beautiful & fierce

IMAG0915

2011-12-26T17:25:00.001-08:00

IMAG0915, a photo by favorella on Flickr.

IMAG0915

b&f wordcloud. because i should be writing.

2011-11-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

backs of stars

2011-11-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

steps so light you barely stir the dust, winding winding up, past the stubborn scrub brushes and the thick and peeling trees, up up up winding on light-stepped feet, dust on your toes, salt on your lips. clouds heavy and dark and excited, there on the horizon, you have climbed so high you can look right into the eyes of those clouds, see right into their souls. you keep you big toothy grin and wriggle your fingers in a friendly wave and you walk higher higher winding and you can see clouds' crooked parts and receding hairlines and botched dye jobs. you are that high. you are mountaintop now, and treetop, and swaying in the wind. your foundation is good, solid, your roots are deep deep deep while you go up and around around. there is always something new to see: hello there, hello. you watch your feet and the dust doesn't stir and there is plenty of time for everyone to move out of your way, light step, and then you realize you are holding finders with the one you've known all this time, and there are ways your body moves, it vibrates, and only she can name it for what it is, and it surprises you both every time. you thought you were so still and steady as to be like the wind or the ground beneath your feet, but you are vibrating and she holds your fingers and and and you have stopped moving. there is great risk here in this moment, up so high and so blessedly light footed. having made the acquaintance of the clouds, having been greeted hello hello, having climbed so long and so far. there is great danger in this choice. you take your steps back, you walk up up up and around and the wind picks up to help your momentum. it is only gravity keeping you here, and your heart, and so you release the fingers of the one you are holding and hold hands instead with your sweet old heart and you climb up to the backs of the stars, so high, and you have reached a resting spot, backs of stars. you rest and you find yourself covered in light. behind the stars light, the kick up no dust and dance around to songs you used to know, light.

(freewrite: the backs of stars: 13 minutes

from the quiet animal, by julia cameron
10/12/11)

how do i convince myself?

2011-10-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

it is walking to the center of the place which is as far as you can ever walk, carrying a thing which is heavy with everything because your desire is everything and everything that ever was, will be. it is a sky full of planets and it is also the salt dried on your palm. it is a small brown sack filled with all of the things and it is tied tight with leafy green vines and thick red thread and the long hairs from your elders. it is a small heavy thing and it smells of freshly turned earth and freshly born child and freshly stormed sky. it is a small heavy thing, your desire, it is a small heavy thing and it pulls you forward, turn around this way this way this way, always forward. never mind it feels backward or to the side, ever forward. small heavy thing it wants to go to that place in the center which is as far as you will ever walk, which is a place all lit up with shadow and sounding like what all the sounds sound like,children laughing, water flowing, birds winging. it sounds like all the things, plants growing, cells dividing, ideas forming, it is the place in the center all shadow and light and it is this place in the center where you will dig a hole with your strong hands, using your strong back. you will lay this small heavy thing which tastes like desire and you will sit patiently and watch the water table rise and the planets orbit your sky and the dust will lay itself easy on your desire and it will grow itself into a tall magnificent thing that reaches deep and high and wide.

(freewrite: an area of your life you could use some advice about: 11 minutes)

a world as small as this

2011-09-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

that was the summer it was dark all the time. all the summers before and a small few after were bright suns and starlight, but that summer was every moment dark. the kind of dark that is moments before thunderclap, but the thunder never comes. the birds were quiet then too, come to think of it. no bird songs and also there was no running or bouncing the ball on the side of the barn, or flipping through the comics on the porch. the dog slept through all the days and nights and the milk didn't sour, even when i left it out too long. that was the summer everything was off and nothing was right. that was the summer no one asked where i was going or where i'd been. the screen door didn't slam and the ice cream didn't melt. the chickens chased the cat through the yard, circled the tree and then they all laid down to rest together. that was the summer it was dark all the time and no one even talked about it, not once. clothes hung on the line for weeks  and i'd take a sock when it was a sock i was needing, leaving the rest there in the wind that didn't pick up and the sun that didn't pick up and the whole damn planet that didn't pick up. clothes hung out for weeks until they stopped fitting anyone i knew, not for us growing, but for the pants and shirts and socks shrinking down to fit the size of people who lived in a world as small as this. little gnome people, hobgoblin trickster people, the kind of people who grow tired of the light and move underground where the only clothes you need are to cover your crawling knees and maybe a glove for your dragging knuckles. that was the summer it was dark all the time and the trees grew faster than ever before and the honeybees life-cycled in half a day, never even losing their stingers. that was the summer of everything backward, ice melting where there was no heat and the tips of my fingers numb like they'd never known anything to touch. the path from here to there and there to here wore right down to the brown dirt and then into the deep black dirt and then all the way down to the water table and the path flooded itself right good and then it was the river from here to there and there to here. but my clothes never did dry, and when i walked on land, the land she didn't want none of the water i was shedding, so everywhere i went was a puddle.

(freewrite: that was the summer i... write from a gender not your own: 18 minutes)

what happens when i think of condoms

2011-09-22T23:48:00.000-07:00

the night i lost my boy virginity was also the first night i ever saw snow under streetlights. the world was pink and clean and i had just had sex on sheets with robots and airplanes on them. the world was pink and clean and still. i stood at the window and thought: what was all the fuss? he owns a 24 hour fitness now and has two sons with different women. he used to hang by his toes from a chin-up bar and tell me he was bruce wayne's cousin. also he would sing busta move to me, and depeche mode. and he folded his jeans tight at the ankles and wore white tube socks with sneakers. also he would jerk off into those socks and let his mother pick them off the floor on laundry day. what else? he was not very nice to me. but he was older and rachel was dating his best friend so it was convenient.

i should have dated his best friend. you know, if those were my choices and i had the choice to make again. chris lived in capehart, which was the run-down housing project where only white people lived, because only white people lived in maine. he lived there with his mom, but she was never home and the only sign she was a real person was the box of tampons next to the empty diaphragm case in the bathroom. he lived there with metallica and mötley crüe posters and beer bongs and a kind of desperation in his eyes that made me want to make him feel special. i think we almost kissed once.

now i'm remembering x, who came to the apartment i shared with my boyfriend y, who rachel called "lick my butt". when i asked her to guess his middle name, initial L, "lick my butt" was what she said, because he was kind of a tool. but i would have been homeless without him, so when he bought me the too-tight pink and black lingerie from kmart, i wore it and took acid while we played nintendo and watched smells like teen spirit for the very first time. okay: x came to our apartment one night at like 3 in the morning and we sat on the stoop for hours while lick my butt paced and chain smoked upstairs. x told me he was in love with me and didn't know how he could live without me. i already knew i was queer, and was just biding my time until it was safe to come out, so i couldn't bring myself to commit to anything, even though he was my best friend. a few months later, i masturbated for him after i told him i was a dyke. he left then for twenty years. a few months ago he told me he had been homeless in colorado springs, dealing meth and almost dead. now he has two gorgeous daughters, one with a healed hole in her heart, and a wife who looks something like me.

(freewrite: a condom: 16 minutes)

silver-bellied

2011-09-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

"in order to be a good warrior, one has to feel this sad and tender heart." 

i think she was trying to tell me something different this time, something other than: i love you. thank you. you saved my life.  she has said these things before. and i look off at the surface of the river and notice the silver-bellied fishes leaping like videos of whales after they've been freed from some monstrous net or water gone suddenly too shallow. i don't hear her when she tells me about love or gratitude. i don't hear her but i cry big loping tears whenever it happens and i always think: i should be writing this down. because the not hearing means not remembering, and i've always wondered if things might have gone differently if anything she had said had stuck.

silver-bellied memory splash down deep and all that matters is deeper, deeper and cool water on my skin. the vague idea that above me, beyond the surface, is a danger of some kind. shadowy and expansive, elusive, the kind of danger that surfaces when the water is still and all is right in this world and the next and our bodies are well and alive and the ways we move prove it. and prove love. and prove faith and fate and magic. the ways we move there under the surface is magic, is silver-bellied reflection and we breathe water like air there, together, while above the stillness, just beyond the place where we might begin to hear and remember, is a dark-bellied shadow threat of a danger. it's a thing we've dreamed of, but speaking of it would bring us closer to it, so we go deeper deeper and the water is cool and our bodies are well and good but that deep makes us forget how to remember and so i always wish i would write it down. 

when you tell me i am the one you think of when you want to be so present you lose all the parts of yourself that keep you trapped at the surface. that i am what you think of when you want release, when you want desire. i wish i would write it down, these slippery words. i say thank you for saying that. i say: all these years i thought you were ashamed of your love for me. i say: all these years i thought you'd have me be invisible. and she says oh oh no, that is exactly not what i wanted. and i forget again that she is trying to tell me something different this time, she is trying to tell me something i can hold long enough in my hands that i will remember how it feels. remember how it silver-bellied itself between my fingers and weighted down my palms and wet my skin right down to my bones, blood, beating heart. 

(freewrite: 14 minutes: write about what the heart has to do with being powerful)

“Tenderness contains an element of sadness.  It is not the sadness of feeling sorry for yourself or feeling deprived, but it is a natural situation of fullness.  You feel so full and rich, as if you were about to shed tears.  In order to be a good warrior, one has to feel this sad and tender heart.  If a person does not feel alone or sad, he cannot be a warrior at all.” -Chogyam Trungpa 

things i need to hear myself say

2011-09-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

things i normally write about: 5 minutes

trees
water
critters
horizons
skies
seasons
salt
skin
longing
tangles
little girl
silence
shooting stars
underwater
alone
aurora borealis
porches
no family
wind
stones
magic
love
flying things
invisible things
secrets
windows
open heart
open hand
listen
remember
the house
the field
the path
the river
the tides
returning
releasing
telling
love
hope
roots
bones
making it up
floorboards
being old, being young
hands
desire
rain snow electricity
storms
breathing
knowing
trusting
forgetting, remembering
arc of spine, arc of story
yes

what do i want to understand or grasp?: 9 minutes

i want to learn how to tell a whole story. it doesn't need a beginning middle end; those don't make sense to me. it's never the beginning, what we think: it all started long before we thought to notice or name. and endings are happening well before we let them, before we will call it the end or say goodbye or see the next steps to the next paths.

i think i write the details of a story. the underbelly underbrush memory of a story. i want to write a thing that carries us from one to the next, and it's okay if it goes back again. i want the movement. i go in between worlds, my writing is in the liminal spaces, so there is movement there. maybe what i want is an arc. a trajectory.

my characters are nature, are girls searching for family. my characters make small circles and know their worlds to the detail, but they make small circles. i want flight and falling and speeding through the sky bullet in a hurricane. also i want slow crawl, glacial, sleepwalking to the streetlight; this is what i have. i don't think i want a new way, or a different way. i want more of it. i want to write and write and write until the pieces fit together with some sense of familiarity. it doesn't need to be comfortable, just yes.

(things i need to hear myself say: sharon c.l.)

muses

2011-09-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

the dirty-kneed little girl, orange and yellow striped t-shirt. dusty arms and tangled hair. she hunts around the world for treasure and secret things, she holds hands and cozies up with all manner of creatures in the crook of an old root's elbow.

and the one who is older, much older, with her long silver hair. she waits and watches and remembers. she glows with wisdom and kind eyes there on the side of the road, just so, just here. c'mere she says and her fingers are long and knuckly, with raised veins all the way up her arms. c'mere she says and she wears a white dress and turquoise stones and the little one comes to her c'mere and we all three must ride. there is sun and setting and the horizon with any number of beginnings and they walk me through it, dirty-kneed and silver-haired, they walk me through it and we find the things together. and every finding is a deep well of rejoicing, another story to lay on the pile, old stones heavy on top so the wind won't bluster them away.

(freewrite: who is your muse? 5 minutes)

when you look at me

2011-09-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

it's like being underwater. when you open your eyes you are blurred blind and your ears are filled with salt moving through tunnels and canals.

the octopus who learned how to unlock the treasure. the bear and her honey. the whale and her song.

climbing the rope ladder into the canopy, swimming into the cave with the smallest opening, barely big enough for your collarbone wingspan. stretch long and sleek, eel, snake, wisp of smoke, trail left behind. trail left behind. bread crumbs. secret cottages hidden behind ivies in the dark forest. fatten up the children, pinch your cheeks for color, to seem alive. gnarled walking stick and animals under your covers.

make yourself small and quiet, little mouse under a leaf. inchworm catching her breath. it is night time, it is change of season, world on her axis. the tides are shifting and what was there yesterday is below the surface today and where there was nothing, the hope of something, now there is treasure. unearthed. tangled roots. time capsule. pop gun, matchbox car, kazoo, dried leaf from the season you found the thing you were looking for.

when you look at me.

soft hiss of a release, then we move on through traffic, down the path, over the hill, under the stairs. make yourself small and quiet, learn how to notice the things that need noticing.

(freewrite: when you look at me you see... 12 minutes)

holy houses (yes)

2011-08-12T09:40:00.001-07:00

we'll plant flowers in the window boxes. dig our toes in the sand. there will be paths and fields, bat houses high up and bees burrowing under ground. in the winter: snow tunnels and snow forts, blue light and pink light and the ice growing on our lake. we will bioluminesce. we will rock on our porch reading mary oliver to our little one, who will be beautiful. there will be loons and geese and gulls and some days we will smell the sea on the air.

pumpkin carving and holidays with your grammy who likes to ride the bus. i will hold your hand on long car rides and bring you picnics built from the dinner you made the night before. i will walk into a room smiling and you will light up when you see me. we will push the baby on the swing and laugh at her silly jokes. i will tell you stories while you're falling asleep and sometimes i will wake you up because i think you need me to fuck you.

i will open my eyes to you in the morning and you will be on top of me and we will slide smooth against each other and i will say good morning love and your eyes will sparkle and you will move inside me like you were meant to be there. you are meant to be inside me.

i am meant to let you love me. kiss your lips and slide my feet under your legs while we watch the magical movies. sneak popcorn to the dogs and let the cat under the blanket. pull the little one up the hill on a plastic sled so you can watch her laugh all the way down.

we will watch the moon rise and stars shoot and during certain times, the light will amaze us and we will hold hands. i will sing to you in the car and show you how i yodel in secret. you will rub my feet and kiss my forehead, run your hands through my hair like my hair is home. i will watch your face turn toward the pillow while you come and i will hold you through the shaking and curling. i will love you how you want to be loved because it is right and easy and true.

we will walk through the wildflowers and you will tell me stories about how none is as beautiful as me, and i will remind you again and again of gratitude and hope and holy houses.

