the truth of the truth

the truth of the truth

when offered freely

the open hand holds more

than a closed continent

before you I could not see the sky

when I looked up

I saw empty

it

it was not enough

to leave

but to want more

there is nothing like the love of God

tho I peer through a pane

it is truth’s pane

and tho I cannot touch your hands

tho I cannot see you

I will love you forever

I can see fingerprint on glass

I can feel you lifting me when I fall down every day

\you are the daily moon\

art

broken heart

blue stretched canvas

holding in more

than it will ever let show through

in grams, pain feels like bread

outside the oven

unbaked

getting heavier

white wet acrylic

fall into the fog- chunks of blue, ovals of open mouthed navies

until they are immersed

in blue

saved the place like a bookmark 

fierce

arrow head

dug up

recovered

re wound

like a bird I am wounded by the sky I will never pass through

the cathedral bells I will never hear ring

the country I will never visit

in my lifetime

like this black paint on my jacket

I decide

to stay

cubism

was first nothing more than realism

in someone’s mind

was nothing more than relationship

between border and brother and boredom

matters of the hear]t

I try to keep things simple

with you

I try to use as few words as possible

because I start to ramble

I know I know myself

it does not stop flowing

until the sky is red

and there’s anger in my eyes

long distance

it is as if I live in a small country

pinned at the corners, across the earth’s crust

shutting its eyes in the early evening

sheets and quilts keeping the ice flows in place

as if going up north for the weekend to visit you

is nothing more than a drive to the corner store

to grab a few groceries

in my own island for days on end

I dream of the distance

of rushing through it

to see your face

I Could be a Woman From Any Place

one foot then the other steps out onto the riverbed floor

it is early and the fishermen are packing their bread and fruit lunches for the coming day

dawn’s light warms the cold night air as another morning approaches:

I have come to greet the day

to herald the blessings that might come today

feluccas on the horizon

I am here to say Yes.

I could be a woman from any place

letting my hair down after the 9 to 5

spending one precious hour with the book I’ve been putting off

with the ending I need to have

before turning out the lights in a familiar bed

I could be a grandmother baking bread

welcoming in my young granddaughters for Earl grey tea after picking apples in the garden

listening to their stories about school as we visit by the fireplace

setting the table for dinner as the bread comes out of the oven

I could be a woman from any place

I could be a mother baking sugar cookies with my daughters as it snows outside

as the frost clings to the front window

dancing to Greek music, rock music, classical music

as we wait for spring to come

I could be a woman from any place

selling fabrics in the Cairo street market;

visiting with the elderly in a Calgary nursing home;

drinking tea in a shop off of Kensington, catching up with friends;

a student working for her education;

a woman misunderstood by her colleagues while she waits for her dreams to begin;

a young pianist spending hours every day practicing;

a scientist who makes a discovery;

a politician who is not always popular, but right;

a pastor who spends her weekends arranging shelter for the homeless;

a sister, a mother, a cousin, a friend.

strength through our trials

commitment through our trials – to Love others as we would like to be loved,

to give of ourselves for the education, knowledge, or health of others

I could be a woman from any place

but I am from this country, my country,

I will use my hands to lift up those who need shelter

I will use my history, and the history of the women before me,

to restore people to their former light.

at central

some days I need bread

but I need love to breathe

to fix the nostrils for life

to leave for Australia

I do not need flight

I need the ground I need love

the Kingdom of God is backwards and forwards

(pulled on a thin thread from my birth to my distant shore leaves me between places)

(until I reach my distant shore)

there is beauty in need

hands wrung for water for rain

detect a hole

prove the supply

the frozen lands do not whimper

the frozen lands do not whimper

when spring does not come

once again I I i am drinking coffee drumming pencils

feeling so much for you

it’s always about you your listening your knowing without asking the questions

just hearing me out

the frozen lands do not close their gates

to winter birds

tho they desert the northern saloons for hot places

in the newspaper they said he’s too busy to be a president

he’s too left feet to know what love is to heal healthcare

to provide

the frozen lands do not whisper like atoms

they worship the clock. it is always motion

in ice there is no reply only full

sphere of remote love

pleasing the sun pleasing the stars

it is always light

and it is always dark in the frozen lands.

two

the lines run on

into each other:

bids on old memories

tossed into the silver bin

the liquid brims

the timid swim

debt

splashes

the internet

into your first waking minutes

tunes your radio

no

company.

a non story a non accent                                                                      

and this December clutch

your address

be specific

2007

income(n)

the settlers moved in

were moved by the colours of the fields

they could see from that point

mountain protected their children

species-specific

deleting if from wonder

is capsizing land and leaving surface water

along my hands, the border—

draft of thin black word—light vaporizes in the office and I too wonder about my place

it is in there in margin in cranny in

cobwebs brushed away

the books we read as children

were soft

paperback

opening us to the cobblestone streets

fresh milk and butter

and warm bread

in the early morning

when the light strays through the window

does me good

I am still young

Reaching

like the grounded bird’s plumes for air

blue feather, ticking time bomb before I treat myself better

purple feather, clock counts time— units of seconds beating like

wings beating with flight, with something that is happening in her heart in my heart

I think of them sometimes

we are younger searching for a dream career

I have neglected you

you are clever, have quick hands a quick mind, dreams, and yet I neglect you

here I am

at this very moment

looking behind me on the road I’ve walked

looking ahead to the process that’s not as stressful as you may think but more difficult

I drink my virgin Caesar and feel at ease with my peers

scientists who for so long I wanted to be around be like

and now here I am talking about my heroes

and I am training to fill their job spots their spaces of knowledge they’ve given

I feel like being free today this month

and sitting out in the sun

my friend finds the change of season difficult and tiring

I find it energizing I cannot wait for coffees out on the patio

and yet I cannot wake up in the morning and feel like I’m just waking up in the middle of the night

when it is the day begun. 

