Window to Me

Thinking up new words, peeling strips

of birch from the trunk.  Maypole

in the woods, ribbons made of

nature.  I will turn to butter if I

spin. I am gladly aware that there is 

neither late nor early. Still, I am

running round the tree, looking 

for the entrance into us.  I hop, gallop 

and walk, adjusting my stride 

for resonance, listening for the 

matching hum of destiny.  You and

I are somewhere in the mystery, captured 

for the moment, and held in staggered 

dimensions. Sleuth of invisible time.

Such is my clever way to humor Fate.  I am 

only pretending to look for you. I want 

to have a story to tell, something to 

make you laugh when you arrive.  The 

synchronicity appears with neither lag

nor hurry.  Here we go round and round.

Soul Rings

Past ghosts,
hello.
How many exorcisms shall you want?
With every cleansing, there’s a
respite.  A valley of peace, an
island of hope.  A plumbed
depth, and then.  Eureka
and seeing,
hello.
You do not like to leave me long.
I am so very missable, for those
whose presence I will not
pine.  My body is warm,
a good oven.  Yet I
surrender and softly sweep
you spectres out,
goodbye.
Patience borne of sorrow,
I guide you gently.  Quieter
grace, nearer to the
knowing, more room
for imperfect flow.  
There is a welcome breathing
hello, goodbye.

Pauli Particle Principle and Tea

Because of the Pauli Particle Principle,

things are out of control and tea gets steeped

by the cup not the pot.

Pauli was not to blame--

he was only the messenger.

Like Einstein before him: a mere

messenger for what already was.  

Things have always 

been exactly what they are for as long as 

this universe has been.  

Fermi only gave a name to what had 

already been.  Bose only gave a name

(by mistake) to what had already been.

Awareness, says de Mello, goes

back to before things have names, when 

things just are without all our judgments

and superior egos in the way.

The bird still flies even if you do not know it

is a bird.  The leaf still flutters 

even if you do not know tree, wind, leaf, 

the changing season.  The boson still piles 

up even if you do not know it exists.

The world still has an orbit even if it feels

like you are on solid ground tethered to 

God Himself. 

It took a while

for the universe to cool enough

to produce life and even longer

for that life to get intelligent enough

to conceive of mathematical formulas

and bored enough at the patent office

to determine that energy equals

mass times the speed of light

squared. But, really, now.

Einstein did not discover anything new;

he only uncovered what was always there

and already true. Einstein uncloaked relativity.
Maybe Einstein got lucky; he

got to boldly go where no one had
ever gone before--except.

Except maybe it was really just a matter of his fermions

being in the right place at the right time to get 

published.  Maybe there'd been someone years

earlier who figured the same thing out but

couldn't get a book deal or maybe the village drinking well 

was not the best place to expound on a scientific theorem.

The students just weren't ready yet. 

But we are talking tea here, not

publishing or women carrying water jugs or 

scientists or teachers appearing nor are we talking 

space, the final frontier, 

and because of the Pauli Particle Principle,

Bach and his friends will sit quietly caught in time

on a silvery plastic disk humming, electrons buzzing

around the nucleons non-stop, Bach's own fermions long

ago transformed into something else but his bosons of 

music piling up in waves and making us cry,

and Pauli will keep us all in our separate corners of existence

until your fermions make their 

way through the bosons of space-time

and ring the doorbell just in time for tea and a movie.