(freewrite: rhea found the led zeppelin houses of the holy cd in the gutter!: 13 minutes)

into the well

2011-07-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

first, a pile of fresh cut flowers. pink and purple, blue and pale yellow, tossed into the well. floating happily, flavoring the water with high summer and wishes on stars.

then, a little girl rolling on the grass, clutching her feet above her head, laughing so hard there is nothing anyone can do but stop and listen and smile and laugh too and wish we could remember whether we have ever laughed that hard. we wonder whether she would laugh with us if we were to get down on the ground too, roll ourselves up like happy children and remember how to laugh.

then, tall gangly trees with children on every branch, perched, dangling, swinging, gazing. every branch happy with children, every child in exactly the right place.

then, walking barefoot down the dirt road. it is summer and the bees are buzzing, the birds are winging. it is summer and your feet are dusty dirty, full of miles. it is summer and the road doesn't end, not ever, but there are friendly houses with friendly people, and friendly sitting stumps and friendly crickling creeks and it is summer and honey is everywhere like sunshine on your skin.

it is a fort made of blankets and pillows. grown-up book read by flashlight, dinner is cooking, you can smell it's nearly ready, something warm and good, and you are hungry for it but not too hungry and you never doubt there is enough.

it is moss grows on the north side, the river is to your left. that is cassiopeia, that is milky way. it is waiting for the bats and plump little newts plopping on your tent at dawn. it is grand canyon looking like a postcard and the four corners being a sign. north south east west. if they'd remembered to think about above, below, center, there would have been a different kind of magic. towering rocks, lovers kissing, camel back, pikes peak, ranger's house where i was made. ten fingers, ten toes, flurry of light around my head so bright cats always stop to stare. the rocks are warm to the touch and underneath are so many crawlers we stop for a spell to listen and thank the good dark earth.

you sent me a poem through the air, line by line, until i knew what you meant, but the language was lost on my young, young ears.

(freewrite: images in the well: 19 minutes)

premonition

2011-07-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

icy grey sky heavy with snow and wind. storm and fury and now now now and then it was now and it was clouds parting on command. it was morning and it was good to be early, good to have staked my claim on stormy skies and to fall softly into pink orange deep bruised purple morning.

the sky i was born under brought stars closer to the earth, the sun closer to our heads. a mile off the lowest ground, the far-off sea. the air was thin, the mountains were sky-capped, ice topped rocky crags and galloping beasts. the sky that brought me into itself, the sky that birthed me, summoned me, landed me square and squat on the red earth with cave drawings and pueblos and thin-aired sweet green evergreens. winding mountain roads no guardrail, no guessing when you might sail off the edge, straight back into the thin-aired sky.

sky i was born under has north star like any other sky i know, has big bright fist-sized planets, moons the size of your head. sky tells the story of travel arc and trajectory and mad mad ramblings made for the sake of the search. sky told the story of cupped palms, open heart, who i will be for you and who i will be for me. sky a roadmap, sky a storming raging vengeful thing, ice heavy and serious, until she has had enough and we have had enough together and a birth happens and we are glad to be, both of us, closer to the ground than we've been in a long, long time.

(freewrite: the sky you were born under, or a premonition: 11 minutes)

not half enough

2011-07-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

i write to you and i remember the corner of your bed, oddly, and the open book you'd left there knowing i'd see what you'd written. i'm writing to you now and i'm on a thousand road trips without you. i'm montana and seattle and the little bitterroot and the corner of olive and belmont. i'm artichoke fields at dawn and the holes in the cliff face where i'm sure the bats are sleeping.

you know this is about you but some of the details are off. you wonder.

i noticed the shift in your gait and the gravel in your voice. the way your hair grew back, the way your hair grows now. i am stretched on the purple couch, the lazy hammock, the listing dock. inside alice's cabin, the back room with all the harry potter books, the open window reflecting the still lake. i am holding your hand, saying goodbye at the airport, hello at the train station. i am long distance late night, i am waking up at 3am wondering what happened and why you don't love me anymore. i am yes you can have sex with other people, fucking in the bathroom and on the hood of your car. i am lentil loaf and sunset on the water, i am mini golf and all-night vampire marathons. your soft bald head, cottonwood, sandalwood, granite countertop, story arc, trajectory, archetype. nightmares soothed end to end. i am your death's witness. your touchstone every time you cross over and back.

i am a thousand times more than you thought i was and even more than you'd let me be. books made from our letters, stories we'd acted like we'd never told before. i am your lies and your fears and your disappearances. i am stretched on the purple couch, inside the tent, underwater, 35,000 feet above the earth. i am faster than life and sound and the taste of me on your tongue will never be washed away. you will tell my friends you made a mistake and over whiskeys you will tell me you're sorry. i am driving fast down highway 101 and highway 80 and I95 and I5 and the longest slowest way around the lake. i am keeping the fire lit, the door open, the radio on. i'm writing to you now because a thousand times would not be half enough to fall in love with you, again and again and open heart and i have nothing else i will tell you.

(freewrite, 17 minutes:
a thousand times, which isn't half enough
&
list the names of all the people you have been in love with. write.)

Sure you have seen this

a thousand times,

which isn’t half enough.

Let the world

have its way with you,

luminous as it is

with mystery

and pain-

graced as it is

with the ordinary.

-Mary Oliver

when i die

2011-06-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

when i die, i will die alone. no muss, no fuss. crawl into this big dark hole i'd have already dug and just close my eyes and do it. i'll bring some soil down on top of me and let the rain do the rest. when the kitten died, the dog pushed the loose earth into her grave after her. maybe there will be a dog or a bear or an army of mice to nose the earth over my body when i go. but not my dog or bear or army of mice; i will not leave anyone needing anything from me. i will have pre-seeded the soil with wildflower seeds so the springtime will remember me and the honeybees will keep me some company.

it's possible that when i die i will find a way to set myself ablaze and push off to sea. at half before midnight, on a full moon night as the earth is pushing through a meteor shower. the aurora borealis, the northern lights would be nice too, but i don't want to get ice locked on my way to open sea. i want to hear whale songs deep beneath me and feel the humming of the great red squid as she slides past my burning pyre. the electric jellies, and, oh, the whales will swim with me singing until all of my earthly light has gone and then they will prayer me to the sky or the stars or into the salt air, wherever is the place i am meant to go.

or maybe when i die i will have wrapped myself tight in grey cotton and i will plummet, gracefully, into the red heart of volcano.

or i will drop to my knees to be torn apart by grateful sweet-eyed wild dogs.

or i will be sealed in a block of ice, deep under the ocean surface, frozen until the creatures not to be born for a thousand years discover me melting on their beach. they will wonder if i am an alien or something from their exotic pre-history.

or i will offer myself up to the giant mama spider, the one crossing the dirt road with a hundred babies on her back, and she will web me up tight and lovely and i will feed her family through this season and the next. i will be reborn eight-legged and wise, my heart set on spinning the most beautiful of webs.

(freewrite: list of secrets: 20 minutes
1. i am probably dying, that's my guess
2. my plan to move to the desert or forest or into the middle of nowhere is my secret plan to die alone
3. i might want to have a baby
...
8. i am living the wrong life. i think there are some people who know this, and i avoid them)

love is layers and layers of truth.

2011-06-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

first this.
then this:

i believe in bears reaching into holes to find honey. i believe in sticky paws and bumble bees and blue summer skies.
i believe in the northern lights and solar flares and that some planets have rings.
i believe in driving fast on country roads, singing along and windows left open.
i believe in ginger tea, peppermint tea, sparkling water, whiskey and soy lattes.
i believe in rolling over to wake up alone, and i believe in listening to you snore. i believe in underwater caves and calderas and tectonic shifting.
i believe in holding hands and walking with my eyes closed.
i believe in rings inside trees and white noise and quenching thirsts however we can.
i believe in parking on the side of the road to have the talk, to tell the secrets, to sit quietly with my hand on your knee.
i believe in watching you dance and rubbing oil into your knuckles and calling out your name 3000 miles away.
i believe in love letters and canceled stamps and whale songs and bird songs and the song you make up while you're washing the dishes.
i believe in spiced foods and salt and lemon zest and chili on my chocolate.
i believe in standing at the edge for as long as is necessary and i believe in falling, flying and walking away.
hot air balloons, orange pickup trucks, gravel roads, kudzu vines and trap doors.
i believe in sleep walking, sleep talking and love.
i believe in saying yes, repeating stories until i get it right, propping the door open, letting moss grow over the path stones.
i believe in words spray painted on sidewalks, brand new birds' nests and lightning-split trees.
i believe in magic and miracles and fairies and elves and goblins and trolls and wizards and witches. hobbits, voldemort, centaurs, giants, bogeymen, shadows, light and heartbreak.

(freewrite: what women know about love, 14 minutes.)

wisdom of old wounds

2011-06-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

she's inside, tracking the directions north east south west, marking time on the walls. she makes light out of ribfat and digs her toes deep, kneehigh, she makes light out of ribfat.

i am not going to write about old wounds. not in that way. cat scratch, broken glass, flake of sheet metal to the eye. broken toenail, silver hair, no broken bones, no surgeries, no overnights in hospital.

there is this place i have been circling, where she lives, and writing about it brings me great comfort, but it makes me feel more alone every time i go there. write about it:

she marks the directions on the wall. in the post-apocalyptic world i would drop to my knees and learn to sniff out sweetness and danger and new ways of naming love. the place is inside my chest, is deep red dark cave in my ribcage. is soft diaphragm floor and branched ribs ceiling, collarbone and trachea and the light shines through like sunset light over a wildfire. the deep red light, deep red smoky light, when the sky is dark and it is night the world inside will go bright with fire and fleeing animals. the kind of light that is relieving, is lay your burden down, you could run now but the fire is faster.

mark your directions inside ribcage walls and listen to the wind carrying smoke and the birds fly faster than fire, tell the stories before it's too late. but the others, the deer and foxes and wild cats and black bear, they are slow on their feet and they know well enough to be panicked. they run as far as they are willing to go and then they lay their burdens down, let the trees take them, let the smoke take them, let the wild screeching wind take them. and the light changes.

all the time the light changes. you will not know by the sun, in a ribcage, in a wild fire. you will not know by the sun or the stars or the sound of her voice which direction is up or down. the light has shifted, and shifted again, and you are tempted to say the light's all wrong, but then you know this way from that because you have marked, again and again, your whole life long, the directions on the walls of the inside and the breath under your feet is a rhythm you can trust. and the heat of the inside, you can trust. and the thickening shadows and half-lights and tricks of light you can trust. your arms spread wide wall to wall rib to rib, tha-thump tha-thump and it is steamy red and heart-close and it is good to move closer, it is good to taste the air with your tongue, iron-sweet. you take the stories i tell you and you line the walls with them. you stretch out your arms and say she told me this one, this one is true. as far as you can see, arms outstretched as far as you can see: she told me this one, this one is true.

(freewrite: write about the wisdom of an old wound, 18 minutes.)

what happens when i google my blog:

2011-06-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

faith

2011-06-09T09:06:00.001-07:00

i believe in black pepper. in burning leaves inside my house: sage, mugwort, cedar. i believe in magic.
i believe in transformational moments, gateways, portals, hidden cupboards and secret gardens. i believe in layers upon layers of what is real.
i believe in my digging hands and in the ways i listen to animals. i believe walking barefoot makes me happier, or less sad.
floodwaters will cleanse us all. i believe in water's edge. i believe in discovering forgotten language, driving all night to get there, pictures of people painted on cave walls, i believe in bats.
i believe in walking it off. listening to other people's stories until i can think of a new way to tell my own. i believe in grapes after the first frost, whiskey straight up and slow.
i believe in kissing in restaurant booths and up against the wall and under a tree. i believe in trees. moss and stones and dirt and mud. avalanche earthquake tsunami hurricane tornado forestfire flashflood rabiddog.
i believe in black bears crossing invisible lines and coyotes trotting through the neighborhoods. shooting stars, listing docks, baby birds learning to fly.
owls falcons hawks eagles. i believe in fish as big as my arms spread out and also in the critters rushing my bloodstream that i will never see. i believe in amoeba and protons and dark matter and dust.
i believe in the things you say and i also know enough to believe the things you don't say.
i believe in rings inside a tree and heart-shaped rocks and falling asleep when i'm tired.
i believe in fucking until i can't breathe and then diving deeper until i can't see. i believe in coming back up for air and new prescription lenses.
i believe in atrophy and regeneration. death, rebirth, liminal spaces.
i believe you when you say the thing and when the door closes on you at the airport.
i believe you when you say the thing and i have to leave the car before i explode.
i believe you when you say the thing and drive away, our dog in the front seat excited to go.
i believe you when you give birth to that baby, when you stand at the edge with me and point out the whales.
i believe in footprints in the snow and antler scrapings and the furtive burrowing of brown furry blind things.
i believe in what hasn't happened yet, and the color blue and lupines growing up the side of the hill. gratitude, generosity and forgiveness.

(freewrite: list what you doubt, list what you believe: 14 minutes
lori made the picture)

we captured feelings

2011-06-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

Kapter 13: Tonight, we captured feelings and flies in a trail of stars by Hold Your Horses!

2011-06-04T17:32:00.000-07:00

making me happy.

suspensory behaviors

2011-05-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

salt flats and brachiation. branching fingers breath river spilling into night sky. prayer. fire. things that come in threes. reaching, always reaching. the earth, the sky, things unknown & unknowable. the thing that happens when i close my eyes. prayer. please, please, please. cave paintings and rituals dangled from trees. the water at night, fog, the fire started from nothing, three fossils and a yes. follow the path, lick the salt, open my legs, open my heart. eyes, mouth. say it. say what it is. and again: say what it is. and again: say what it is. three things the same, earth, sky, salt. brachiation, breathing in, out, branching and reaching and it is tree bough, lightning storm, blood through veins, dried and aching riverbed. it is prayer. it is telling the things again and again until they settle into the soil and then become stardust and no matter what else happens, someone somewhere will breathe it in, will breathe in the thing, and it is no longer just a thing i know, it is no longer just a way of keeping track. it is dust in lungs and salt on tongues. it is prayer and incantation. it is fossils in the creekbed, unexpected and surprising. it is child swinging from a tree, it is nebula, it is deep sea unnamed creature, it is unknown and curious and the things i have to say are the air i breathe and the fires we set and the fingers that touch our skin. it is fucking and laughing and dying and confession and the long journey down the dark mossy road. water cupped in my palms and my eyes adjust to any light and my feet touch the ground. my feet don't touch the ground. my feet are tools, my feet are diggers. i am a digger, my stories are diggers and there is a moon in the sky and creatures i have never seen and what i will tell you will be carved into the soil. the things you want to know get planted deepest and steep through the long winter until we are hungry again and remember to reach out our hands.

