitude,

And pour it out as an offering to anoint the feet of who I will become.

Mushrooms 2

The face of God is darkness.

               It is barrenness, emptiness,

Pouring out of everything until there is nothing

               Until I am nothing.

               Until there is nothing more to give.

               I am a sacrifice of dust and sweat and bile in my throat.

There is only fire and a thrumming, pulsing energy of madness and fullness,

               Spilling over, folding, unfolding, cracking and crackling,

                              Burning, bursting, birthing.

There is void- and the void is everything that ever is, was or will be.

This is not a homecoming.

I have fumbled in, unworthy, crawling until my body withers into stillness.

There is nothing left to move-    

               I have no breath, no whisper of prayer for there are no words here,

                              No tears, no thoughts.

It is all extinguished into silence.

This is fear and trembling.

In the beginning was the Womb.

I cannot hold it all.

I am just an offering, burnt on the altar, split apart and splitting still,

               Welcoming my own annihilation one endless second after another.

Keep letting go-

               Beyond measure or reason or capacity.

Others have walked here.

Others have watched their wholeness fade into shadow,

broken and shared from the fuzzy edges of who they thought they were,

to the All of who they truly are.

This is the kingdom of remembering.

It is weaving in me,

               A new song of bones and flesh reknit into story and hymn.

Let me hold it. Let me know it.

Help me stagger through this wasteland, this holy land.

Let me birth myself, on hands and knees, rocking and swaying to bring forth something ancient.

Not for me.

               For my great, great-grandmothers.

               And my great, great-granddaughters.

Blaze in me a path of stars to guide them home like birds.

Awaken a dawn like the rupturing cosmos through the infinite blackness of the beginning.

Build in me a galaxy

               A solar system

                              A sky

                                             A moon.

From my nothing,

Bring forth everything.

Daughters

Before your messiah, there was hawthorne and mist.

Before your priests, there were daughters of darkness

               Whose hearts held the secrets of healing

               And bodies grew the magic of creation.

Before your Son, there was the moon,

               Timeless, changeless yet changing,

               Shifting phases of fullness to light the endless dark,

               Or to heed its invitation.

Who were you to strip the wildness away?

To clear the brambles for stone boxes littering the hills like gallows?

               They stand empty today.

Who are you to steal the stories of death and rebirth for your own vain glory?

They were ours-

               Our birthright, our bodies, our temples.

Who are you to say you own flesh and blood as sacrament

When you grow neither inside you?

Could you bridge eternity and time, drawing spirit into matter,

willing a heart to beat in rhythm with your own?

You cannot carry a world within you

               Only to give it away, in agony and sacrifice.

That is sacrament.

All you have was stolen

And we are here to claim it back.

Homeland

I roam a country inside me,

               A homeland which was mine

Before your crosses cleared away the serpents and the moon.

When there was wildness, and wetness, and darkness,

               Fecund and rich.

Take me to my sisters, with their hands in the dirt,

               Flowers in their hair, and knowing in their bones.

Let me touch the rocks who witnessed their secrets

And stand in the forests whose trees grew to shade their paths and hold their songs.

Let me sing with them.

Let me light a candle with my mothers.

Their drums sound in my belly, low and steady.

How hard you worked to still the beat.

So many centuries trying to bind and silence.

I will let it pound in me like thunder.

I will let their voices howl out until the land inside me is so vast

               So teeming with life and power-

It will be as if you never stepped foot at all.

Mother

I got your letter.

You told me I would “be okay living my life without you.”

There was a time I lived my life inside you.

How the hell am I supposed to be ok?

I approach humbly, feeling their invitation.

I am sinking, descending,

               Spinning downwards.

My stomach turns as the world opens, within and beneath.

They acknowledge my arrival.

I am surrounded by others, all those who have tip toed gently and fearfully

To the great doors which open to knowing.

I recognize a place of ceremony, of passage.

“You are among the initiates.”

I sense them.

“Follow, and we will show you how initiates become masters.”

I am afraid, but I advance.

Whatever work lies before me, I am ready.

I give myself over,

 surrendering,

 steeling myself for the challenge.

Ahh, they smile, with absolute sweetness.

That is the only work there is.

And just like that, I am given the keys.

All fear falls away.

The universe erupts with me- tender, powerful, vast, and potent.

 I let go, again and again, and with every surrender-

               A symphony

                              A galaxy

                                             A triumph.

Eternity swells to fill every cell of my body, bursting the edges with its exquisite beauty.

There is only abundance here, only generosity, reverence, worship,

And the infinite power of HER.

This is her playground and her cathedral.