(edited version; original poem written February 2010)

Un Poeme Seulement

And there you were
again.  That same you only
better somehow, mostly
because I was so vastly
improved deep
inside myself.  (Trouble.  It
had been so much
trouble, this pushing
through the dark, tangled
woven branches of time.)  
[Say
I had a sword of flashing
gold.  
Say
I brandished it
expertly.  
Say
I made wide
swaths on my way into
and out of the
haunted forest.  
Say I was bold, say it was
easy, say I was without
fear at all.]  
All lies.
I was alone.
I faltered and fell;
I stumbled to my feet.  
I was courageous on my own.  
Surely I was defended
by invisible
warriors, multitudes surrounding me,
defeating the darkness of my history and fears.  
Celestial victory
borne of travail and purpose, no
laurels on my head,
and 
yet. Here I am
at rest, accepting, now
quiet, trusting, hope pushing
up through newly fertile soil.  And there
you were, my blurry vision
gone, finally seeing who had
been there all along.  Sovereign
welcome to see more deeply who
you are.  My gaze,
unafraid and tender, beheld
the man.  Now more real,
more imperfect, more
blithely unaware.  Now your presence
less powerful, your essence more
fragile.  I move to reach across the veil
into the mystery of God’s mercy and
grace and I draw its sheltering
fabric around your soul.   I shall tuck
you into peace.  I see
no conqueror, only my beloved,
another pilgrim on earth.  The crack
opens wider and beauty spills out.
We are wonderfully and sadly human,
always have been, and
limited by what is in
our power to change.  Precious
life indeed.  Fleeting journey through
what is into the utter unknown of
what shall be.  I am courageous
and alive; your cheek against mine,
quiet friction of eternity.  This time
no shame, no apology, no fear, no sword.
Only love, unfiltered and expressed.

Love on for Size

Ephemeral love.  I took it

out for a while.  Did not 

quite fit

who 

I was.  Asked 

more from me

than I think

I

have.  Needed 

more than I 

wanted to

give.

Tucking things away

is easier, I said, to

no one in

particular and 

everyone

in general 

on the streets in the

subways on the seas

in the air.  Not a 

word in reply.  Only the

beating of

the hummingbird's 

wings.

Sunshine Afternoon

All the way to the waterfall we talked and it

was hot and sunny and good.  Then it was 

cool and breezy in the shade and I liked that, 

too.  More, I liked when you touched me

and I closed my eyes to 

be there.

Rainy June

What overcame me as I
sat there with myself I shall never
know.  I only know that
violets were shedding
fragrance and quotations were
piling up against the walls and
suddenly I was thinking
of what it would be
like to see you
again.

My Name

Who I am is not my name.

It is not my age either, although 

sometimes when I see myself

in a mirror I forget that all the 

years that have passed, all 

the hopes and dreams, all the

hurt and anger, have been 

busy writing on my skin.  There 

are no words, only lines, but 

each one leads to another; they

have a tale to tell of who I am.

That name they gave me

that I have been called 

since my natal debut?  It was

never mine to choose, only 

mine to cloak myself with

and answer to.  I have other

dreams and ideas of the girl 

I really am. Sacred and holy

names that make up who 

I am, secrets whispered in 

dreams, wisps of identity

emerging at midnight

under starry skies, or dancing 
on the face of dappled water,
fragments of myself beyond
names and letters.  I have 
traced the lines on my face, 
followed them down my cheeks
and into the necklaces of
time that ring my chest, looking
for the realest me.  Each decade has
brought a letter to my name.
Each heartache, every joy,
all that has been my life now
comes together to shuffle and
to finally arise as My Name.

Retreat

Make yourself out
of and in
to
love.

Give your
grace as
easily as a
breath.

Gently lay
your prayers
upon
the cosmos.

And relax.
All is well
and all
shall be well.