(collage: 20 minutes.
freewrite: what is your creativity made of? 15 minutes.)

she is no fool, open heart

2011-05-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

she is wary, and she hides behind her hands, playing peek-a-boo, and giggling when a finger finds her belly for a tickle. she is sweet, open heart, and behind her are piled rocks and forked roads, a forked tongue long abandoned, untended but unforgotten. sweet open heart could have been another way, could have been untender, ungentle, unwise.

she sits still. i feel her resting there when you tell a story that makes you cry. she rests her hands in her lap and breathes into it, your story, and this is when i'm most grateful to her. when she holds the space for you, and for you, and she lets you touch her things and borrow them, even if she knows you won't ever return them: rusty horseshoe, carved wooden thing, slips of paper with the best words written on them, the one thing that keeps her warm. little open heart is a sharer, is a hot sweet lover, is the one you want to lie with by the river when the stars are shooting and the bats are hunting. she'll hold your hand, even when she knows you'll pull it away eventually. (she doesn't want to prepare for these things, but if she is not prepared she will fall through the floor, plunge feet-first through the hole in the ground, fall deep deep deep and the crawling back to the surface will bring too much blood, too many bloody knuckles. so she is prepared and knows the warning signs.) watches for skittish rabbits skirting the holes, listening for the creak in the rotten old floorboards. she is aware, and wise, and planful.

she is no fool, open heart.

and she hasn't given up hope that she will find unbroken landscape or sturdy cedar floors. she hasn't given up hope and she stands on her tiptoes to see as far as she can see and the horizon is monumental. the horizon is vast. open heart, precious heart. she walks through the forest, humming, and she puts stones and bones and feathers in her pockets. eats berries on the side of the road and loves the sun on her face. she'll tell you jokes and show you magic, and if she likes your laugh, or believes you to be appropriately moved by surprises and secrets, she'll show you more. she will make up a story, just for you, about the ways fingers feel on your face, and what you might feel like if she loves you the way you need.

(freewrite: of all the things you could have done, write about the gladness or appreciation you feel for what you're doing now. 14 minutes.)

two lists: reasons to let myself be big.

2011-05-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

5 blocks to my writing:

fear
sadness = laziness
same same same
what if i'm not good? it's all hinging on this one dream.
loneliness - maybe no one is listening

what i want my writing to do / be:

crack open the world
catalyze & transform
keep me alive
keep me company
be the reason. be one of the reasons.
come to me like breathing, like a lover who won't leave.
come to me like breathing, like a lover i won't ask to leave.

(freewrite: 2 minutes)

look up, look up

2011-05-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

when you look up, it's the stars.
down, your toes.
it's raining.
it's not raining.
shooting stars
moonlight
meteor shower
crash landing.

there are places you haven't even thought of, ever.

when you look up, it's rainbow stripes and sheer black and long metal spines and good luck. it's raining. your socks are wet. there is no time. there is a woodstove in another place where you will hang your wet socks and warm your hands, then your ass, then your thighs and you will listen to the rain which is sometimes snow and there are no traffic sounds and your dog doesn't need a leash and when you lie on your back, there is sky above you, grass below you. there is the light left on when you leave at twilight and a long list of reasons you belong here:

baking bread
sloshing water in the bathtub
canadian geese
little toe, big toe
breathing underwater
snow sliding off the roof in sheets
faerie houses on an island in the atlantic
waking up and forgetting the life you're in
falling asleep aching and salty
ridley turtles hatching and truer than any compass

when you look up, there is the sky. bird nests, woman walking on stilts, the balloon caught on the powerline, clouds shaped like barnyard animals, green airplane, the football thrown and arching over your head.

when you look down, there are toes and dried socks. rocks. roots. mud puddle, drowned worms, dog shit, funerals, tire tracks, the other person's shoes. rainbowed oil spill, the cat run over and left in the ditch, love letter crumpled and soggy in the rain grate.

look up, look up, find what you need. sun on your face, rain on your face, stretch your throat and the world will let herself in and it will rain, or it will not. it never matters, after all.

(freewrite: begin under an umbrella, 12 minutes)

my voice is loud inside my head

2011-05-04T22:29:00.001-07:00

i don't remember where i started, or how. as far back as i go, i was here, and you were here, and that tree.

we walked all day along the edge and when we arrived, sundown, the blackest of birds were close and there was the sound of water. we were at the edge, glad for the secret we shared.

still i kneel at any edge and hold my hands close together, make a bowl of my hands and i hope to be filled. every edge, my hands are filled, if only for the moment i hope they will be.

when i was a child i held squirming water babies and twining snakes and the baby bird, mouth open and silent. when i was a child, you watched me move and you became my mirror. when we were children, we were mirrors and still pools of clean water and the fireflies reflected against the night skies and we were the skies. the world reflected itself again and again in the sound of your laughter, rare laughter, secret, private laughter. the world reflected itself in the blink of your eyes and the soft breath of your sleep. i walk to the edge again and again and i am windswept, i am calm. my voice is loud inside my head, your voice is what i long for: hollow caverns dug into the earth, dust motes and sudden trickling stream. bats hanging upside down, millions together to be warm and share pulse and to remember the stories of what has happened and what has not happened yet. your voice is what i long for.

hold my hand, curved conch shell, to my ear. hear your ocean voice, the wind of your words, your voice is salt spray and patch of blooming algae where there was once only sea. your voice is echo and land mass and reverberation and stalactite stalagmite. your voice is what i long for, and it is my voice so long loud in my head.

i bow my head. you asked me once if i was praying - yes, always praying - and what i didn't tell you, because i was afraid or ashamed, because i was foolish with desire and hope, what i didn't tell you is that i am praying to you. praying to you so you might echo back, so you might find your way back to me, to this place you said you'd never leave. this place in my chest between my ribs, nestled on my diaphragm, this place that is yours and has held empty and still but for the voice of my prayer loud and bouncing off the fleshly walls of me, and i am sorry you left. i am sorry you were not safe.

on the days when there is sun, i hang the strips of blue and pink and white, cut from the cloth you wore on your skin when you sat in the light. i hang strips of cloth from my ribs and finger bones and long teeth and i make noise like rocks sliding and clouds crashing and i hope you will hear me and come back to tell me the things you have learned.

(freewrite: character study: 16 minutes)

right.

2011-05-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

dream was:

2011-04-28T18:14:00.001-07:00

i couldn't move and no one noticed.

no one expected

2011-04-28T17:57:00.001-07:00

no one expected anyone to show up early. truth be told, we didn't expect anyone to show up at all. but there we were, rocking on the front porch, sweat already sliding down our backs and noses, even though the sun had only just barely reached the treeline, and she came barreling down the road in her orange pickup and some girl country playing on her tape deck. sadie lifted her head, surprised at the racket, but it was too damn hot already to make any real protest, so she just wagged her tail a bit. the girls rocked faster in their chairs and some lemonade spilled on their laps, but no one even moved to sop up the mess. she came barreling down the road and dust went high and the chickens in the yard squawked all aflutter and my heart was pounding right out of my chest and into my own lap.

no one expected anyone to show, least of all her, and early! she cut her engine and her door opened with a creak and a bang, closed with a bang and a creak. she wiped her hands slow and easy on the front thighs of her jeans and smiled nice and neat right in my direction. "i know y'all weren't expecting company so early, but i thought you might like a hand?" and she walked for six weeks on the dirt from her orange pickup to me and the rocking girls and i watched the thin wrinkles by her eyes and the creases in her jeans and the sweat on her lip and we had a lifetime together then on that walk from orange pickup to me and the rocking girls all aflutter and when she got to me all swift and smooth, she smiled just the way i'd expected.

(freewrite: no one expected, 12 minutes)

what is sacred (pantoums one and two)

2011-04-28T17:47:00.000-07:00

it's the details, the noticing.
when we thought she was dying
we told the story of what was happening,
her hand on my face.

when we thought she was dying
we learned to believe in magical thinking
her hand on my face:
it was a true story

we learned to believe in magic
going away, coming back:
a true story
the story worth telling

going away, coming back
please let me trust you
make it a story worth telling -
this is why we're alive

please let me trust you
we told the story of what is happening
why we're alive
the details, the noticing.

***

we told each other it was magic
three times around, back and forth
yes yes yes
her hand on my face

three times around, around around
flat surface, parked car, room 210
her hand on my face
it was a true story

flat surface, parking lot, room 210
it was gratitude, it was letting go
it was a true story
doors flung wide, the view!

it was gratitude, it was letting go
it was story arc to the moon
doors flung wide, the view,
it was everything yes

it was story arc to the moon
yes yes yes
it was everything yes
we told each other it was magic.

(freewrite: pantoums: what is sacred, 12 minutes)

compassion

2011-04-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

she spends her time stroking my heart walls, she climbs the red cord inside me and smoothes the tangles. she holds the hand of the silver-haired woman and says look you are not alone and she sits under windows tracing circles in the dirt and she hums songs she made up in a dream of a dream and she looks me straight in the face, only one of all of them that looks me straight in the face and i want to hold her and rock her and hum her and keep her safe.

she has such compassion for me, such grace, little girl inside my chest, forgives me even though we failed her. i write for her. every week i come here and i let her take charge and she writes about trees and skies and running and burrowing and she is trying to make me remember and i don't. i do. i try. i wipe the dirt from her face and brush the hair from her eyes and i tell her secret stories and she tells me about what she has seen, walls of my heart, climbing my rib cage, rib joinery, nesting in my sternum. she is so, so good to me.

she says yes, yes, that's right and it's for her i keep the open heart open heart and it's for her i say thank you and look people in the face and she wants more, more, more and she is a child and doesn't know and even though they tell me no, i believe her when she says it has to be yes. i believe her when she says keep walking until you find the yes. and there is the path she tells me about, hot summer crisp dried grasses and apple tree shade, there is the path and she says: if you do nothing else, take me here. so i write about the stars and the skies and the wind, rain, water rushing, towering rocks, magic places. i write the stories down so she will not be alone inside me, alone in there.

here. have a fox. a swarm of honey bees, a long line of strong-bodied generous and kind women, women who tell you only true things and keep you company in this way. here. here is a pile of stones and edge of cliff and secretly i want to write about the cave we haven't discovered yet, so i keep digging until we find it, and in there will be phosphorescence and a creature who knows what we need and will tell us. spiny and glistening, she will tell us with a flick of her tongue, swish of her tail and we will stroke the heart walls together, deep deep down, ribcage cavern walls, resounding yes. praise and laugh and praise some more, we'll be here soon and she will know and she will tell me and i will look her straight in the face and she will know love.

(freewrite: compassion, 23 minutes)

resurrection

2011-04-26T11:36:00.001-07:00

2011-04-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

empty booth at the meridian,
sun.

over and over and over again

2011-04-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

In speaking of lies, we come inevitably to the subject of truth. There is nothing simple or easy about this idea. There is no "the truth," "a truth" -- truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. The pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet.

This is why the effort to speak honestly is so important. Lies are usually attempts to make everything simpler -- for the liar -- than it really is, or ought to be.

In lying we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event, or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even with our own lives.

The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.

***An honorable human relationship -- that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" -- is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

.Adrienne Rich

whatever else is true

2011-04-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

whatever else is true,
there is the tree bent low and deep from the soil, roots straining from the lure of gravity and the weight of light and the throaty call of earth.
there is the letter someone carved into the mountainside, big letter M, a marker, a claiming, a: this is how you know you're home.
there is the pile of stones left where the path divides. pile of stones at yes or no, left or right, forward or back. pile of stones at up or down, yes and no yes and no. there is no room for wanting, room only for choosing. make a decision and the pile of stones will still be there, sinking under the weight of wet moss and guardian crow.

whatever else is true
there is the kiss. you know the one.

there is the listening to you breathe, coaxing your body into sleep or orgasm or the decision to stay alive.

whatever else is true, there are my hands stretched out before me, in darkness and in light. there is one foot in front of the other and there is pause and there is look at the sky, boys, look at the sky. and there are pages, infinite pages of stories i will tell, words i will have kept warm and salty in my mouth, under my tongue, between tooth and cheek, deep behind voicebox.

whatever else is true, there are fireflies trapped in mason jars, children with their noses pressed against the glass, lightning light burning spots into their eyes. there is run fast down the hill, laughing. sweat down your back, your own salt in your mouth.
there is watch the children swimming and diving and learning buoyancy. watch the children and remind me of the things you see. whatever else is true, children sit on the floor surrounded by blocks and balls and books and dolls and they make music out of oatmeal containers and wooden spoons. whatever else is true, there is music from oatmeal containers and wooden spoons.

the light warming the wood floor. the plants in the window stretching themselves toward the sun. you remember to turn them so they won't grow lopsided. water them with unsalted water. the cat is sleeping and the dog is twitching and you tuck your feet under yourself with a book heavy and thick on your lap. you stare out the window and think of birds and ink and the way her voice wavers when she cries.

whatever else is true, her voice wavers when she cries and there are birds and the sun moves across the sky and you stretch to reach it, remembering to turn yourself, gently and generously, toward the wild promise of light.

(freewrite: in your life, by noël hanlon: 17 minutes)

complete failure

2011-04-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

a complete failure.
crash and burn, return.
we do it over and over and over again.
this has all happened before, and it will all happen again.

it is a failure of choosing the same path every time. it is tasting it delicious on my tongue and not wanting to give it up because i have convinced myself it's why i'm here. i don't know how to quit you. over and over and over again. checking that the gas is off, the window's closed, the cat is fed. gas is off, window's closed, cat is fed. gas is off. it's the same forest, same path, same hoof marks, same cottonwood bud opening up. it's the same sky, the same hour, same person riding too fast on his bike, spraying mud on my already muddy self. it's reaching out my hand for the thrill it might be met. over and over and over again.

it's a failure of choice, a crisis of faith. it's believing something is true, and allowing the want, the deep ache of want. open heart, bloody mess. plant those seeds there and see what happens. we trust seeds to grow, we trust that car will stay in its lane, we believe we will wake up in the morning, or we won't. there's the failure of black and white, and you love me or you don't and stay or go, yes or no, you or me. self preservation, the idea i might be special. the insistence you treat me like i am. the shock when i realize you are gone. the shock when i realize you've come back. and then you're gone again.

i'm writing this to you from the place i go when we are close. when we talk, i realize later i have no memory at all of what you said. i just know i felt whole in those words with you, and right and seen. so i come back again and again, and it's a failure of some kind, but it's all there is. to go to that place is to be alive. to go to that place is all there is.

(freewrite: conjure the image of the face of someone you trust completely. tell them a story about a complete failure: 14 minutes)

i might have been mad across my mind with my faith

2011-04-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

what i remember

2011-04-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

more than anything, i want a family. i want a mother and a father and a sister and a brother. grandpa, grandma. cousins. aunts and uncles and family dinners. nieces and nephews and babies on the way. i want call and response. i want to be recognized by my sound and my scent. i want to be felt from a thousand miles.

i have friends who tell me they want to move to the country with me, who want to build a circle of houses and share our lives. we talk about it, but it doesn't happen.

more than anything, i want a family. i want it to break your heart, the idea of losing me. even for a minute. i want wailing and keening and i want your skin to memorize the vibration of my deep throated sounds. listen to the wailing.

eyes closed. there is so much sorrow. so much love. mother protecting her baby. jesus. there we have it. i want a mother.

swim year after year up and down the oceans, nothing is more important, sorrow, sorrow, i don't know how to write this. i lie to my mother every time we speak. i haven't spoken to my sister in eight months.

my family is my friends and we are all introverts who don't ever want to leave the house. when i love someone, or want to love someone, all i want to do is lie down somewhere and hold their hand and tell each other stories. i think that's why i fall into bed with so many people. i want the connection and i don't know how to convince them to just lie there and hold my hand without fucking me.

what am i not saying?

i am moving to the forest so i will not feel so alone.
sorrow, sorrow.

i want whale songs playing loud while i cook myself dinner. i want silas to play with his toys on my floor while the whale songs teach him how to be in the world.
i want to write it all down.
fall madly in love.

i want more than i'm sorry.

and i want more than this.

my mother meets men online and convinces them to move to the country to live with her and fix the broken things and pay half the mortgage. my sister grows pot in her living room and never leaves the house. i live 3000 miles away and i can't get far enough.

sorrow, sorrow.

twice a year i dream of having sex with my mother and i always hope it means i'm working through it, but i'm not.
sorrow, sorrow.

no one can sustain what i ask of them. so i have quick buffets and i take pictures to remember alone, alone, alone. sorrow, sorrow.

i am that person who will sink into the ground and grow tangled flowering vines thick and fast in all the seasons. and there will be a pile of stones there over my body so that maybe we will remember, something.

