pray

my heart is in deep prayer. we continue to walk with our hands in the air... God we give this to You. we give this to You. we give it all up to You.

suffix

the clouds are trying. they will the season. the landscape breathes out a quiet surrender, ready or not. am i ready? i turn my glance against the wind, water fills the lens, stings as i contemplate my progress. the things i thought were important to me are only important to other people whose thoughts were important to me once.

i turn back down the mountain and across the saddle of two, affixing my desires on a very personal agenda. i reflect on myself through a pond of honesty, below the crisp and subtle fog. this is real. i'm tired of trying to meet life where other people say it should be. what if this is where i'm at? this is where i'm at. life will just have to meet me here. if i know all that i know, my whole heart and soul understands the only way to reach pure happiness is to define happiness for oneself; a reasoning unencumbered by others' variations of its meaning (even ones' own). one must consciously afford the will to make someone else happy or to truly make the self happy. and if life is really as short as i know that it is, then may i sigh relief and understanding; for all these things i'm after,...all these efforts towards something i'm scurrying to do… this idea of completion, happiness, success... have a way of keeping me from the ultimate joy. what i actually end up "being," has little substance if through the process i was never actually being.

the weather approaching hurries us: prepare, prepare, prepare. and no matter how much we prepare, it often feels as though we are never ready enough. when is just being, just enough? how much faith do i have in the now, that what i have right now is enough? if i weren't ready, it wouldn't happen. if it wasn't meant to be, it wouldn’t be. ready or not, i'm ready.~

[city lights]

me and the extremes;
comin down and so much closer than you think.
between the candle and the flame,
we put away the smoke and pick things up again.
take away the night and the sun;
heaven is here between the lines of love.~

come strange to me

come strange to me, these were shades of life turning in my window without me there.
i’ve come fretful of the shadows on the wall, not the hope once drawing circles in the dark,
fading in upon dreams i’d swear to embark;
i’d swear don’t swear -
these dreams are never quite whats there,
but come strange to me, and whisper in the shades, a peaceful air. ~

[shored]

these deserted searches
for the self,
drift as is compliant
with the tide.
these reverted senses
of whats good,
recovered by a comber
of a storm & shore collide.~

[tree]

colors change;
pain fades.
muted with maturity,
rooted with purity;
i've known no other rarity
than these times.
seasoned with growth,
choked not by former oaths;
be my oak.
feed my ground.
the alms of alma
know no bounds.~

[training camp]

this evening is my first day on the job. the training trial period, sort of like life:
 preparing
for some heavenly duty of sorts; a military nurse for God. The idea is to go
and pick up the wounded angels of Armageddon running along the front lines, (some dimension
prepared just for this) pulling them aside, relieving them of their armor.
 i’ll take out my bag of tricks: God’s morphine and His tourniquet. Now and until then, he tells me his potions
are potent and his pre-hospital care is powerful …  so i start with this. its small but its a start
and its taken me long enough to conjure up some sense of purpose.
 
 
you first have to realize you are small
your big plans are skepticism. your small ones, volunteer work.
your life is a resume; practicing in the mirror for the long awaited interview
i could be wrong but i’m not
i could be wrong but what if i’m not
 
 
i tucked in my polo shirt which i never do but they never have uniforms in extra small or even small, because uniforms were not meant to be customized or to fit. i tried to fit the profile, hair tucked away in bun, slippery nose with falling glasses.
i tried to look pressed, ironed, worthy. i go to open the cottage door (cottage is their term for
anything not plastered with stucco and pink paint; not uniform) but its locked. Of course. I knock and a woman twice my age but shorter opens the door, baring the same tucked polo, thrift store khakis hemmed, sliding thick rimmed glasses with question-mark eyes.
 
You must be the new girl.
 
yes, yes of course
in time with the persona.
 
 
you then have to realize where you fit
because some people learn best in quiet light,
others in do or die situations.
and God lets us figure that out
through one painted window at a time
 
 
immediately, i felt awkward, like an intruder. sorry. this was a quiet place with
musky, milk glass lighting; antique static. the living room straightened with old people in rows
of withered skin and aimless eyes. they don’t say hi or welcome me because they don’t know
me but they know that much. Dusty roses and muted green damask tapestry stuffed tautly
forming against their bony backs, paints a false picture. Fake flowers abound, the TV
is just on and a waxy wipe-off calendar blares pathetic goals for each day:
 
exercise, Thursday the 1st.
bingo, Friday the 9th.
 
