the only risk

For years I'd wake up gasping, soaked,
ragged, sobbing
full body
pitching forward, upward into nothingness
empty dark
I'd hear bats or birds
or something with wings
flapping madly
wild and scared
horrified , mortified
it's my heart....pounding
I'm going to die from fear
I'd grab at anything
any anchor, any tether


Hope you never have to find a way
to find your way back to
soft dark (ness)
or maybe you've already done it....

I don't assume
an absence of pain
just because I can't see it
competing for a spotlight
I know it co-exists
with joy
( and ) sometimes I forget ( that)
in spite of my
best efforts,
I didn't drown the beast
& the only risk
that awaits me
is
kindness

More...on the things you've said before...

do you remember a drive up the hill
into the beautiful white trees?
that's one of the days I remember remembering
some of the things you said before
and having the felt sense that they made more sense to me.

I never take anything you told me/tell me/say
for granted;
I hold all of it in that deep well that's been waiting to receive
your words,
wildness,
sadness,
silence
barbs and tangles
work-play-craft
the terrible wonderful times
tales of little cats
and other stories
written
and yet to be

waxing is as much
watching ants as it is spinning fire
or drinking tears
no simple equation of opposites
works
on rhythms
this courageous
sweetness of
mist
beyond wish and lament
its promises
as unnecessary
as its crimes

Do you mind if I ask you how old you are...

So this young guy looks me in the eye and asks me this....I wonder why this might be a question worth asking at all; he mutters something about being in pretty good shape for a woman my age
( which he does not know yet, by the way...). I want to inform him that I'm in pretty good shape for a woman --or a boy-- his age....but I am not going to wield body or intellect as a weapon today; today I am feeling generous.
You need to know that in one of my lives I am a competitive body-builder, so being in shape is not something I do...it is something I am. I have been knocked off my schedule with my recent bouts of traveling, but not a week goes by that I don't do something intense and exhausting in the service of being in shape. As I age, it gets harder. I wish it weren't so.
Right now, writing this, I am so sore ....I feel it everywhere....I feel its unfairness! how can someone ( this someone would be me!!) train this long and then have just a few variations in equipment during two workouts cause this much soreness...there is no justice. Body-builders: so melodramatic.
Back to the young guy. I tell him my age. At first his face registers grudging respect; he has obviously been taking note of my workout this day. Then I see a look of , well, I can only call it
horror as he blurts out that omigod that makes me older than his mom. I give him a long, hard look and then .... I ask him about his mom.
After all, I 'm feeling generous.

things you've said to me before.....

not sure why I'm writing this now....
sometimes things you've said to me before just strike me

I think I have a better idea, now, of what you meant by early entreaties

on the certainty of future disappointment

why it was so important to have it said....

Is it because you know yourself so well?

Is it because you have become familiar with habitual responses

regarding behaviour that you could but do not seek

or resist....

it is your nature, in some respects

your enigma

in others

it is your revolutionary text...constantly writing and re-writing itself

your subject

on trial

in process

the poem you inhabit

inhabits you

the tangles and barbs that call you

the twilight that calls you back

the groves that sustain you

the seduction of word beneath

and beyond it all

this is not a storm or a conflict

the moon is in your blood

is your ongoing reflection on deceit a part of this?

knowing you will wane

perhaps when people you love want your face...and hands ... and words

perhaps when, knowing this, you wane all the same

helpless as water to the pull of the moon

wave-tossed and floating

tormented and wondering

meta-knowledge no help at all

doyouthinkthismakesyoufalse.... to hold out hope

knowing that it will hover, shiver, whisper, suffer

this fragile thing

always

this dragonfly

this dandelion

this blade of grass

this is no indulgent te(s)(x)t

of faith or fortitude

in self or others friends

or lovers families mothers

gardens

virtual or otherwise

disappointment is beige

trust me on this

I know

dandelions are optimists

dragonflies don't sting

love is most of all patient

the thing that endures and sustains

yielding is

the hardest work of hope and craft

Norwegian winter

Let me tell you about my first Norwegian winter....
I am here because of the kindness of strangers, because of some people who came to trust me mostly because of my writing.... that's how they know me--only through my writing.....and a few face to face encounters last summer....
Maybe they trust me because of how I write about the people with whom I work....maybe my writing carries more than I realize....when I am the proudest of it, that is what I hope.

I don't know for sure; nevertheless, I am here in Oslo because strangers trusted me.
It is January and just beyond the darkest days of winter, the longest night of the year, the December solstice; night falls like ink between 16:00 and 17:00 and then a lovely twilight begins around 09:30....some days there is sun, but usually, this liminal sky surrounds me between dawn and dusk ....

when I told colleagues when I was coming to Norway, I got mostly disparaging comments: long nights; cold dreary days.... I was warned, sarcastically, " wow aren't you lucky!"

Yet, indeed I am.
Someone I love told me soon after we met that twilight is the time of day when wild creatures have the most freedom to move.... they are harder to see, tougher to discern when everything shivers in this threshold state...
and I am experiencing these glorious threshold days and I find that I like them... I like the motion that stillness makes possible.

Called forth by A Blade of Grass, January 16, 2009

the afterthought
is the killer
you know
couldn't you have thought it through
just once
put one brick down & then the next
and the next
for someone who can be so
damn methodical about some things
thoughtful, even
you are careless
with things that matter
more than they should
at least
the irony
is appreciated
as a gift
whether you meant it
or not

Such are the antinomies of this... now

Missing is the most startling gift
like childbirth
you are never the same
after the pain cracks you open and life is staring you right in the face
and everything within you is whispering
promises
there's no love like the love you can't give
such are the antinomies of this now

strange plaid coat

• a shy girl in a strange plaid coat
• will walk the dark river
• will travel the interior/exterior
• will ride the train
  
• will sleep
• if sleep be not safe
• then where is the harbour
  
• for the shy girl in the strange plaid coat