(freewrite: 18 minutes of whale song)

treasure

2011-03-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

i found this and thought of you. treasure. buried treasure. the kind of thing you search your whole life to find. the kind of thing you've heard stories about, but no one will admit to hoping it's true. treasure. love. magic. when i was a little girl, i thought for sure there was something really important and special for me to do with my life. what i really want to say is that i've missed you.

i've missed you. finding you was finding buried treasure. when i had pretty much given in to the deep sadness of the idea that treasure was just a story people tell to make other people feel lonely.

i found you and you were light glinting off a mound of gold coins. you were the light refracted through murky water and seaweed beds. having been diving so deep and for so long, having learned to hold my breath until i no longer needed oxygen, having been dark diving for so long, you were light golden and syrupy for my swollen albino eyes.

what i really want to say is that i can't bear the idea that you might walk away.

what i really want to say is: i want to be treasure, too. i want to be light. i cried yesterday when i thought: i want her to want me on her journey with her. i want someone to want me with them on their journey.

what i really want to say is: i want to be a treasure you will dive deep for. i want you to marvel at the sight of me. i want you to hold me in your cupped palms like a precious thing and i want you to lean your head down close and whisper the secrets you had forgotten to remember.

let me be the precious thing you treasure like nothing else: light and hope and love like we'd heard stories about but never really believed could happen to us.

(freewrite: treasure island, las vegas post card: 12 minutes.)

things that could happen

2011-03-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

i want to be in a band. i want to be that wild-eyed messy-haired singing woman in the sweet flowered dress and beat up cowboy boots. you could just as easily see me on the front porch, sweeping the day away and gently swatting the child from my skirt. in the band, i would sing harmonies and play the fiddle and during the big exciting parts of the song, i would jump up and down to the beat you didn't even know was there until you saw me jumping. afterward, folks would buy me whiskey shots and circle around me without even saying a word. moths to a flame.

val and i talked yesterday about how probably i should go to bartending school so i can tend bar in marfa, texas. i would wear tight scoop-necked t-shirts and boots with my jeans. folks would tell me all of their secrets while i wiped the glasses. i would name drinks after the tourists i took home with me. drive a beat up worn down pickup, red or orange. and there would be dust on my skin everyday.

there's a house for rent somewhere in this town, a brick one-bedroom on an acre plus of undeveloped land. that is my house. the fireplace right in the middle of the room and the sun through all the windows. i'll sit on the back deck in the early mornings and toss apples for the deer in the yard. watch the sun go up and down, up and down.

(freewrite: seven minutes)

what i could not bear to lose

2011-03-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

it's a long path, this dark brown earth and weeds growing where no feet have fallen in so long. shiny pebbles and heartshaped rocks. over there, a tree. there: the sea. wildflowers and lupines and bees in hives and hollowed stumps. blue sky, grey sky, time lapsed northern lights. crescent moon, full moon, breathing. it is a long path, rocky cliff, prints in snow, turtles crossing slow and steady toward water of some kind. bullfrogs, cicada, wind. there is a house to go home to. a cabin or a hole in the ground. fruit trees growing on the roof. a rocking chair. a clock that keeps its own time, a dog's lazy tail wag. woodpecker, wood pile, bridge swaying over the chasm. iced over footprints, snails at the puddle's edge, the dream of two horses and the child reaching out her hands. fresh baked bread, honey, apples straight from the tree. worn wooden floorboards, the radio left on. open windows, doors, heart. walls lined with books, bones, pebbles. falling asleep to the waves or the wind or the breathing or the snow falling soft. falling asleep and waking up. telling stories. going away and then coming back. rope swing over the creek, porch swing, tire swing, under the porch shadows and buried treasure. tree house. bats, owls, dreams. keep walking, stay still, listen. dig a hole, plant a bulb, write it down. tell a story. breathe. green corked bottle and ceramic bowls. trees inked on our skin, birds flying, beginnings, endings. always a new way to tell the story you're in. open heart, open heart, dig a hole. bury the thing. put the teeth under the pillow, make a wish. make three wishes. shooting star, magic goldfish, selkie. wear her skin, and his, and listen to the timbre of your own voice when you're her or him or them both. tell the story then. tilt your face toward the sky, stretch your throat, holy holy and then stretch yourself full bodied flat against the ground. feel how the world is alive. and breathing. splitting wide open from the heartbreak of it all. rushing water to fill in the holes, uprooted trees and hollow cactus and the birds who live inside. you wouldn't even know they were there until the moon came out and everyone came alive and noisy with it all.

(freewrite: but a lifetime of happiness? no man alive could bear it. it would be hell on earth. -george bernard shaw.
write about being too happy, hell on earth or what you could not bear: 16 minutes)

in the sea beside me

2011-03-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

we do it over and over and over again

2011-03-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

there are famous poems made up of one enormous word.

2011-03-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

a word like love. or disillusionment. or indelible. write me a poem about shades of grey and also the tops of trees scraping the sky. tell the story of the white trails of airplane exhaust becoming skyscrapers in your little girl brain. write a poem about walking out the door and never looking back. opposite facing page: the poem about turning around at the departure gate, last time you'll ever see me, your luggage low on its wheels and you are crying. tell me the poem about slamming the book closed.

there's a poem about fear. i want that one again and again until your voice is sticky with it, and sharp, and you never want to say it again. burn the poem about fear. throw the ashes in the fast river and walk on. there are famous poems made up of one enormous word.

forever is a big one. and no. also fuck. fuck is a good, big word. write me a poem about the fucking. the way you pressed your forearm against my throat, the ways i said yes. after i hear that one, i will write quickly the one about fuck you but anger is sour on my tongue tonight and fuck you will be all it says.

one enormous word. it's always love. sometimes home. sometimes you. famous enormous poems about love, home, you. poems swelling out of their languages and spilling fast, supernova fast, flooding the landscape with reflection and possibility and small silver fishes leaping high and quick, we'll call them hope. trees hold steady strong and somehow, somewhere, we learned something about resilience and heartbreak, steady strong even in the thick of it. burn that poem about fear. burn it all the fuck away and throw it to the wind and let the wind become lies. bury it deep deep deep under the earth, under the flooding love home you and let the water rise to your knees and hold my hand. let us be an enormous word i can say out loud.

(freewrite: there are famous poems made up of one enormous word. -jorge luis borges, labyrinths, p9)

a conscious act of resistance

2011-03-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

it is a conscious act of resistance. to walk to the edge of the water. to feel the grass sharp or soft or wet or dry on my feet, to watch the fireflies skit skit skit and the day steaming off the earth. to walk to the edge of the water which is sometimes a still grey lake, sometimes a puddle, sometimes the raging ocean gone still. breath held, sensing an imposter, ocean gone still and gulls manage not to drop fast from the sky. ocean gone still, wind gone dry, the lake is soft and flat and the puddle swells with rains that haven't come yet. sharp-eyed vixen drinks from a blue bowl, skeletal bird soars soundless over my head.

it is a conscious act of resistance to walk from the warm place that is warm from my body and breath and the heat of stories told when no one is listening but the little person inside my chest. to find a path where there was none, or to find the familiar holds between root and stone. to set my sight on the north star or the rising sun or the swiftly tilting planet or the candle flickering in the window of the house that is not always there, only when i need to be reminded.

it is a conscious act of resistance to move my precious body through the world, open heart, open heart. to move my achingly, desperately precious body through the world and toward the water's edge, resisting becoming small, refusing to shrink down firefly in a bottle-sized or painful seed waiting to crack open-sized or full moon biggest you've ever seen, and so close to your face-sized.

it is a conscious act of resistance to walk to the water's edge, full-sized and phosphorescent, put my feet in and not be swallowed whole.

(freewrite: shrink, field, phosphorescent, pain, puddle, vixen, imposter, lie: 12 minutes.)

precious heart

2011-03-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

what it feels like to be air

2011-02-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

my favorite thing is the feel of your skin. also the way i sound in your ears, stories and songs and breath. and raising the hairs on your arms and drying the sweat on the back of your neck.

i like to hold birds, too, when they're tired and need to just float or soar. wind tunnels when they dive fast and rich into the sea. i love the sea. i love how we hold each other up or down and the patterns we make when we play, ripples and waves and mad raging storms.

i love trees. i love leaves. i love finding my ways in and out and between. when i am petulant i knock down abandoned birds' nests, and later, when i have calmed myself, i sometimes play with the little girl's hair while she discovers the fallen nest. i love her smile when she realizes this is a treasure she can keep. i give no resistance when she walks so carefully down the hill to show her mother what she has found.

clouds. i do love clouds. and oh my, i love the lightning. shooting through me like the day i was born. and lungs. your lungs, all warm and pink and wet, i go to sleep in your lungs. and also in your cupped palms while you're holding the firefly you caught, gentle, gentle, one august night by the corn field.

the whistle through wine bottles, wind chimes, bird call, blow out the candle, laugh laugh laugh, the song you sing when you're walking the path alone, and the one you sing to the child who is crying. i promise, i promise. i love, i am, i will, i feel, i want. when you tell the truth and when you run hard and stumbly down the hill, your limbs wild like joy and i love the way you spread your arms into me, remembering who you were when you could fly.

(freewrite, twelve minutes)

there's one favor i'll ask of you: will you see that my grave is kept clean?

2011-02-23T22:32:00.000-08:00

i'll have you bury me in a field of wildflowers, tall grass. no path, no road. keep me near the knuckly old oak tree. leave no marker, just remember. remember where you leave me and hold the smell of earth under your tongue.

i'll have you bury me there at the cliff's edge. the favorite spot for the locals to make their brave swan dives fast and graceful into that roiling raging sea. leave no marker, but you will notice the piles of stones rebuilt, year after year, and you will wonder who else knew where you left me.

i'll have you bury me under the porch. drink sweet vodka lemonades and watch the line of fire ants parade from the rotten floorboard. the bee hives in the yard may bear my name. bury me holding your mason jar of pennies and stuff a blue handkerchief in my sleeve.

i'll have you bury me under the roots of a good old tree. you can choose. just notice its wrinkles and the deep arching of its branches. paint a picture and hang it over your bed. the birds will come every morning and at night the huffing deer will mark me with their luck.

i'll have you bury me in the desert. wild night blooming cactus and lizard skittering over my bones. leave me here with an empty jug and sing some song you've made up on the spot. sing it about stars.

i'll have you bury me at the base of the sky. where rain starts and sunrise ends. bury me just past where you can see, let the swell of the horizon be your reminder. i will hold steady and true, you will chart your path by my promise.

i'll have you bury me fresh and sweet in the baker's cabinet. cover me with flour and sticky raisins. let me rise rise rise until i swell out of that place and the world smells like yeast and rising and the only parts of childhood we ever want to remember. slice me thick slices and spread the butter like you'll never run out. share a plate with the neighbors and tell all the stories you can remember.

(freewrite, 11 minutes)

leave me to pray

2011-02-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

you know. you know.
you know, as far as your eyes can see. you know. windswept plains, cityscape, subterranean cavern, cumulus cloud, as far as your eyes can see, you know. the i-5 corridor, parking lot, hawthorne, lumbering jet, rental car.
there is ice forming. long thick forearms of ice bulging from the eaves. blue sky, grey sky, night sky, northern lights. northern lights. new planets, dying planets, ringed, space debris. you know. you know. polar bear, flock of geese, girl child with frog hat, red cheeks, it's so cold. paw prints, snow. branch bending bending and you know.
this horizon. this landscape. build me a shack and leave me to pray. fly me to the moon. take my hand. kiss me in the rain. smile at me like i am the most special thing you've seen all day. build me a shack and leave me to pray.
leave me to pray holy holy and thank you god and thank you mother and thank you swirling planets, unfurling plants, bear tracks, blue sky, thank you.
leave me to pray and i will turn my head east for rising sun, south for dark shadow noon. turn my head west and i will prepare for sleep. leave me to pray and i will turn, every time, i will turn north and say thank you thank you thank you for this gift of facing death and trusting in my rebirth. every time, i will turn my face north and trust in my rebirth.

you will know me then, upon my rebirth, and you will know me then, you will know me then.

build me a shack and leave me to pray. face toward the sun, moon, shooting stars. you will know me by the iron honey of my my rebirth. you will know how desolate the landscape.

(freewrite: you will know how desolate the landscape, 14 minutes)

what memory becomes

2011-02-09T21:59:00.000-08:00

brick wall. nothing, nothing. find a scene that plays over and over in my mind. i don't have that. a memory gets made and it finds a little cubby inside me, heart, lungs, hipbone and it nestles there for a bit. i hold it, go back to look, a few times, maybe long enough to write it down. and then it dissolves. truly. the memory is still there. ask me about it and i can tell you. i'll remember all the details. i'll remember her head hitting the windshield. for instance. the deep iron honey smell of that baby being born. the rough barn boards of the wall and the thick splinters deep in my hand before i knew not to touch. fire, before i learned how to touch. i remember the way our faces touched when we said goodbye pressed against a wall on hawthorne, our tears running down each others faces.

i remember details best of all things. details of time and color and meaning. but the memories dissolve in me, flow into my bloodstream, become my blood, easily drawn and easily red. my memories become the rich soupy sea of me and they are seasonings. they are spice. they are salt on my tongue and honey on my fingers. memories become muscle tissue and sinew and bone marrow and also desire. longing. more more more. always wanting more. of whatever it is: more laughing. more crying. more fucking, more so furious i can't even look at you, more i love you so much i can hardly breathe. more breathing. more wanting. memories become hunger, become abundance, become threads between my fingers. become salt on my tongue, become rich soup of what i drink and what i know and what i will become.

(freewrite: use your senses to write about a scene that plays over and over in your head, eleven minutes)

themis

2011-02-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

the visions of dreams.

planting foods, buried deep into the ground.

you will dream she tells you stories.

dream of the chase. board up the windows, bundle the clothes. they are coming and you must be other, must be else.

dream of skeletal birds in trees. birds falling from the sky. the day all the dogs died and we realized our companions were jellyfish and mottled seals.

dream of falling flying.
dream of dreaming and writing it down. dream a dream of writing it all down.

dream of high on a mountaintop, tangled roads below, and you must choose. you choose by naming and then you understand.

dream of tall cliff face, feral cat, turtle so deep in mud she's forgotten how to speak.
dream of your mother.

dream of underground caverns and your whole family's dead.

dream of desert wedding pyres.
only one will be saved, and you hope it's not you.

dream of rushing water, tombstone, your sister, rock candy, library.

dream the floor started talking and told you to get up off of her. dream of the hole in the floor where the people went to hide.
dream of the people you forgot to look for.

dream of cutting your hair close to your scalp. your fingers are dirty and older than they are.

dream of salt water in your lungs and diving into deep grey water. dream you held her hand.
dream you were safe.

dream you know the whole story and the secrets are new words you can look up.

dream of wind storm
lightning strike
numb fingers, stopped heart, started.

dream of miracle.
dream of impossible.

walking into the night
into the forest
into the open sea.

dream of volcano and the earth splits open and
dream you crawl inside to be reborn.