Shrink

Don’t come to this altar offering

something fleeting.

I’m not interested in your libations

poured out in well rehearsed performances.

Why do you speak from one side of your mouth or the other?

Whore or wholeness- could you stand for it to be both?

Or would it shatter your meager vessel and leave your precious oils

in sorry puddles at your feet.

You don’t want a goddess to worship.

You just want the likeness.

Don’t ask me to shrink the vast spaces to fit inside your pocket.

Flesh

What are you seeking

in this flesh, these curves?

Is it a home for your body?

or something more…

Tell the truth.

You want something infinite.

Texting

Particles excite in the atoms of my fingertips,

tiny whirling dervishes longing to dance at the altar of your skin.

Instead they tap the tiny keys,

willing the energy to inhabit words.

What good are words?

Cramped and awkward,

a meager shadow of the lavish exultation they hope to capture.

I am left with crumbs

when all I wanted

is a feast.

Ocean

I won’t be gentle with you.
That’s not what you wanted anyway.
You don’t approach the ocean, holding your cup,
asking merely for a sip.

Dive in. I will tumble and toss you and drag you to the depths.
I will spin you round til your limbs go slack
and you’ve forgotten the direction of the sky.
Best to let go.

Remember- you are here to let me pull the air from your lungs.

I will breathe it back.

I will float you to the surface, and send you to shore.

You can crawl to kiss the sand and thank the warm earth

for a solid place to sleep.

Awake

I am invited to dance.

A whisper stirs and beckons to me.

See me. Hear me.

My mind turns in recognition.

I lean towards it, like stumbling across the murky edges of a dream

into consciousness.

She was only sleeping.

Talitha koum-

Little girl, arise!

I awaken.

Somehow,

more me than before.

Spring

I see you now.

Eyes open, aware of our unfolding, our shared becoming.

We draw each other forward, like two ivies reaching out, longing for the light.

I need you, your body like a garden,

lush and alive with newness.

I wrap you in soft vines and hold you to myself,

A perfect double helix of verdant evolution.

This is our springtime, and we are waking up.

Flowers are blooming inside you.

I love them already.

Song

You lit a candle once, a plea for life yet unformed,

but longed for just the same.

I long for this life still, now my own, emerging from shadow into shape,

Pouring out from that cathedral to the hermitage of my heart.

A single, unbroken prayer. 

What song is this?

You dreamed of me, a song whose words you had forgotten. 

While I too seek these words, not lost, but yet unfinished

Self-composing recklessly in the great symphony of my becoming. 

You have memories, as do I, of car rides and foolishness; concerts and creativity, 

Bliss of insights and agonies of vision. Melodies of childhood growing more complex,

Giving way to subtler stanzas. 

New notes rise and fall, forming, extending, reaching, grasping, growing, 

painting the distance of time with sweeping sounds of selfhood.

What song is this? 

The sharp note of disease, softened somehow by a metal chair in a church basement. 

A new baseline echoes, strong and rhythmic, a drum to tether all to itself. 

Its beat feels like wholeness. 

The orchestra swells, and yet- someone waits in the wings- or worse

She is locked behind the bars of forced forgetfulness (perhaps a tender act of kindness, if ill-

Informed, from body to brain.)

The notes have reached her now though, a tiny whisper piercing the silence of her isolation. 

The bars open, and she is restored, rising to sing the hymn of her deliverance from bondage. 

She whispers sweetly in her jailor’s ear- what of the rest?

What song is this? 

I hold the keys. 

This is the new song, a cacophony of liberation, synesthesia in shades of blue.

A chorus rises, voices lifting to vast expanse of sky and stars, 

all the “I’s”, some ancient and steady, some wild and wavering, some rescued and revived,

flesh and blood and spirit and spark.

They hail the coming of a new evolution, an aria of awakening. 

The only way to sing it is to learn the new words. 

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Space

You occupy a space in me.

Way down deep, beneath the rubble of a thousand unmet expectations.

You dug me out and held me in your gaze.

You grew roots inside me, and built a new space, a foundation, sturdy and strong

Where I could sit, and rest.

You saw me,

With my tattered places, worn through from tired repetition, years of trying to speak in a language I couldn’t unlock.

You covered me, so our frayed edges overlapped, and I felt whole.

I craved your touch, my head on your chest, gathered in and protected.

I wanted to crawl inside and live behind your ribs, as a part of you.

I wasn’t looking for you.

I couldn’t search for what I didn’t know was missing.

And yet…

The unbearable sweetness of being found, like the warmth of your breath on my neck.

I feel you there, inside my bones, in a home you’ve made for us both.

Let’s stay here and dream.

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