Emily Dickinson

“To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.”

“Dying is a wild night and a new road.”

"My friends are my estate."

"Where thou art, that is home."

world less

notebook pages torn

separated from the coil

power lines

swept away

from the solid wooden poles

do you believe in policy

does it work for you

three dimensional feelings like love like nostalgia

bruise like a fight

rising temperatures soften the roads

concrete, hard for decades between the city’s places,

softens.

memory lies

question marks ease in

break in

between fond memories

bad memories that hurt us when we were young

Short story started. The fisher and the fish.

Then it let go. With a pop and hissing, the fishing line ran through my fingers so fast that I had not realized I lost the fish. Here we go, another sign. I was always searching for hemlock, for word posts, signposts. None did justice to my childhood dreams. And yet there I was, at 19, running my finger tips along the backs of shelves in my grandfather’s fishing hut. Looking for floats, weights, an old tie? He sent me in for some heavier line, and I thumbed through the boxes and piles. Old hooks, jigs, orange for dawn, red for dusk.

It was the quiet water that drew me out to the docks. It was that quiet moment, between life and the next day. When it was silent and grey and nothing mattered. There were no worries

What is it about objects we can touch that make us feel sure? What difference does it make to hold something? Thinking about it makes it just as real as it’s every going to be. And yet.

It doesn’t quite.

Fishing from the pier as I often do, has taught me to hang on and to let go. It is not the map that locates us – it is the fawning over accomplishment, wishing to be all that we are, but only sometimes. It’s like feeling sheepish when there is not even a reason to feel that way. If I could bridle my emotions like horses, make the local news personal, I could leave a few things packed in time’s trunk. I could make them personal.

To be in two places at once, the fisher and the fish. I could swish through the water, a foot from the bottom, where time lost all meaning. No seconds no ticking. Heaven. We are the fisher and the fish. Our dreams coming from our blue depths, the places we haven’t shown anyone.

To be quiet, and say good-bye with a little dignity, was what took place. I still wanted to shout as loud as I could, don’t go. But the urgency and sting that greets us those first few days, eases a little. Growing into a unworried friend, we walk with our minds on things that are a little further beyond.

Worry. Damn attendant that I apparently enjoy since I create stress and seek it out, like a tilted clay pot I would like to make and place on my shelf. And yet worry is a different artifact. It is not beautiful, it does not really show care, and it is impersonal. At the end of time, when we read our books and tally the score of how nice we were – worry does not even tell others we cared about something. There is no nurturing because of worry. It is a closed lump in the throat. In my experience anyway.

Short story started

I am glad. It took considerable effort for me to make the meeting today. I had to walk 14 blocks to the R-line, and as mercy would have it, was short a ticket. Stanley comes with me most days, and did again today. Some women harp on one chore until their poor husbands lose it. I will admit now, at the start of this story (though you came in halfway from the beginning) that my life will poke its head into the spaces. It cannot be helped.

I know I said that love is an exact science, but recent events have changed my mind. I sat, clutching my fall gloves, struggling to see through building tears, and pick up the flyers left in my mailbox. The funding for your outreach program will end at the last day of this month. That was all she said. No reasoning. Sonya Speaker was used to telling her community “no.” No room, no interest, no space. 

Azores. A novel. just begun

A story of triumph, of overcoming yourself. A young woman is led on a journey to the islands at the center of the Atlantic.

Ilah woke with a start. She heard the cows mooing and yet it was only 5:00 am. Too early. Too early. She thought many things in her life had been too early. She had learned too early that people cannot be trusted, which then became I can’t be trusted. She was tired of the routine, of the same thing for months on end. Months that led nowhere. She was tired of being tired and feeling nothing for days she worked long and hard for. Today was the day everything would change. Looking back, she would know this was the day.

She slowly stretched and opened her eyes. Sun was barging in through the blowing yellow curtains. She had picked them herself on a shopping trip with her mother months ago. Try them, it will add some fresh air and openness to the place. They didn’t. Her feet were tired and it was just the beginning of the day. She didn’t want people thinking she was unhappy with everything, because she wasn’t. She didn’t complain about everything. But there was a stillness that was killing her, making her feel more and more trapped.

She had been in school once, training under a doctor. The first woman in her family to be an apprentice, she had been so proud and studied hard.

Some papers tumbled out of the pile. Not only bills, but two tight bundles of paper that looked like pamphlets. They were old, could have been her grandmother’s accounting ledgers. She picked up the dusty sheets and set them aside.

It was a catch her maternal grandmother used to say. A meet-cute. A happening that put two people together forever. Told them they belonged. But she didn’t know it then, only on looking back ten years later. She belonged to him and he knew it. He dreamed of kissing her flushed cheeks that smiled and frowned and said good morning.

Zenith Times

I am a small scar

          Harlequin’s mid-day

I am a small near

          Harlequin’s mid-day

I am a small attendance

          Harlequin’s mid-day chance

To light upon

          Stone sooner barrage

To near to stand outside

I am small formal

          Thirty-two year crown

Seeing you there

          Crux for affected laid out largo

Stance in flux nadir and reference

          For I am a small block

Of tip or place to look

          For all there is

All this happened in water

          The authored turn

Stone to hand to swish

          Sink and there’s atlantis

In spain