Driving Home

Here is what takes so long: Just getting
to today. Each moment that has had
to occur before today ever arrived in

its own form.  You could not have
predicted that it would look like it
does.  Last night I was driving home

after dropping my daughter off in
another city where she will live for
the summer.  Not too far along the

way the cars ahead had suddenly
slowed and braked and I did, too.
In the middle of the road, a fallen

deer, on its left side, struggling under
the confusing pain, its flank torn open
and its front legs pawing the air and

its head lifting and lifting as I drove
past and I felt immediately sad and
tears filled my eyes and I wished that

I could sit with the deer while it died
but I knew I would only frighten it
more; deer do not feel comfort from

humans.  I drove on in the night and
I remembered Pema Chodron saying
that we can breathe in the pain of

another and breathe out healing.  For
a long while I breathed in the pain and
fear of the deer and I breathed out

peace and comfort.  I did not wish
my children to know I had seen death
on the road.  Earlier I had seen a baby

deer lying dead on the side of I-94 but
I had not seen it before it died.  Already
dead, it was an inert object on the side

of the road.  I was thinking how life
is always individual and how I know that
because of death.  Each time something

or someone dies, it is specific and others
feel the effects of the flap of the butterfly's
wings.  If it had been a person in the road

would it have been enough to breathe in
pain and fear in those final moments?  And
then today came along and everything that

came before it had to occur for today to
arrive.  But today the other deer were missing
the one who died, and I am still missing you.

Behind the Veil

Sometimes I know.  Sometimes I
catch a fleeting glimpse of
truth.  Sometimes I see from
another perspective.  You may
think it is the better view.  You
may be right.  There I see my
innocence.  There I see my
open heart and good will.  When
I look from behind my own
eyes, though, I am at the cave
door, looking out at the common
landscape of my life:  loss.  I have
grown used, so used, to this
panorama of existential ash.  Each
time the curtain is rent, each time
the heart breaks a little more, a
hurried stream of light flashes through
the torn sky, and for a moment I
believe.  If there is Someone
beyond the grey, if there is Purpose
behind the veil.  Then.

Wait with Me

Listen.  It is not that I want to
wallow in my loss.  So if you
could try to refrain from blame,
if you could forgo the relief.  If
you could just sit and wait, the
way Job's friends did, sitting at
his side as he wept, before
they started the blame and
advice, I mean.  Even Jesus
wanted his friends with him when
he entered the Further Still.
Even they tried to assuage his
pain with platitudes, and then,
they ran.  You will see me as
you will.  I do not blame you
nor ask you to think I am sane.
I have entered some dark place
and it is lonely here.  The open
door will only appear when I
am ready and I can not see it
yet.  Thou Friend who witnesses
my life, please forgive me for
taking so long to heal.  I am
birthing something new and
the labor is intense.

Chains

He will never ask and I will
never hear again.  It is his way;
he will wonder but he will
not venture out.  Other things
will capture his fancy; every
day will bring him happier
life.  Over time, pain may
fade and I will continue be-
coming whoever I am meant
to be.  I am imagining forward
in order to infuse my wounds
with hope.  A balm meant to
keep me upright instead of
on my knees, praying to let
go.  I shall no prisoner take but
love, I wrote, and having taken,
I am taken in return.  No keys
remain, and still, he will never
ask.

Frailty

It is the not asking that lingers.  I stand at the ready

with explanations and answers, my timid heart shyly

beating in my cupped hands.  There is the shadow of the

self that hesitates, accuses, turns to try again.  I want

you to be curious, to draw close, lean in, put your warm

hands under mine, lift my trembling fingers to gaze, 

tender, amazed, at the heart within my hands.  I want 

you to look up, forehead touching mine, see into my 

soul, finally give yourself up to love.  I conjure you
whole, alive, here.  The longing repeats and I keep
dreaming you into my life.

What Anne Brought and Left

Its strains, recognizable, identifiable.  I felt 

superb, erudite, an epiphany of knowing.  I had 

grown used to hearing it throughout autumn 

and into winter, piping out of my roommate's 

cumbersome behemoth of a tape player, which 

she had lugged along with her postage-stamp 

sized underwear all the way from Switzerland 

to our cozy dorm room sheltered by the Pine 

Grove.  But that night I stood, home for break, 

doing laundry in the basement, radio on, my 

parents somewhere upstairs, naive about their 

daughter's impending genius, and there was the 

music, lovely, sad, hopeful, tragic, something 

dark I had come to know over myriad games 

of backgammon, while drinking Russian Caravan 

tea that had steeped in a pale yellow teapot.  