(freewrite: re/commitment, initiation, 12 minutes)

the tender gravity of kindness

2011-02-02T22:06:00.000-08:00

the tallest tree bowing deep and heavy. it is night. there are stars and there is snow. the tallest tree bows deep and heavy, near to snapping, near to giving up and there will be a sigh and a release and before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you will remember gratitude. you will remember your feet planted in the earth, deep breath, deep breath. hands outstretched, meeting, finding. the tallest tree bows heavy like the weight of the world is testing its commitment. commitment to self, to sorrow, to long stands alone in the darkness, only tree, only one. there was once the idea that you were alone alone in all of this. tallest tree, weight of the world, bird call. tallest tree, long dirt road in the distance. once you were alone in the idea of alone and you bowed heavy to the ground. the weight of the world, the weight of sorrow, the weight of flock of heavy birds, flying things, prehistoric before your memory. weight of what you called hope, what you called real. was heavy snow, was deep hunger, was you are alone in the forest and the icestars crackle and the weight of the world was heavy on your back. before you know the tender gravity of kindness, know remember, know listen, know surrender, know sap deep inside your skin. sap sticky sweet holding the stories. the stories you made up about alone alone alone. the stories they told you about always and forever and family and what it means to be honorable. remember what it means. what it means. what it means is a circle wide and thrown arms and a grin to stretch your face and what it means is saying out loud: i will be grateful. i will be important. i will be visible. i will honor the weight of the world skies stars by saying yes. yes, it all brought me here and it's only the memory of weight that allows me the idea of release. flock of heavy birds lifts away, snow falls in thick wet sheets, you bundle your skin in wool and forgotten storied languages and you breathe and spring tall tall tall. your arms reach out and forward and it is kindness you remember. and pulse and light and yes and alive.

(freewrite: the tender gravity of kindness, 17 minutes)

fifth

2011-01-31T22:45:00.000-08:00

tonight i will dream that she tells me stories. tomorrow i will tell her what she said.

lonely.

2011-01-10T20:34:00.001-08:00

silas tobin

2010-12-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

silas tobin.
born 12/26/10
7:30pm

more pics here.

storyteller

2010-12-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

the animal walked past her, slowly. looking out of the corner of her eye, seeing her there leaning up against the tree, breathing steady and easy, and the animal nodded, maybe she smiled, and she bent her head down to nibble some tiny white flowers. she wasn't hungry, she just didn't want to walk away just yet. she wanted to keep looking at her, out of the corner of her eye. the girl, breathing steady and easy, she had been eating those tiny white flowers all morning, and now, even though she wasn't hungry inside, her mouth was hungry, and maybe lonely, so she leaned forward and pulled a tiny white flower with her teeth. chewed and swallowed and then they were both so sleepy, they looked each other straight in the eyes, they both smiled, breathing steady and easy. they were tired and smiling and curling their bodies up close to each other was the best thing to do. hoof on small of back, fingers in mane. they curled up, bellies full of tiny white flowers, and a little bread, some seeds, some dirt, both had sipped from the water hole that morning: water. they fell asleep. dreaming was steady easy breathing. stars and wind and though neither had ever flown, they did then, to the stars, like magic easy steady, and also they used words to tell each other things. they used their own secret languages, and they understood. they were understood. stars and breathing steady easy, water from the hole, curled up bodies had been searching their whole lives for each other and the finding was clean and not hungry and there were tiny white flowers and the smell of the little girl, sweat and mud and black pepper was pleasing, was a memory of a dream and the feel of pulse under the animal's skin was wild rushing easy tidal river, was also a memory of a dream of a memory. and the tiny white flowers grew taller and wider and the tree stretched her roots deeper and longer and the girl and the animal slept like they had been waiting their whole lives for each other. and beneath them the flowers turned color, turned red orange green blue purple pink, turned color like they couldn't decide, like this magic was too much to choose, so they chose it all and grew tall and colored and laughed and the flowers were awake but they were dreaming too. and a star to a flower is a giant relative and they were recognized there, stars to flowers, flowers to stars. and the twinkling above below was amazing, was waking up, was finding what you had been looking for your whole life.

(freewrite: there is a storyteller leaning against the tree. what story do you want her to tell you?: true love, a magical girl, a magical woman, change, tilting. 17 minutes.)

sine qua non

2010-11-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

hit the road.

you can always hit the road.
stuff the wagon with soft blankets, heart shaped rocks
and extremely loud and incredibly close. also a book of prompts.
the dog, the cat, warm socks, a bottle of honey whiskey, clean black journals,
itunes on shuffle, repeat. hit the road.

it doesn't matter who you've left behind; they will find you
if you want them near.

hit the road. sunset, sunrise, artichokes growing on the side of the road.
ocean to your left, your right. true north, sage brush.

hit the road and feel it hum under your feet. warm earth, wet earth, this is all you know earth.

hit the road and don't stay because they need you.
write letters if you must. there are a few of them
you'll give your address to, but only a few. count them on one hand.

hit the road because you are not trapped.

hit the road because you have no beginning, no ending, just story story story.

we have no maps for you, no blinking lights, but there are landmarks, and you will know them.
just go. follow the treeline and the smell of water.

wear warm socks and remember the way her neck smells.

hit the road, drive in circles, into the horizon, off
the edge. close your eyes, hold your breath

you are not trapped,
you are becoming,
you can always leave.

(freewrite: poem in 22 lines(ish): what you can't live without, 12 minutes)

what a girl learns

2010-11-17T22:16:00.000-08:00

a girl learns how to move from her mother.
stockinged feet on the hardwoods, sliding around to banjos or accordions on the speakers. or stooping, standing, stooping, standing in the field with the flowers or the rice or the bright red tomatoes.
a girl learns to move from her mother.
arms crossed over her chest or hands deep in pockets or raised high for yes! or scooping up that girlchild and showing her all kinds of love.
a girl learns to move by watching her mother.
how she turns into or away from the sun. how deep into her underground she digs, whether she still climbs trees, or laughs, or cries.

i cross my legs, my arms, make myself as small as possible and still i have my mother's belly and her smile. she kept her curly hair but not her sorrow. when i say i want to move to the forest, i know it is me becoming my mother. or it is i am appreciative of her dream and i will find a way to move into it and not disappear or disintegrate. disintegrate. what an amazing word. because we are supposed to integrate, become one, become whole in our parts, and to disintegrate is a flash fire explosion of our undoing and deena metzger just last night told me about going deep within; going deep within myself is to always be an outsider. is to always live by the rules of my own inner landscape, is to not follow the rules of what is expected outside of me. and that was so appealing, so validating.

(crack it open)

to travel your own inner landscape is to be alone. sometimes lonely, but not necessarily. to devote that kind of attention to that deep wandering is to leave the others, all the rest of them, outside. and even when you write it down, try to tell them, you are in there alone.
so you describe the horizon, chart the networks of paths and veins and scars. you become a cartographer, and then, even then, the map is beautiful and watercolored and the compass points line up true, and the magical creatures you have so painstakingly included are alive and breathing fire, and even then the people will say: oh! it is beautiful. or can i have a framed copy? or tell it again or what is over there past the mountain range at the edge of the map. and you breathe heavy and hard because there is no way, no way at all, to convince them of what this world smells like, or how the wind sounds when it squeezes through the trees.

(freewrite: 10 minutes, then six. sound prompt: drums)

when i have more

2010-11-17T22:10:00.000-08:00

when i have more than $72, i am going to move to the forest. there will be towering old trees and a view of the water. still or rushing, i don't care. there will be a porch with a chair with a cushion. a chair wide enough for me to sit cross legged with a journal in my lap. a cup of something hot and sweet on the little table next to me. a view of water and swooping birds and they will build nests and i will watch them hatch and fly, hatch and fly. the dog will have free reign, and if i can be reasonably confident there are no hungry owls or coyotes, the cat can go outside too. the big soft bed will be in the corner, piled thick with heavy quilts and pillows. there will be windows on every wall, but the one by my bed will be my favorite. i will spend lots of time there, staring and thinking. a woodstove and the kindling will be dry. this will be a small town like the one i grew up in, with a library so far away the voters will have funded a books by mail program, so every week i will have a green canvas bag hanging from the mailbox at the end of the driveway. in the winter there will be tracks to follow and long nights filled with words and quiet and dreams come true. shooting stars and maybe a moose.

(freewrite, seven minutes, no prompt.)

on repeat: high as any savior.

2010-11-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

Please remember me, happily

By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin, the time when
We counted every black car passing

Your house beneath the hill and up until
Someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention

But please remember me, fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then they went on to say that the Pearly Gates
Had some eloquent graffiti

Like 'We'll meet again' and 'Fuck the man'
And 'Tell my mother not to worry'
And angels with their great handshakes
But always done in such a hurry

And please remember me, at Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white, by midnight
We'd forgotten one another

And when the morning came I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world and then returned
And now you're lit up by the city

So please remember me, mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower
Call, then pass us by but much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour

Gleam and resonate just like the gates
Around the Holy Kingdom
With words like, 'Lost and found' and 'Don't look down'
And 'Someone save temptation'

And please remember me as in the dream
We had as rug burned babies
Among the fallen trees and fast asleep
Beside the lions and the ladies

That called you what you like and even might
Give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see a trapeze
Swinger high as any savior

But please remember me, my misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain and chasing trains
The colored birds above their running

In circles round the well and where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter
So bright on cinder gray in spray paint
'Who the hell can see forever?'

And please remember me, seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees, you turn from me
And said the trapeze act was wonderful

But never meant to last, the clowns that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs, the parking lot
Had an element of danger

So please remember me, finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear, but if I make the Pearly Gates
I'll do my best to make a drawing

Of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
An angel kissin' on a sinner
A monkey and a man, a marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swinger

my grandmother taught me

2010-11-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

... to tell stories. she told me stories about growing up with dirt floors and straw brooms. picking flowers for the mason jars and baking bread with her mother all through the afternoons. my grandmother taught me to look at the stars, to crane my head wide back to see the upside down stars, upside down sky. she taught me about water moving around rocks, not a care in the world. wild horses are blessings and crows tell us the future. my grandmother taught me to scan the horizon for coyotes and strangers. she taught me to greet strangers with open arms and the gun propped up by the door. my grandmother taught me to sweep the yard slowly, to make up a sweeping pattern and stick to it my whole life. to walk the prairie mindful of snakes and sudden winds and to listen for the peculiar crick-crick sound of the speckled bird; if i follow its call it will show me a secret. my grandmother taught me rocking quietly by the fire, and arranging stones into circles and knitting and saving. she showed me the hole in the ground where i could hide if i needed to, the bats would make room for me. wild sage and dark berries and water pooled in rock bowls. my grandmother taught me humming and hand holding and saying yes when yes is what i meant. she taught me to keep my arms strong and my back stronger. how to listen to the quiet inside me even when inside me is so loud and desperate. she taught me how to find food and love and also to find my way with only the shadows to guide me. my grandmother taught me shadow and dream and holy holy and how to crush the herbs we had dried, how to drink the teas because the plants have their own stories to tell us. the coyotes and the crows and the water around the rocks. the path up the hill that you don't see until you're right on top of it. the rattlers, the windstorm, the lightning strikes far off in the distance, acid settles on your tongue from miles away. burnt hollow tree trunk makes home for crick-crick birds and sweet honeyed bees.

freewrite: my grandmother taught me: 13 minutes

there's a poet in the barn.

2010-10-25T22:23:00.001-07:00

there is a poet in the barn. climb up to the hayloft and she has covered the walls with words, covered the beams with words, and closer, look closer, hold your breath and swan dive from the edge and you will land graceful and sweet in the loose hay and you will open your eyes and each blade has been given a word.

the cows in their corners and the horses in their stalls. the rooster on the rafter and the owl in the roost. poems.

there is a poet in the barn. a woodpecker in the oak. the sun slides along the horizon and lungs fill with dust.

there is a poet in the barn. the whole town knows she's there. she writes birthday songs and wedding vows and funeral blessings. the whole town knows she's there and on a special day mama might send a little one (oh you hope it's you!) down the road with a fresh loaf of bread, and you will say: what will you give us today? and she will hand off a story, written on a blue glass jar, about the crows that play-dive each other until the sun goes down. or she might crack open that loaf and write in sweet butter the names of all the beautiful things she thought of this morning. the little one (and you hope it's you!) will run fast down the road, kicking up dust and laughing, because going to visit the poet is like christmas, is the day when you are the most special thing, and when you get to town everyone wants to hear what you've been given. they stand around you in a close circle and gasp and smile and hold their fingers to their lips because what you are saying is most delicious and pleasing, and afterwards you get hugs and tousled hair and all day long people are thanking you and even though you didn't write the poem, she wrote it for you and everyone knows it and it is good to be the thing that inspires beauty. so you don't want to be greedy, but you try to be the one mama chooses, every day, or at least every other, to be the one sent down the road to receive the poet's blessing.

(freewrite, 20 minutes: farmhouse, tenderness, shadow, woodpecker, poet, space.)

silence, something unifying, something that changes everything

2010-10-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

he invited me to come see his secret garden. he would only keep it for another three weeks, he said, and then he would move away and they would turn it over to make lawn. he said: you look like a lover of secret gardens. he said: this is a perfect day. people forget to notice perfect days and also miracles that only happen once in seven hundred twenty eight years. he stretched his arms wide, smiled at the sky, and i thought: this is like a movie. only later did i realize the deep seed of sadness that thought left in me. this is like a movie, not: this is my life.

they pulled the miners up today. it was only yesterday that i even knew they were there. i heard the news broadcast and i thought those people had been trapped underground for all those weeks, and no one had known. i thought how amazing that in this time we think we know everything, people could be trapped under ground and we could just go on not knowing.
she told me today they got them all out, and she told me they are all alive and healthy. she told me about drilling for water and rationing food. she said they were underground, and now they're not. and then we were silent. because of course i have been underground. of course. and she wants me to see this as an invitation to come out. to know that i am welcome above. but.
but i don't want to come out.
i want to lick trickles of water from the walls. i want to sit my the hole they dug, to see what foodstuffs they'll send me. curl up and wait. i imagine the kind of waiting they did. the kind of patience they must have learned. my life is preparation for the long underground. or it is the underground, in preparation for aboveground light air things.

when i was a girl, i was in a fire.
when i was a girl, i was a fire.
they tried to gouge my eye out, they tried to plug my ears, they tried to plug all my holes so nothing could get out. when i was a girl, i was still. i was quiet. when i was a girl there was a deep silence and i don't think i ever was a girl, really. never was a little girl, oh.
because she is still in me, i know what she could have been, i know what she could have been. she runs the length of me, long windblown meadows and deep bowl calderas and in the storms she stretches her arms wide, calls herself lightning rod, calls herself true north. and when the world is dry, she licks the ground, she digs up salt licks, she finds the cupped leaves and she swallows whatever she can find.
when i was a girl, i crawled deep deep inside and dug in. when i was a girl, i packed the survival kit. water, air, sugar, salt, iron tablets. torch, fire, lightning rod, lightning bug, fireflies trapped in mason jar, easy night sky. when i was a girl i carried length of string, folded paper, packet of seeds. when i was a girl, i asked for help. once.

