August

Tags

autumn, emotions, nature, poetry, sun, trees

My pagan heart
feels autumn coming,
the sadness of trees

whose leaves,
not now but soon enough,
will drift away,

longer nights,
the sun’s path low and lower,
as light departs.

Ice Cream for Everyone

Tags

Albuquerque, death, dreams, emotions, ice cream, Love, New Mexico

California and Utah, 2009
Photo: Albuquerque, NM, 1948 or 49,
me on far left, Lynelle on far right

My cousin Lynelle was dying,
I heard; remembering when we were children,
her big green eyes, smile sweet,
a bit crooked from a bad delivery,
five years older, so kind
to three-year-old me I thought
she was an angel;
that night I visited her in a dream,
in her hospital room in Utah,
kissed her cheek, told her I loved her;

standing all around, next to the walls,
my mother, Lynelle’s parents,
our grandmother,
Aunt Zulema and Auntie Irene,
all departed years before,
there to welcome, console, help,
I didn’t know which;

later on, Lynelle’s daughter wrote me
that the next day her mother was fading
in and out, but one time
she opened her eyes,
gestured at the empty room,
and told her daughter, as though the time
had come for the highlight of the picnic,
“Get ice cream for everyone!”

Singing

Tags

emotions, poetry, singing

To sing feels
like pouring honey,

each song a sunrise
in my day,

when music sculpts
the moment,

and emotions wake
and find a voice.

White Egret

Tags

birds, egret, emotions, nature

Feeling low this morning;
look out the window,
white egret
flies through a gray sky;
joy.

Underground

Tags

astrology, Demeter, emotions, Greek mythology mythology, Persephone, poetry, sexual abuse

Deep in the earth, I walk in a tunnel,
I cannot live only in the sunshine;
the sound of faraway water, or is it a cello playing,
a woman weeping?

Persephone, forced to spend
half of each year down in the darkness;
in those cold times
her mother Demeter searched and wept,
searched and wept.

Tunnel divides, I go left,
through an arched doorway;
stairs lead downward, light dims,
soft shadows gather;
here a niche in the wall:
Blue Willow teacup, doll size,
drawing of a fairy,
letter from my cousin Lynelle.

More stairs, now I feel the cello, the shadows
in my blood, my bones,
they must be honored;
down here, rooms I never enter,
I know enough already;
I stand outside each door
and weep.

Underground River

Tags

blocked emotions, break-ups, emotions, Love, poetry, river, underground

Alameda, CA, 2014

Where are you? says
a voice inside me,
and I see you sitting
in my living room
the morning you left.

Part of me
doesn’t know you’re gone,
perhaps the underground river
flowing in the dark,
carrying pain too deep
to know.

But no, the river knows;
I am the one refusing,
refusing to admit
you are gone.

Queen of Lightning

Tags

emotions, Love, poetry

Found poem: in an email from a man I’m seeing
June, 2014

I am playing
with pickup sticks and matches
and you are the queen
of lightning.

Blue Danube

Tags

Blue Danube, break-ups, emotions, Love, poetry, Relationships

If I went to the Blue Danube again,
would I see our shadows
sitting at that table, drinking tea?
I’ve never been back,
old happiness too much to bear.

Blue Haze

Tags

emotions, Love, poetry, psychic awareness, Pt. Reyes, Relationships

When I walk through your apartment at night
in my mind’s eye,
I see all the times you’ve thought of calling me,
my name written in the air
over and over
in pale blue light,
a haze of longing and uncertainty.

Sundays at Elaine’s

Tags

blocked emotions, emotions, Oakland, soul, writing

Oakland, CA 2014

In late afternoon, we gather in her kitchen,
six or seven women, sometimes a brave man or two.
Light-filled room, beyond the back porch
a patchwork of trees and other houses,
a feast on the kitchen table:
bowls of nuts, plates of cookies,
cups of coffee, glasses of lemon-mint water.

Our voices laugh and murmur, rise and fall,
until Elaine suggests that we begin:
a topic is chosen, timer set,
silence descends, and pens are put to paper.
She gently guides us as we move
from one subject to the next; we write
of secrets hiding in the chambers
of our souls, frozen fears, old aches
and open wounds, the stream of love,
flowing or blocked; memories that
charm us, haunt us, move us; courage,
how we bear the unbearable; and finally,
the desires that call to us, that float us up
to the blue heavens. We read our writings aloud,
unless reading the outpourings of the heart
to ourselves is more than enough.

Sacred time, when we invite our souls
to come forth in a ritual as old
as the dawn of language, when the tribe gathered
around a fire in a cave and gave birth
to myths and legends; now we sit in a circle
and tell our stories, rewriting
the myths of our lives.