Folding clothes, I looked up, amazed, conscious, 

and called out to no one in particular, "Mozart's Requiem."

seeing what is

once i smoked a peace pipe for him.  now i ask what

jesus asked: forgive him for he knows not what he

does.  blind though certain of his sight.  deaf though

hearing what he will.  i know inside you wonder if

i am the one blind and deaf; i am not.  god cut my

eyes open and sliced into my ears.  i saw too many

awful things and i heard my wailing in reply.  now i

look down when i pass people on the street and i

stuff cotton batting into my tender ears.  i wanted

it to be enough but god took a sword and thrust it

into my chest.  my hands flew up to eyes to ears to

heart and tried to stanch the flow.  now i hold my 

open palms and see the invisible tattoo that someone 

left behind.  i can not erase the past and undo ever 

having something to forgive.  everything keeps 

breaking open and i keep bleeding out into the light.

Between Two Worlds

I am not saying that salvation is a myth.  I do

not know how to insist.  Some are better at

their dogma than I am anymore.  Here, they say,

take this line and stretch it all the way back and

see.  Proving their lineage and authority makes

them smug in their safety, but I, I am no

longer certain of what I know, no longer sure of

what can be known.  I stretched their line back

to the hurried exodus of three fleeing in the night, 

but still I am not swayed, I do not concede my

doubt.  Once I held faith firmly in my hands, heavy,

a gift, solid matter of visible mass and proof.  When

I let my fingers open, the faith fell out.  I think

maybe the form of it broke open and its essence

escaped into my skin, though, because still, I do 

not concede my faith, either.  I wear a yoke, now, 

hanging wooden over my shoulders, a weight on

either side.  Doubt swings on the left and faith

on the right.  Or the other way around.  Still, I

walk, holding the hand-hewn frame pressing
down on my neck, conscious of the sloshing

water in each pail.  Every day something spills 

out and something seeps in.  Out of and into
me, I mean, out of and into me.  

Saying I Love You

loving comes with the territory of

being me.  remember, you
thought that was lovely once. and
it's not that i had anything to do with it

consciously that i

know of, so in case you

were thinking otherwise, just

stop.  you made me feel like my

loving you was something i 

should be embarrassed to admit.

i had held it in a long time but then susan
urged it out.  confession continues to
be good for her soul i think mostly
because she is deeply loved in return
and there is no price to pay but joy.
for me, confession became a bad habit,
one you have to repent of perpetuating.
accusation of the self ran its course. but
then, my proclamation of love finally out,
it shimmered in the dark december
night, trembling for your relieved embrace.  

confessed and eager, i was like the child 

waiting for the lamplighter to

come posting up the street.  there, 

i said it, i breathed, and my heart flew open

and alive.  i held my chest apart

and grinned at you, offering you

the first fistful of cardiac me.  but

you pretended not to notice, and
fumbling with my tender heart, i

pretended not to matter, pretended
not to care.

or say my love was a 

child waiting at the window for

the headlights up the drive, the garage

door opening, beloved parent home.

safe.  here.  breathe out.  but it was
my imagination to think of you as home.
i did not know but you had taken a
detour out of the concept itself, and
none of the headlights up the drive
were ever yours and no one answers
when i call out your name in the dark. 

Three Little Glimpses

                 

                    ONE

I took all your language and I put

it in a box.  In another room I may

not have needed to go back again

but here I am right now and I

cannot stop looking for what I lost.

Something you said or did not say,

something I did or did not do and I

was once again spinning myself

inside out.  You visit me but you

are mute; I make you stay where I

put you.  Break out of the box, I 

want to say, and come violently after

me, but I never open my mouth.  