(freewrite, 21 minutes.)

this amazing precious thing.

2010-10-04T23:18:00.001-07:00

looking for inspiration or an assignment, i found this amazing precious thing.

click it:

unfortunate floor crawlers

2010-10-04T16:20:00.000-07:00

It was an afternoon project, years and years ago. Grampa and Grandgirl laid down the newspaper and brought out two paintbrushes and a quart of shiny black paint. He wore grey suspenders over his white t-shirt, she wore her mother's yellow bandanna to keep her hair out of her eyes. After they carried the rocker outside and placed it gently on the newspapers, he showed her how to use the silver prying tool on the paint can lid. She stirred the paint with a stick, better than anyone had ever done before, he said. World's Best Paint Stirrer, Extraordinaire, he called her. The sun was high in the sky and he whistled a little tune he made up. She tried to join in with a doo-doo-la, and he laughed. Said let's take our show on the road, and she saw them together in the cab of a big truck singing the songs Grandma listened to on the kitchen radio. Riding off in all directions, afternoon sun on them taking their show on the road. Grandma brought out two tall glasses of lemonade then, on a tray, one with a green twisty straw. Grandma said good work on my chair, you two, and she was right. It was good work, shiny black already on the rungs on the back and the smooth smooth arms and the seat, too. Tall glasses of lemonade swallowed in deep gulps, wipe the sweat from his forehead and her upper lip and it's time to flip the chair, get its underneath, feet arching high into the sky, oddly skeletal chair, and Grampa says this is the most important part, this is the part no one will ever see, unless they're crawling around on the floor. And darlin', if someone has the misfortune of crawling around on the floor, we ought to give them a clean, pretty view. What about babies, she said. Babies crawl on the floor. True, true he said and together they walked to the barn and picked out an old can of yellow and she painted a bright smiling sun on the glossy underside of that chair. Bright smiling sun for the unfortunate floor crawlers and the babies.

(freewrite: rocking chair. 12 minutes.)

homage to my hands

2010-09-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

homage to my hips
by lucille clifton

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top.

these hands are magic hands.
these hands hold the pen and the brush and also they type slowly but with good intention. these hands have a mind of their own. these hands are magic hands.

these hands vibrate when their body is awake. vibrate like electricity through their veins. these hands hover. hover close over back of neck, small of back, small bird sound shadow hands. these hands hover and vibrate and smooth.

smooth smooth these hands hold space, hold water, hold other hands. these hands hold babies and critters and save lives where others might step on that long bug with scorpion pincer, these hands hold gentle gentle here's a green leafy for you, better than the linoleum, better than the climate control, better than the bottom of scared foot. these hands are magic hands,

hands on skin, between her legs, on her hipbones, clavicle, sweet curve of ass. these hands have a language of their own. easy smooth c'mere, c'mere. hands say yes and please and more and enough. magic hands. inside outside hot cold. these hands sweat and slide and smell like onions when i'm bleeding.

these hands are magic hands, write words to paper without asking permission. these hands scale the side and back down again. these hands hold steady without breaking the surface, these hands wave hello goodbye let me help you. these hands break the surface.

these hands fuck to the beginning and to the end.

these hands wipe tears and ass and knuckles crack and skin cracks and freckle on palm that was never there before. these hands cure cancer. these hands deliver babies. these hands hold food and dirt and animal against chest. these hands make shadows, make earth move, pull spiders from hair, burrow in fur and also water and sometimes go deep into what they shouldn't.

these hands are magic hands.

these hands go to sleep under hipbones, wake up stretched far apart. these hands nestle between breasts, these hands pull hair when necessary, these hands soothe. these hands wipe blood and noses and steam from windows. these hands are magic hands. go inside and make yourself at home. smooth smooth soothe these hands are magical thinking hands.

these hands travel the world in an airstream trailer, back of pickup, ball of foot. these hands brush the hair from your face, knot braids from your scalp. these hands tap the beat, pretend they are music. these hands make pictures and stories and remember everything that has ever, ever happened.

(freewrite: homage: 14 minutes)

precious heart

2010-09-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

precious heart. i dreamed i was small and inside you. a womb, a pulsing wet and deep dark red and i was small inside you. my fingers on you, stroking you, tongue on the roof of your mouth. i dreamed i was inside you and i knew you had made room, and there were sore spots and there were pin pricks and there was the fissure right down the middle of you, where we had sewn you up using old black doll's thread and you had healed beautifully, but we always knew what had happened, so we were tender.

i dreamed i was inside you and i was curled up, sweet, curled up and blissful. it was close and intimate and you said yes yes little you yes and my fingers on you my face pressed against you and you beat for me, pulse pulse woosh pulse and i remembered all the safe places i've been, and there have not been many, but you reminded me soft walls and blood through veins and easy summer sky.

i used my hands then to scoop. this was necessary and also delightful. scoop handfuls of heart and then you said: go ahead, love. feast. so i feasted. handfuls of good safe pulsing heart into my mouth and it was delicious like a dream and it was exactly of course and it was like i had never feasted before, small little girl thing, hardly ever been safe, hardly ever known there was such a thing as permission and feasting and deep delight. heart on my tongue and you showed me how you grew yourself right back into whole and even brighter deeper colors in you there, where my hands had been. heart all over me like a party, like a celebration, like a little girl happy with paint and ink and stardust glitter. pictures are taken of that little girl to remind sad people of what they don't have. feast, you said, there is enough. so i wallowed. i wallowed like a pig, like a happy dog, like all those creatures that know how to play, and there is enough. there is plenty, there is infinite heart, there is enough.

(freewrite, eleven minutes.)

the afterlife

2010-09-22T22:19:00.001-07:00

you are surprised by all the white. long stretches of plain white paper, on the ground, wrapped around trees, draped across the sky. white. a few small shadows here and there where the pages meet, and some smudges over there, you think from where the end of the paper met the roll. funny, you think, that even here someone has to think about ordering office supplies. office supplies. and now in your hand is a pen. a fountain pen. and you realize it is exactly the perfect pen you had been looking for your entire life. just weighty enough, just substantial enough to rest in your fingers with what can only be described as grace. graceful fountain pen, and it is full of delicious, rich black ink and you think yes, well of course this is heaven. of course this would be what you are given. endless paper and a perfect pen full of delicious ink. ha! so you sit. it's easy to sit, you notice, no creaking bones or sore muscles. you sit like you are a child in a fresh, forgiving body. you sit like you are a child, and your tongue squeezes from between your lips and you are intent. white paper, rich delicious ink, the world is a book for you to write and you think about what should be your first word. what will you say to this huge expanse, oh, the paper is thick and grainy and there are little bits in it, you see. little bits of nature from the other world imbedded right there, pressed in deep. insect wing right there where you will write your first word. insect wing, and over there, just there by your toe: a flower petal, but you don't know what kind. you can only guess at the color it might have been, might still be if you tore the paper a bit to dig it out. should you dig it out? should you find a way to know the color of that flower petal? why does it matter, with the richness of white, white so thick you might even begin to sink into it. insect wing and flower petal and the world is only delicious thick richness of white and there is a pen in your hand and maybe you could sit here forever without writing it down. but you can't bear the idea of another life like that, so suddenly you have a story and you begin to write.

(freewrite, 13 minutes.)

having been raised by wolves

2010-09-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

when i reach the house, she is there. as we knew she would be. she is there in her chair, she is rocking slowly, evenly, her hands on her lap, steady even rocking on gray worn wooden floorboards. windchimes invisible and portentious, her porch is dusty and gray and there are grooves under her rocking chair, tracks for rocking, tracks for waiting, back and forth, forth and back.

when i reach the house and i stand at the first step. i hear the invisible windchimes and the wind off the horizon and there is water. i hear it, impossibly, water running through a gutter and off the roof and i see there are containers of earth and lush green plants and the water from her roof is spilling into this containered earth, and it is a miracle in the dusty red desert that she would be waiting for me with the only rushing water for miles around. she would be waiting for me, hands on her lap, rocking, rocking, her deep dark eyes fixed on me since i emerged from the earth. since i first thought she might be waiting, her eyes have been fixed on me.

rushing water, green thirsty things rocking rocking rushing water, wind off the horizon, crackle of wildfire now. we only now hear it, though it's been there all along, wildfire is why i've come. smoke on my skin, ash on my tongue. i've come to her, only rushing water for miles around, i come to her, crackle hiss of wildfire, i am thirsty, i am impossibly, incredibly thirsty. how have i walked this greatest distance with this impossible thirst? rushing water, rushing water, green plants, green leafy plants, red on horizon, smoke in my hair, her eyes fixed on me from the beginning.

having been raised by wolves, i am without words; i am without a sense of propriety. having been raised by wolves, i scratch in the dirt at her feet, i whine, i whimper, i piss, i howl. scratch red dust earth, sniff the air, mouth open for a sense of what to do next. smoke on my skin, smoke on my tongue, impossible thirst, her eyes have been fixed on me from the beginning. fire at my back, fire rushing river toward her house, water rolling off the roof. i am impossibly, miraculously thirsty and she is here, as we knew she would be.

(freewrite, 12 minutes: sound prompt.)
(for l.)

i dream i am

2010-09-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

i dream i am in the garden of the towering rocks, the place i have been told i was conceived. i am moving slowly, it is a time i can remember, barely, as a dream i had before this dream, before the other dreams. the first dream, maybe. the first dream which set it all in motion. i am moving slowly and the air on my skin is salty, is alive with salt and electricity and there is some thunder echoing between the hollows of the towering rocks. there is some thunder and some light in the sky that is a blue light, bruised light, light with burnt edges, if i am understanding it correctly. the air is salty and electric, the light is deep bruised edges, the rocks tower over my head, and in this dream before all my other dreams, i move slowly. the earth below me is impossibly fragile, dry cracked paper thin layer of earth. each slow step brings me deeper closer to the center of things. paper thin fragile earth and under that is a rich dark fruity earth. soil meant for growing, and there are green things, i see them now, green things that arch their pale new bodies toward me, toward the bruising light and towering rocks and i listen. i listen closely. under the thunder echoing, always echoing grumble growl echo, there is a wailing, a keening, a please please please and i know that it's true: this is the place of my conception. this place of towering rocks and dry cracked earth and on my tongue suddenly is wild light, is shock to my system, is bruised light electric light on my tongue and there is a moment now, dream within dream before any other dream has ever happened, a moment of my choosing: this one, this one, and now and yes and of course yes. and then it is true. then it is a story we begin to tell. now it is a story we begin to tell. here is a story: electric bruising towering light. the earth beneath you is fragile, the thunder echos, green things arch and unfurl and you are conceived and i am conceived and it is a choice, a choosing, and it is also the first dream and then there is salty body, there is wild crow keening song of yes, and it is sorrowful and it is joyful and he air around you is burnt and holy and you are beginning, in this place you are beginning, in this dream you are beginning and it is a wild taste you hold now on your tongue.

(freewrite, 16 minutes: mottled, shapeless, towering, shadow, pale, crow, thunder, bray, wail, burnt, salty, fresh, stagnant, fragile, wooly.)

the people have gifts for you

2010-07-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

i bend over and pick her up. she smells like summer dirt and sweat and something underneath like sweet clover honey or ripe berry juice. she's light in my arms, and immediately nestles into her spot on my hip, her arms reaching around my neck to pull me closer. she presses her cheek up against mine and uses her fingers to push the hair from my eyes.

i miss you she tells me and i look into her mouth a bit when she speaks. i miss you, little white teeth, sweet berry breath, berry juice dried in the corners of her lips. i miss you she tells me and i remember the day we spent picking wildflowers and then making jewelry from the bouquets. i remember our feet in the cool water, mossy river rocks and water skimmers and dappled shade. i miss you and there is curling up in the elbow of a tree's roots, telling stories. there is dirty feet and up past dark and itchy mosquito bites and pointing out fireflies and shooting stars. i miss you and there is falling asleep under clean sheets and dreaming the dreams that made us walk, kept us walking long past the walls of our house, out past the apple tree and through the garden and hello, hello racoon and hello sweet deer, rest your head, we're just passing through. walking out past the forest's edge, out past the water's edge, i miss you and i am caught up, tangled in her arms and i am strong with her on my hip and i miss you too i say and she smiles.

she reaches out her arm then and there is a woman. a woman who has been there all along, a woman who has been standing here at the side of this road, and at the last, and will be at the next. and she is warm, too, and smelling of citrus and crushed seeds and desert sage and underneath her, too, a kind of smell that reminds me of being thirsty and then drinking. the little one reaches out her hand and the bigger one meets her fingers and the clasping then between them is a filling to the brim. is a sudden flood of arroyo with the animals all escaping with their lives. is the swell of high tide going to take out the town, but stops just before the houses are washed away. the clasping of their fingers , little one still on my hip, woman drawing nearer, and i look down to see my feet, dusty old roots, and my skin is brown and i taste the salt on my skin and her arm is around us and the little one says yes and the bigger one says yes and me in the middle, i say yes. and we smile, all three of us, we smile. and in the distance, there is distance, in the distance is the wild rejoicing of sun on earth and flowers unfurling and water sweetly holding its place in things, and there is the sudden surprising stillness of finding what had been lost.

freewrite: everyone on the bus has a gift for you, 16 minutes

gravel

2010-07-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

the voice on the phone. i could tell you about the voice on the phone that is familiar the way a dream is familiar. the way meeting the twin you never knew you had might be familiar, if you could find a way to focus on their eyes. i want to tell you about the voice on the phone. how she went away and then came back and with that coming back had become, and with that becoming picked up some gentle gravel in the voice. the voice that reminds me of just barely waking up. and that's what this is like. having been asleep for years, sleepwalking through all my loves and emotions and small passions. sleepwalking through because i didn't know enough to wake up, or. or because i didn't know how to open my eyes to what had happened. sleepwalker. somnambulist. sleepwalker, sleeptalker. close your eyes, tight. tighter. say yes to everything, say yes and then do it. because there's no fear. you lost the fear of daily living. the fear of dying alone has become your overwhelming passion and nothing else comes close. nothing soothes, nothing is true, everything can be explained away. because no matter the promises or the weddings or the sleeping in the back of the truck for six months or the fucking on the kitchen stove or the deciding what you'll name your babies, no matter any of it, any of it, they can walk away . they can walk away and swallow gravel and become only a voice on the phone.

freewrite: three words, 14 minutes

today's inbox

2010-07-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

"You are hot and notorious. We should go out."

what it is to be sleepy, so much of the time.