Today is staring off into space with applesauce and Respiradol dried to corners of cracked speechless lips and blank daydreams shuttering only by anything familiar and nothing here is… but that’s not written on the calendar.
 
 
the next ambition is discovering falsity,
because where one hopes many doubt.
this will take a lifetime to sift through
but with earnest virtue you will.
if you love this, than you will.
 
 
she leads me into the medication room and in my loud young limbs and pin-tucked mouth, i ask too quickly:
 
what do you want me to do.
 
let me put some of them to bed and then i’ll show you around.
 
so i sat there observing, tarrying with the moments passing. is this God’s idea or mine?
i’ve already judged the room and my place in it: too fake. too boxy; plastic antiques. replicas of
comfort. its a shade too quiet for my age and i’m a tad too quick for their hands.
i can’t take it anymore:
 
 
Ya know i can help; i don’t want to just sit here.
 
well that one needs to be changed; she goes at the very end of the hall behind you on the right.
she’s pretty easy but use a high pitched voice, she likes to be pampered.
 
 
what is she talking about? i’ve never even held a baby. i’m too proud to ask. i reach for the cold clammy creature, walk with her down the hall. young and old, new and used. its sort of purposeful like Mary and Elizabeth; we’re fulfilling something… perhaps me.
 
last you realize small hands do big things
your place is where God puts it
The truth is in the moment, what you skim from the top of it.
i could be wrong but i’m not.
and we’re all just really practicing, aren’t we?
 
i caught on to the quietness. they live in dreams of things that made sense once. so i pretend
with her. its the only thing i could think to do. are we in the 40′s maybe? two young damsels
glorifying our best features in a powder room, fixing a loose hem, a snagged stocking:
 
here let me help you with that.
i fumble with the washcloth; well this is awkward. what? God i don’t know.
 
wait Hon’, umm..you’ve got a punch stain your dress.
 
Oh thank you sweetheart, she says to me.
 
Can you believe she said thank you? and here i am sweating and shaking trying to work with this discomfort: the interplay of dignity and delirium.
 
it wasn’t bad for a first day; i broke my own mold and washed the feet of God for the first time.~

[irony & wine]

Don’t act like you don’t know me.
I eye you,
knowing;
and for what you’ve done you owe me
to just be fucking normal for once.


Don’t stare at me like that,
like you’re so San Francisco.
I know where you’ve been,
and there’s no gas lamps or disco
3 miles into shoveling snow -


There’s no… yah there was no.
Yah, you know,
about pulling back the throttle -
the last drop coursing down the bottle -
about the time the lights went out;
the doors shut, closed.
we discovered new outs in our fucked up pose.
dreaming just to live, dying just to love, or know how.
I’m learning but you’re still something I could live without.


like you now;
same as before,
just a longer neck, a sexier sway.
you found a way to sell what you couldn’t give away.
because the poor know enough about being needy;
but the rich know too much about being greedy
and so you stain the weakness in the glass
of the promises they make,
counting every crack as you watch their futures break -
promises they never should’ve made.


So I eye
the casual approach in your disguise.
I’ll not be fooled by your social glue,
or give in to what held my glass for you.
you dilute the pain,
but you’re just a sleepless night.
you don’t comfort me…
unless I’ve already given up the fight.
toast to the spirit of a seasonal night
the sparkle in the smile of an otherwise

practical light. ~

[tredge]

the static prevailing clears in clouds,
smoke edged clarity of once upon;
a time will come, a now we’ll know-
for now we know...
this tredge through thick and patient days,
fog (so far) rolls in my heart.
I walk through time and I’m alive.
In you I feel alive.

[more like one]

i'd like to believe in something
no one could take away,
or tinge, or fade into other schemes of faith.
i am a believer, but i believe outside the box.
there is a God inside and out;
with us whether we are there or not;
not to take away but to contribute.
i'd like to believe that through something we become
more like one. more like Him. more like One. ~

[to the premature love]

to the premature love -
don't worry,
it will all work itself out.
nothing can grow
without time to breathe
and nothing will show
until we've learned how,
to let each other know:
not to worry;
it will all work out.~

[arid eye]

nothing to wipe from your vacant apathic eyes;
no water to collect, just whimpers for affect
lack of tide to me, no rain no bow no cry;
no shore to line the isle, the ithaca, the eyes.
the stoic in your step stammers at my soul.
the depth of such amazing tears, no cry could ask for more.
carry on the mess of depthlessness and blame me for the chaos if you must.
watch the sand as it hits my shore...
those dreams were made of dust,
collecting in clumps behind closed doors.~

[relief]

shamed by my presence, alone,
i slept in the graces of God tonight
and welcomed the love as it lives in You.
impeccable, God, your love...
thank You; i cannot forgive Your time.
Lord God, You give me strength
and a beauty that is all mine. ~

Isaiah 54:10

"Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,"
says the LORD, who has compassion on you."

Isaiah 54:10

song of ascents

1 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

psalm 121:1-8

truth

"Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit." the genius, Ralph Waldo Emerson

[ribbons]

God seeks
ribbons through the heart
traces the depths for intentions
i pray to be forgiven
goodness and light crept
felt through fate
of chapters, words, lines, run-ons~

[virtues]

Your time;
should i have taken it so quickly?
but Your love;
the crown, the jewels -
forgive me God but i keep You in mind.~

[to the premature love]

to the premature love -
don't worry,
it will all work itself out.
nothing can grow
without time to breathe
and nothing will show
until we've learned how,
to let each other know:
not to worry;
it will all work out.~

[avenue]

havin' down the avenue -
down so far...
kept in the graces of face value;
pain so old with pain,
splinters down the spine of someone new.
time gets borrowed; borrowed time.
my home belongs to a heart not so oh so ziploc blue.~