                    TWO

Because you would never do that, she 

answered.  I had been trying to make

sense and understand how he could have

done what he did.  Still, I wandered 

into my questions, fervent, dogged, 

asunder.  Rita had a dream when she was

pregnant: her pregnant belly was a clear

plastic bubble and inside she saw her

redhaired baby boy.  When I look inside myself,

everything is lime green and disintegrating

fast.  A disease is eating me away but

I cannot name it or make sense of it

or understand.  Some days, you let the

burden down and decide to not look

back.  Tomorrow you may repent of

your freedom.  The load will be 

waiting for your familiar form, your

returning.

                    THREE

see me captured in the moment
it all came rushing forth.  this body
doubled over toward earth.  one hand
held my body across my waist; it kept
me whole, and the right hand reached 

down for a lissome blade.  it was
summer.  barefoot i reached down and
my universe fell out onto the lawn.  i

watched it spill out and coat each

slender green with clear liquid glass,
each blade now enclosed in a hardened

sheath.  upon my curled back i felt

the stars press down in clusters of

reproach but still i did not turn.  

clarity too late

clarity so late and finally;

mute before the mirror,

regrets have begun the

process of disorganization and

fusion, haphazard paper piles

jutting history now cluttered,

painstakingly illustrated 

moments of insight and 

enumeration of the self,

now hidden among the

folds of a heavier garment,

no longer penetrable by

light or hope, the dismal

exhalation of vision 

distilled across time and 

gender, the immobilization of

desire now falling toward

dust.

Not So Good Friday

Infernal groaning of the spirit.  A certain
loneliness that will not abate, no matter
the guarantee of the talking-to I give
my thoughts.  The birds have once again
made a nest on the porch column.  This
year, a new species has taken possession,
added its own touch, built up a crown of
straw atop the swallows' mud nest. Let
everyone new come and dwell here; let
me leave, let me go elsewhere.  Let me fly
far away.  Let me time travel.  Let me
(try to) reinvent my life.  Let me follow
the path to where I always imagined
going. Let someone ask, when I am
gone, why did she leave so
suddenly.  Some days, I fly far
far away and never leave home.

Weather

Pouring rain I heard it
against the house.  You are
far away and I do not know
what kind of weather you are
having, neither within nor
without.  Sometimes I imagine
you are here and I turn to
look at you and smile and I
am so happy that you are
nearby, that you are with me.
On some days I am certain
you cannot help but love
me just as much as I love
you.  On others I think you
have killed off love
and sold your soul for
accolades from temporary
vapors.

Sleeper

I wanted to say,
well I hope your self absorption keeps you warm
at night and that the two of you
will be very happy with one another,
but instead I said kind things,
things that will never ever
have the potential of waking a
sleeping fool.
Maybe I should have said,
listen for God's sake man
time is running out you had better
pay attention because you
probably won't get another chance
like this one,
but I did not.  Instead I said,
oh, I am sorry to hear about this and
about that and I never said,
Thou Fool.

she stood silent and looking down

behind what you did not see when you

walked by her house

because the x-ray vision glasses

you sent away for had not

yet arrived

behind the bricks and the 

insulation and the sheetrock and

plaster and paint

other atoms vibrated huddled 

into one body of woman

each molecule shivering against the other

sidling up to the hobo's meek fire

asking what happened here

a cold spring afternoon with a dwindling sun

here is where i found her

kneeling on the sand at the edge of

the pond and cupping the water into her hands

and it ran out through her fingers

the same way love ran out

fleeing hurrying disappearing 

mixing itself into the crowd of molecules

hydrogen and oxygen

each one clamoring for the other.

morbid curiosity i call it

today i was thinking of poets and divorce

and wondering how a poet's marriage

falls apart. maybe over time he
no longer saw her tender beauty.
maybe over time she was not moved by
his touch or his kiss.  maybe over time
he no longer noticed her enigmatic
mystery.  maybe over time she quit
thinking of him during the day. 