2010-07-08T20:33:00.002-07:00

I write out of a greed for lives and language. A need to listen to the orchestra of living. It is often said that a writer is more alive than his peers. But I believe he might also be sleepier than his peers, a sort of narcoleptic who requires constant waking up by his own imaginative work. He is closer to sleep and dream, and his memory is more haunted, thus more precise.

Barry Hannah, 2002

cave

2010-07-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

she doesn't put her head under when she swims. it's the sound of water filling her ear canals and somehow expanding in there like ice freezing in a glass jar, water in her ears makes her feel like her head will explode. but she loves being underwater, loves to be submerged. loves the cool river water on her scalp, loves to imagine she is a fish or a sea monster, something quiet and sleek that could sneak up on you but rarely does. because the quiet dark, quiet dark sandy bottom, quiet dark sandy bottom deep undersea cave is so much more appealing to her than the splashing surface light shards every which way, children's feet, the swimming wings a blinding neon blocking her sky, the tall boys who splash and splash and leave her no peace, the baby who sits soggy diaper leaking and swelling and leaking. the babies, actually, she realizes the babies are okay. the babies take their time to be in the water, take their time to root there, be there, in the water, soaking it up, lapping it up, still legs, still fat pudgy legs. babies in the water, she could sneak right up near them, and just be. a baby might see her, might squawk some baby language to alert the others to the sea monster, but the others carry on in their noise and after a moment it's just the baby, the river and the quiet sea monster with her head underwater. quiet sea monster, head under water. never drowns. sea monsters don't drown. they keep going, deeper and deeper, probably, she thinks, deeper and deeper and darker and colder and more of what she doesn't know. and it occurs to her that there's no choice in not drowning. it occurs to her that sea monsters and the fishes and the giant beluga and the deepest sea turtles never get to stuff their pockets with rocks. never even get to consider it. never get to walk off a pier weighted with a quarry's worth of stone. that cooing dolphin could beach itself, probably, but some human would shove her back, maybe. but more likely the whole pod of other dolphins, her family, her kin, would school together and make a plan and rally to pull her back into deep cool water. would tuck her in to that sweet dark cave, would feed her tasty fishes and deep pink fishes and silver flitting fishes until she had forgotton the urge to swallow air like water.

(freewrite: clustering: cave. meadow. sky. 13 minutes.)

this is what the sky can do.

2010-06-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. you make me happy when skies are gray. you'll never know, dear, how much i love you. please don't take my sunshine away.

the other night, dear, as i lay sleeping, i dreamed i held you in my arms. but when i woke, dear, i was mistaken. so i hung my head, and i cried.

she used to sing it to me, all the time. called me sunshine and starlight and moonbeam. and i had no choice. but to shine. or wax and wane. or shoot through the sky faster than your eyes could track.

there was an eclipse once when i was a child. a solar eclipse, and we all made those tiny pinhole boxes so we could see it. see the perfect ring of light around the perfect shadow. notice how the world changed color. i don't remember what color the world turned - orange, maybe - but i remember the world changed color with the eclipse and i felt unsteady and familiar at the same time. this is what the sky can do, i thought. i remember thinking this is what the sky can do.

and northern lights, aurora borealis. certain now that i saw them in northern maine on the forth of july. held in benjamin's lap, how is it possible i remember his name? held in benjamin's lap and he pointed out the colors and the movement and the unbelievable lights in the sky. it is possible he told me a story about the northern lights existing, being something like the 4th of july fireworks. or maybe there was an anomoly of temperature and moisture and dust charge that brought me such rare magic at such an unusual time of year. i remember sitting on benjamin's lap, his chest-length curly red beard, his kind eyes, his easy warmth. i remember i was four or maybe three years old because the big changes hadn't happened yet. i sat on benjamin's lap and told him i would be his daughter if he wanted me to. even then, offering what i had rather than asking for what i needed.

there is magic in the sky. magic that shows cloud pictures and holds birds and gives us backdrop for flying bats and pterodactyls and flying engined things. and in the sky there is lightning and constellations and swiftly tilting planets. magic in the sky, bodies falling from burning buildings, hatchlings dropping from the nest one after the next as their mothers and fathers urge them on from below. kites in the sky, and bubbles and hands raised in a crowd. and sound, there is sound in the sky and also all manner of precipitation and storm. the sky gives us storm like tornado and hurricane and meteor shower and the sky holds the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets. the sky holds all the orbits and the sky holds eclipse and the sky is falling and you are my sunshine.

and no wonder there's been a weight on me my whole life. the weight of the sky and all its orbits. no wonder i've taught myself to squeeze through and into small spaces. taught myself to become shadow, and also to burn with a heat unimaginable. my only sunshine. to be a child who is the only heat, only light, only thing to orbit around. to be that largest planet burning up fast and bright, and then, suddenly, eclipsed and setting rising setting rising in vast pools of imagined color.

(freewrite, 18 minutes: revision a nursery rhyme or childhood song.)

remember a time with sun

2010-06-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

lying out on the grass sometime in high school. pale blue bathing suit that i loved, a zipper between my breasts which had suddenly sprouted on me like weeds in foreign soil. lying out in the sun with my little boom box playing top 40 radio. i was waiting for madonna's new song: la isla bonita. which i loved. waiting and dozing and feeling the heat of new england august on me, feeling the ants and sweat and sweat bugs and the heat on me made me want to try sex, made me want to kiss a girl, made me want to run away and be someone new, someone who laughed and chatted and knew how to make friends. heat on me made me liquid and lazy and popular and brown like the girls who had swimming pools, even though it was a waste since it was only warm enough for a month, maybe a month and a half. but they were brown all over and well-groomed and smooth and luscious and even though they were mean and called me dyke and didn't invite me to their pool parties, i liked to think of them kissing each other in their little bathing suits by their unworldly blue swimming pools. the sun on me and i was itchy and hazy and waiting waiting waiting. when the song came on, was it casey kasem announcing then, i don't remember, when the song came on i was asleep and dreaming that i had heard it start in time to press the red record button. but when i woke up the song was nearly over and i hadn't recorded it and i was resigned then to sit it out in the sun another four hours, if the boom box batteries would last, because i knew they played all the same songs every four hours, like there was only four hours' worth of music in the whole world, in one day you could memorize every word to every song and turn brown and beautiful and hairless and loved, all at the same time.

(freewrite, 12 minutes)

fucking, death.

2010-05-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

there's red. blood and heat. flaring heat and waning heat. fluids, hot and seeping. there's the reaching, always reaching. reaching out and reaching in. the meeting muscle, bone, viscous organs, tendon, cunt, heart. heat heat heat and breath. there is breath held and released, slowing and stopping. there is coming at the top of inhale, there is dying. there is coming and dying and breathing. there is watching and waiting and working so fucking hard. make it last, make it last, don't stop, don't go. there is desperation and begging and there is please and i will do anything if. and there are tears and wailing and there are bodies twitching, mouths opening and closing and there are involuntary movements and there is skin softening, hardening, there are fluids. there are the fluids and the stains and the tracks of movement drying on skin, stiffening hairs. there is the exhaustion. there is the relief. there is thank you god and oh god! and thank you god. there is release. the just finally i can let it all go. i don't know what's next but i will let it all go. i don't know what's next and there are fluids and expectations and worry and fear and what the fuck am i going to do now, what the fuck have i done and where will i go and i will just go. there. i will go there. i will breathe until i don't, i will move until i don't and i will be alone or i won't. i will reach out and i will reach in and fingers are met with something solid or something light. fingers are met with the surprise i have been waiting for. fingers met and surprised, met and surprised, wait for the exhale, wait here at the highest inhale. chest raised, chin tipped back, eyes rolled back, wait at this inhale and the exhale comes, or it doesn't. and you have never been more alive.

(freewrite, twelve minutes: fucking, death or money.)

all the pilgrimage places

2010-05-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

give me something to hold under my tongue. a pebble to roll around in my mouth. in the desert, sucking on a stone will quench your thirst. give me something to hold under my tongue so i will not be thirsty. give me salt, salt lick, salt water, taffy. give me spice, something deep and earthy, exotic and familiar. give me a word. give me quixotic or conundrum or marzipan. give me a gravelly woman's voice, give me low notes on a viola. give me something to hold under my tongue. a secret. a joke. the story you had forgotten to tell anyone.

give me middle of the night, can't sleep, instead i'll write and look at the stars. give me stars. give me stars to roll around in my mouth, hold under my tongue, stars to quench my thirst. give me cool river water and twilight bats. give me the knowing you will not die alone.

give me dreams, nightmares, plans. give me your best ideas and also the ones that someone else has thought of first. give me fresh green beans and bumblebee. salt lick, again. and unearthed roots. toes in sand, toes in water. open clamshell and lobster shack at midnight. give me the shifting land, pulse of island moving with the tide. earthquake and tsunami. give me natural disaster and also unnatural: oilslick, serial killer, kidnapped child. give me bloody mess, broken glass, door busted open. give me she left without a trace, she disappeared, and whatever happened to her? give me i miss you. give me hands stretched out, hug on the street corner. give me everything is better, everything is going to be okay. give me yes and give me no and give me maybe too. give me i don't know and i don't care and i care so much i don't know what to do. give me falling in love and breaking up and somewhere in between. give me raw placenta, babies born, trees planted, trees swaying, trees opening up and digging deep. give me the earth beneath my feet and the reality of magic.

(freewrite: 12 minutes. write from your body)

the first time

2010-05-05T22:07:00.001-07:00

I don't remember the first time I've done anything. I don't remember riding a bike for the first time, or climbing a tree, or baking cookies. I don't remember the first day of school or the first book or the first swimming. I do remember the first time fucking, but this wouldn't be the first time telling that story. I don't remember the first time I met my baby sister. But I do remember the first time I saw a baby birth itself. I remember that. I remember the rocking from foot to foot, opening my hips. Being a mirror for Rachel who sometimes forgot what to do with her body. I remember holding her hand over her head, my face so close to hers, saying yes yes yes and you are so good, so strong, so perfect. I remember that time stood still and there was no other place on this whole wide earth I was meant to be. I remember Fiona being born and the promises I made to her then. The love and family, and I will teach you about magic and bugs and we will go to the aquarium together and you will spend summers with your auntie and you will always feel in your deepest bones that you are part of a family. I remember that. The first time I'd ever heard anyone say anything like that.

She doesn't remember her childhood. She knows where it's gone; it's no mystery. She's studied psychology and shamanism and she's seen enough traumatized children to recognize herself there. So she writes. You have noticed she writes things over and over, creating patterns with words and images until there is a rhythm. She does this when she is calling forth her child-self, the one who rocked to self-soothe, the one who made up little songs to hum while she was hiding.

You're trying so hard. You've been trying so hard for so long. It's hard work and you've been doing it. Look how just now you wanted to stop writing and walk away. And you know you'll cry when you read this to the group, but you'll do it anyway. It's hard, hard work. And you do it because there's that something inside you telling you it's right. It's the right path, the right work. For you, for now. And you do it even when you're tired, even when you're sore, when you feel like it's the only thing keeping you whole, and only just barely. You're doing it. You're writing it down now. You're opening a big old moss-draped door for her to walk out of, to see the sunlight, watch the birds. You're working so hard because you want her to be born, so she'll remember what it's like to be a child for the first time.

(freewrite: doing something for the first time : 1st person 8 minutes, 3rd person 5 minutes, 2nd person 5 minutes.)

no roots to prove i exist. (fuck.)

2010-04-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

It makes a person trust in the future. And there is no reason to trust in the future, and so it makes a person try and figure out how the future will happen, so that it might seem reasonable to trust in it- but there is no reason in trust, and trust, in a sense, is the opposite of hope- it is acceptance instead- this trust- the belief that Everything will be ok is not a belief that everything will, indeed, be ok, but a declaration that Whatever happens, I accept it, and then of course you can let go of the fear, and you are just where you are, and your shirt is full of crystals that you have carried home from the desert, where you were almost lost in a ravine choked with brush, but you helped each other find the animal trail, for cows and deer and wise beasts, and you climbed down the rock and crumbling earth to home, and everything smelled of sage, and it was the new moon. And you were happy, and you trusted.

i am not afraid of winter.

write about the edge, she said.

2010-04-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

there is the wind. always, always, the wind. and the wind is in my hair, medusa hair. the wind is in my eyes and i keep them open until there are tears and then i still keep them open, salt drying on my cheeks, eyes open to the great grey sky, the sea that is roiling and brave and full of secrets. eyes open and i see shadows below, great shadows, searching rolling shadows. burst of watered air, blowhole. my eyes are open to the schools of brave fish, shadows like a storm cloud across the sun. the newborn whales, dolphins, what is that -kraken!- the newborn giants frolick and dive and their mothers are tolerant, patient, brave. their mothers know north. their mothers know north like the sea knows salt and the salt on my face is dried and the wind on me is cold and fierce and i am rooting here on this cliff edge, sea edge, edge of the world. rooted here where i can make a choice: forward or back? above or below? root deep and stay here until the wind beats the land from beneath my feet and i tumble a wild and joyous freefall into the sea.
or.
step back one two three steps. hold on with my dry and cracked hands to that sturdy wind-bent branch, hold on and the storms will not take me. look up. look up and there are seabirds. wind brave seabirds, birds out to sea for years on end as though time has no meaning, as though the meaning is in the flight, in the observance of shadows, the swoop down fast dive deep as the dark to feast and rise again, as though gravity has no meaning, as though buoyancy and velocity and neverending abundance were words invented for the songs to sing about you. brave sea bird heavier than the light, but faster. carried by wind, a song a story a language i used to know.

that language. that language of wind cutting at my throat, my call heard around the sound, what i would say is carried by wind, held and cried over, soothed and this language, this seeking sought after, this language of words held safe under my tongue for years and years on the edge of land, edge of sea. as though edge did not matter, as though edge is all that matters. language of words dropping fast like shadow, diving bird, schooling fish, newborn beast diving deep and surfacing to light and wind and song and yes yes yes.

(freewrite, 13 minutes)

i finally get to tell you, part two.

2010-04-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

i finally get to tell you that you are mine. your whole life, you've thought no one claimed you. so you made up stories and talked to shadows and you built houses out of the roots of overturned trees. your whole life, you thought you were alone. of course you did. your mother stoned every single day, crying in the bedroom with the shotgun, or begging you to love her the way a grateful daughter should. telling you that she'll probably be gone in the morning, gone with the aliens, but be grateful she raised you right.

raised you to change your own sheets, to light the gas stove with wooden kitchen matches, never ask for anything, never expect anything, haul water in buckets down the hill from the pump. she taught you to eat toast and cereal and to stare into space. she raised you to take care of yourself, so when she is gone, it won't matter. you probably won't even notice, she'd said. and you were supposed to say no mama, don't leave me, i need you. so you said it: i need you, until she fell asleep and then you made your dinner and emptied the ashtrays and closed her robe which had opened to embarrass you even with the lights off, because you knew other girls didn't know what their mothers smelled like down there. and in the morning, she would still be there. no aliens came, or maybe maybe she changed her mind, against all odds and warnings, she decided to stay with you. morning after morning.

no matter there came a sister and some stepfathers, other children. no matter, because you knew you were alone in it all. you knew it and you knew that everyone else knew it. the way you put your words together, the way you moved your little body (and later the way you held absolutely still), the way you learned to disappear like shadow through light.

but i can tell you now that there was a small hot kernel in you. the heat of your desire, the secrets you stuffed deep, waiting for someone to recognize you. the moments you felt yourself brimming right up to your throat, your whole body smiling (not your face). your whole body rejoicing a new world, new discovery, new bright hope. a new way through the woods, a new spider on the windowsill, the way the sky turns blue with no one noticing. that hot knowing claimed you and saved your life.