i wonder which of them finally capitulated
to leaving, which of them stopped thinking
god forbid about divorce and crossed over
for good.  i wonder which one was
taken by surprise that this was waiting
in the wings all along in life, which one finally
had no more words.

i imagine the doppler effect, the rising sound of poets
falling in love, and then years later a descending

tone of divorcing, their marriages falling apart,
pieces all over the floor

where they must walk, gingerly, 

over jagged shards of history and

hope, the echoes of their injury bouncing off
the ceiling and walls and into the night.

poetic divorce

i had not known that even
famous poets divorce,
but they do.
i was thinking how

billy collins
must have felt when
it happened to him

and how louise gluck
must have felt

when it finally truly ended

poetic divorce,

i thought,

is different from regular divorce

because in poetic divorce

you are being torn asunder
flayed alive

and spoons become forks

and mythical greek children write
about their parents' failures.

you force yourself to

keep on breathing in and out;

each day you wake up quickly
so that you can hurry the earth around
itself faster than usual, faster than usual
around the sun, bringing each day
to a premature close, maybe you can get

a little closer to healing with the
scurrying days and interminable nights.

there is an agony of change occurring
as the shadows rise and fall and seasons
come and go. it will take a while

for the new parts to knit

together well enough to be
able to go out in public

and not have people whisper and stare.

when dr. frankenstein's innocent monster

came to life he scared others.
they could not see the tender heart
that lay below the sutured skin.

that is how poets feel when

they look in the mirror and they

are going through a divorce:

no one else can see, but
looking back at them from the glass

is a certain kind of scariness with

a broken heart.

regular divorce is bad

whereas poetic divorce
cannot be explained with
words.

Sin Remedio

No soy la única,
la única que dice
sería preferible
morirme que
ir aguantando este dolor,
este dolor que ya no me quite,
este dolor que esta vació
vació de todo
pero lleno de vació
como por allá las estrellas
están rodeadas por
nada y por todo,
por todo
aunque ya no haya cielo
las estrellas ya se
huyeron por otro universo,
ni que me conozco
esta piel que un día
brillaba amarilla y azul
llena de sol
que el sol estaba celoso de
los colores que atravesaban
mi alma como un prisma
colores como olas del mar
corriendo a su amante la playa,
no reconozco el rostro que
me mira por el espejo
esta fantasma me dice
que el mundo se ha
transformado a otro
galaxias al revés, deshechas
no seré la ultima
buscando, llorando
sin Dios sin remedio,
que tampoco soy la primera
que conozca esta sorpresa --
ya existen
otras historias de amor
preguntas y respuestas de siglos pasados
polvo, sombra, silencio
el gran volumen
llevado en manos temblando
estrechado entre los brazos
como si fuera palabra de Dios
una carga de aire
este gran tomo
dejado en bibliotecas
caído por el suelo al lado
de camas
vientos de noche
susurrando 
pasando por las ventanas 
casi cerradas --
no soy la única
yo sabía tanto
sin que yo soy la única
que reconociera los pasos
lentos y ciertos
de su
salir.

Thursday Afternoon

It's funny this

    getting used to,

seems like it 

comes in 

wa  v  es. 

    

       As usual

I had an

idea

    of how it would

look

once it 

happened.  Formulas

I am always looking

for 

formulas.  And trying to fit everything

into

      a

box.

I [closed]

myself

up

into a

    cardboard house and

pulled the top

d

o

w

n

onto

            me.

I learned to 

        get over

it

the way you

get over

losing

everything

/

except

life.  And then one day you think it is                

all done.

You

open

the

box

and

come

o          u          t.

But on Thursday

there

we all were and you walked

    in

smiling

the five of us

as though one 

(was I the only one who noticed

?)

the secret was hidden in 

plain sight

and

then

you

    kissed my cheek when you

left.

This getting over it business

is funny.  Sometimes

it 

comes

back

in

        waves.