(freewrite, 12 minutes. a new group!)

brisbane & williams

2010-03-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

i have some stories to tell you.

the one about the meeting which ended with the stranger falling off the barstool, and later into a mud puddle. after which time i stood on the corner and said, out loud, to no one in particular: really? really this is happening to me? the stranger kept falling, and i was standing on hawthorne at 10:30, thinking okay well if this isn't a kick in the ass.

the story of the drive home.

the story about the thing that happened, which could have turned my world inside out, could have changed everything, and did, for just a moment. the story of thinking why did i wait so long? the story of noticing for the first time a difference in temperature.

the story of realizing i don't like even one of any of your friends. of looking up and feeling the beauty and kindness of when you're not around.

the story of my grandmother died on saturday night. message on my phone: do we cremate her to get the refund on the casket?

the story of the bed of snakes, my plan to harvest scent. my bare feet in the sand, middle of february. realizing that some of this you planned. the story of the sea is blue, the sky is blue, all because of the whales.

the story of i don't even know what you look like anymore. of would i recognize you if you knocked on my door? would yours still be the voice i find in a crowd of voices?

the story of what you gave away and suddenly, suddenly there was a line. a line i could choose to cross, or not. finally a limit i could reach. finally the walking away.

the world has shifted in its boots and i am better for it. and it's not what you think. darlin'. love. you have no idea.

(freewrite, 15 minutes: what you would say if you could)

part of eve's discussion

2010-02-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand,
and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still
and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when
a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,
very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you
your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like
the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,
it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only
all the time.

- Marie Howe

2010-02-05T18:53:00.000-08:00

character study

2010-01-31T19:54:00.000-08:00

i have my oldest, thirteen, and the other, nine. and i just can't make sense of how it all worked out this way. how'd i end up in the middle of the woods with a mountain man, my girls and me pissing in the snow, shitting in an outhouse? how'd i end up with no running water, electricity from a gas generator, groceries hauled up the driveway in a sled?

this is what we talked about, when we were still talking. raising the kids on a commune somewhere, or in the vw bus we had when they were babies. but she found jesus , and i found marriage then divorce, and somehow i haven't had a friend in years.

that first husband won't stop calling me to yell, to tell me i am fucking up his daughter. but he and i both know it wasn't me who did the fucking. so the youngest crashes around the house like she's on drugs, and the oldest disappears in her room with all those books i'll never have time to read. i know she sneaks up to my room when i'm not home and goes through our stash. the mountain man buys a new magazine every couple weeks, so he's never noticed when they've gone missing. but i've found them under her mattress on the the floor.

she doesn't know i go into her room. i'm not snooping. i'm just making sure she's okay. she's a real secret girl. i'm just making sure she's okay. anyway, she's got to learn about it somehow. and i'm tired. got my hands full with the little one and fuck if i know how it all ended up so damn hard.

(freewrite, 10 minutes: at your age)

travel down, look at your feet

2010-01-31T19:35:00.000-08:00

my feet are dirty. the earth is red, soft, old wood decayed and dry. there have been few other people here to disturb the cushion. there is a path. i am unsurprised. there is a path and there are tall ferns growing, and plants with juicy flowers. flying things make the wingnoise to remind me there is life here, a world existing before and after, me.

i take a step. two steps. i am ankle-deep in spongy forest floor, dirty feet. i am foot camouflaged, foot chameleon. i plant my feet. bend to listen, bend to visit with the flower, juicy flower. say hello and thank you and what have you done? flying things land on my arm, dirty arm. i am coated in dust, dust girl, red dust traveling girl. i took the long way to arrive at this place.

i took the long way, through the different forests and i crawled through the roots of the tall trees. there was an ocean, the waves the loudest thunder i'd ever heard. and there was the tideline to walk, foamy detritus and the hiss of thirsty earth. i drank from the sea, and against previous accounting, i was quenched.

the stars. there were stars. and everywhere i went there was the sky. the moon growing larger and closer and there were planets. i colored the sky with stories of moving bodies and celestial shifting. i managed to reorganize what had once been true story, scientific fact.

reorganized that true story into something i could believe. here's a story to believe, i don't know if it's true: dirty feet mean traveling. moving planets, shifting shoreline, shooting stars, winged creatures. all moving, all traveling.

i could hold out my hands to steady myself, but that would make no difference. walls shift, cliff face, tree bark, true story, all shift and move and become unreliable. the reliability is in the nature of change. that is the truth. so i visit now with the juicy flower. and let the winged things rest on my skin. sink deeper into forest floor, let my eyes rest.

(freewrite, 15 minutes, down down down, look at your feet.)

ten for sorrow, ten for joy

2010-01-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

the idea that i am easily left.

more stars than you've ever seen.

i don't want to grow up alone.

sage smell filling your nose as the sun goes down.

she raised me to never need anyone, and i am left with a constant hunger.

she sniffed out the secret water hole.

there is comfort in solitude, in the sounds of trees.

climb to the top of the hill; there is no one, anywhere.

i have no definition for family that summons the language i want to use.

campfire, the deepest embers glowing orange like open flesh.

no matter how good, how special, how magical, i can be left.

fissure in rock face: bat house.

the wide open ache of don't bother, you will leave.

there is nothing but the rushing river, close birdcall, dog breathing easy in sleep.

there is nothing for this hunger.

the young deer who was unafraid.

catalyst, healer, the constant grief.

ankle-deep in river water, the hunt for glowing stones.

i search for a story to be held within, one that tells the truth.

the magic of finding yourself alone in solitude.

(freewrite, 15 minutes. two lists, merged.)

friday mornings

2010-01-16T11:12:00.000-08:00

in this one you are. miraculously, impossibly, small.

in this one your baby chick hair stands up static to the winter sky, winter ice white, bare bones trees in the bare bones background. in this one she holds you. warm cheek to warm cheek, you are both red cheeked, fur-lined. you are both snowbound ice creatures, static to the sky. maybe there is a sled at her feet. maybe there is a place she will take you. maybe there is a person taking the picture who loves you. who swoops you up, laughing, blows into your belly and tells you yes yes good little one, i love you.

maybe this day was warm soup, warm milk, snowsuit hung from a chair by the woodstove. snowsuit cuffs filled with snow. ice-caked mittens, runny nose, red cheeks. snow to her knees, she carries you. weight of child, weight of alone, weight of snow. footprints. a tracker would see two sets: hers, and the photographer who maybe loves you and makes you laugh. you leave no footprints, baby person. you would have been swallowed by winter if she had put you down.

(freewrite, ten minutes, in this one you are.)

the long thin scar, top to bottom. the round scar, dug with a shovel, sternum, dirt piled hastily and without thought. i will replant here one day. but for now: too soon, too wet, too tender.

write about a scar. her scar stretched across her belly. two babies from that one. the scar under her chin where they pulled the gravel and subcutaneous fat after the accident. scar on my hand from broken glass, melted wax. exposed bone, one stitch holds me closed. scar on my face, three weeks old. cat scratch, thirteen stitches, first of many signs someone could read if they knew how. if someone wanted to learn the way. scar on my face from the intentional spirit animal. the dog of earth chasing the cat of other places, the marking of a face. the man on the moon, flag planted. stars spin past, regardless.

silver hair a scar of something none of us will talk about. except once when she said: we gave you that hair so the spirits could find you anywhere, and in a hurry. hand on the back of my neck, kind eyes. the woman who surprised me by treating me like a daughter she is proud of. the scar of whatever happened to me?

(freewrite, 15 minutes, write about a scar)

not magic yet

2010-01-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

when a girl feels so alone
what a tease to throw a bone
should've just stayed at home
when a girl feels so alone

why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
don't you know i breathe in fire?
breathe out fire?

what if my own skin makes my skin crawl?
what if my own flesh is suburban sprawl?
what happened between us makes sense if i'm nothing
and you are all
if i'm nothing at all

why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
why'd you think i'd put out your fire?
don't you know i breathe in fire?
breathe out fire?

you are always on my mind

they're dying outside

i am not beautiful
i am not beautiful
i am in bloom as the world goes underground
and i am not beautiful
and i am not magic yet
but i am in bloom at the end of the world

fiya, tUnE-YaRdS

an enchantment

2010-01-10T10:56:00.001-08:00

my feet are planted ankle deep and there is no moving. sand scratching my skin, sand whipping circles, my feet are rooted. my feet are thin roots, a few fat thirsty roots, thirsty veins. salt water only, thirsty veins, this kind of thirst, wild-eyed desperate. the sun is going down. gray sky, slate gray, storm gray. dark birds circling, the tide is coming in and i am knee-deep, stinging fishes. luminescence. i am stubborn, i see shipwreck, i see gangplank, i see cannon fodder. i see quick sink, gallows. i see no good can come of this. no good can come of slave trade, i am knee-deep stubborn. flit flit scratch. shore creatures skrit behind me: come in, come in. there is danger there, there's no reason there, come in. come in, just pull up your feet and join us. sea creatures, sand creatures, dark birds stinging plants all call: come in, come in. i think of buried treasure. i think of driftwood beachwood campfire. whirling water is cold, is electric, is no reason to stay. thirsty roots thirsty veins. there is lightning offshore, there is great blue whale, there is the song you sing when you're lost at sea. siren song lost song. knee-deep ankle-deep sinking stuck here at the beginning of sea, end of land. end of sea, beginning of land. it's all in the language of the story. beginning, end. sunken treasure, phosphorescence, stinging jellies, beachwood campfire, song of lost at sea, lost at land. uproot now, easy shifting sucking sound, water filling that space. drag roots, drag my thirsty veins. walk the water line, walk the path between beginning and ending. scritch scritch glowing stones, stars in the sky, whirling birds, this story, that. it's all in the telling. it's all in the choosing to believe. it's: am i lost at sea, am i beach dweller, am i sunken treasure, am i the song to sing when lost?

(freewrite, 15 minutes. prompt: adversary)

missing her.

2010-01-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

more stars than you've ever seen.
jeff buckley singing hallelujah.
the high desert on your birthday.

recipe, part one.

2009-12-07T18:04:00.000-08:00

2 cans sweet yams, drained.

that particular shade of orange. autumn, deep earth harvest. candle glow, stripes in her favorite scarf. orange the taste of the memory of sex on your tongue. the fire almost out. embers still too hot to walk away. sunrise, sunset. the broken ache of your heart when you recognize the lie you believed. orange like deep afternoon sleep when everyone else is outside in the snow. your warm fingers, warm toes.

1 cup heavy cream.

ice. long, thick as forearms icicles. could crack down, shoot down. cleave skull, flesh, soft earth of skin. bowls full of snow, scooped from fresh storm, slathered with maple syrup. homemade icecream, sno-cone. sweet so sweet your throat aches, sore sweet muscles. white like cloud, bird, eyeball, cotton, underbelly. thick cream on your tongue. underwater never seen this kind of light. abalone, molar, sea star, sky star. the breath that left you in clouds bigger than your lungs, bigger than your mouth. breath clouds in cold barn, water frozen in buckets. dairy cows calling out for your warm hands. the wind slicing icy songbirds through the cracks in your house. cow frozen dead on the tracks, you were stranded for hours with nothing but whiskey and ice for your thirst. snowscape as far as you could imagine.

6 eggs, beaten.

the time you found the featherless flightless baby bird, corner of belmont and 30th. you carried her to a good bush, buried her there in the brown dirt. blessing of lasting flight, free-fall, wind in your face. cliff face, layered time, marked stories. crushed shells, bird beaks, pterodactyl. old flight, lost flight, forgotten flight, flight you never knew. owl pellets full of intact skeletons. songbird, bird winging, bird nesting, fledgling open-mouthed. open-mouthed. song, hungry song. find me find me. is this the language we use? open mouthed hungry song of please please please.

(freewrite, 15 minutes)

2009-12-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

happy birthday, nora hooker.

magic.

2009-12-03T17:51:00.001-08:00

Give a Chance 4 Peace from T'chaka Sikelianos on Vimeo.

the morning after

2009-12-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

the first morning.

Release of the Cabbage Looper Moth

2009-12-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

It beat its fuzzed breastbone against the taut paper towel ceiling
we had constructed over the glass jar, like a fishbowl in its expanse,
the rubber band snug under the rim. My exacting daughter poked air holes,
jaws jutting at new angles, mandibles clamped around the secret of Six.
For days we had held the cocoon captive. Tacky and transparent,
like a spider’s egg sack, we patrolled the tuft for any sign of change,
no idea who was tucked into that dreaming skin while it clung
to a single dried rose hip, cradled by grass and lemon balm.

In the dark, the paper crane mobile taunted in slow swirls.
I pulled the thin quilt up to her chin, covering the tanned, river-smooth chest,
white buttons of her pajama shirt undone and flung, as everything is
which I try to tuck at midnight. Within the soft pink cave of her mouth
teeth shifted within bone like tectonic plates, tremoring with song.
The din of the grating of the world. By morning
I barely recognized this creature that tunneled itself to daylight,
shed meconium from its wings with a Pollack flourish against the glass.
The abandoned cotton molt was impossibly small.

Before we could name it and give it purpose, the band broke in the garden.
Over sage, under fir. Last seen, the moth trammeled past
her surprised moon-face – shoulder blades unkitting themselves to reach –
through a netting of needles, a pin-prick, blue-bound.

-Kristin Berger

earl owen hooker was a very good dog.

2009-11-23T23:38:00.001-08:00

earl was a very good dog.
he would crawl under the covers at night and lick my feet. he would lick my feet while he was sleeping.
sometimes he would get so excited, his tail would wag so furiously he would knock himself over.
when he barked, his front feet would lift off the ground.
such joy.
he howled to bruce springsteen's harmonica solos.
he was an excellent traveling companion. all kinds of travel.
earl was a very good dog and i love him very much.

birds, deer, squirrels, leaves, fire trucks. swimming in circles, swimming to the middle of the lake. the time he ate the maxipad, the times he ate the corncobs. the smell of his feet (toast), the sweet heat spot just underneath and below his ears, the absolute love which was his life.

2009-11-22T08:52:00.001-08:00

Sometimes Soap has this dream. He isn't sure whether it's a prison dream or a dream about art or a dream about zombies. Maybe it isn't about any of those things. He dreams that he's in a dark room. Sometimes it's an enormous room, very long and narrow. Sometimes there are people in it, leaning silently up against the walls. He can only figure out if there are people or how big the room is when he stretches out his arms and walks forward. He has no idea what they're doing in the room with him. He has no idea what he's supposed to do, either. Sometimes it's a very small room. It's dark. It's dark.

. Kelly Link