Thunder rattles behind her ribs
Lightening arcs from her tongue
She is storm clouds
Bringing steady rain to parched earth
Raging winds to clear the way
She is elemental
Wild and raw and rare
Her smile crepuscular
Her love blisteringly radiant
I live to study her meteorology
-gws
Let me
Write leading lines of poetry for you to follow
Tell stories that map the shape of a life for you to drag your finger along
Lay down relief lines that loop and dance in the shape of words
Let me expound through exposition about
The glory of the light and the shadow
Playing tag across the ground on a late summer day
Let me create a charcuterie board
Where you may sample experiences
Bitter rejection
Sweet elation
Effervescent joy
Bilious sorrow
Buttery new love
Spicy lust
Let me fold words like origami
Creating complex and beautiful things
Out of the simplest pieces
Strung together in a garland
Every angle leading to an experience
Every plane representing a feeling
Let me be a mirror
That you may recognize
Something familiar in my lines
So that you know that you are not alone
In the experience that is living
But that we walk in parallel
Submerged in this infinite sea of stars
-gws
I bought myself roses today
Colored for this transitional season
The meridian between winter and spring
Watched the red robins play in quiet branches Coated in the soft white of early spring snow
Sat at my window sipping steaming coffee
Tapping into a calm that was new to me
Reveling in the luxury of peaceful stillness
And let myself smile
-gws
With naught even a whisper
I closed the book
Put down the pen
Then cracked a new book
To begin again…
-gws
And so the sun begins its final setting
In that final twilight a transformation
US becomes YOU and ME
Without pomp or party
The bittersweet return to ourselves
Unwoven and remade
Hopes already decaying underground
Receive no grave marker
Hard won freedom and quietly resonating loss
We are becoming reluctant singularities
This fading light falls upon the final paragraph in the book of us
Two new books await
Unmarred by pain and tears
I wish I could say there will be no mourning
There is a hole where the unwritten life was excised
A wound where the light just doesn't reach and never will
I am told this is not unreasonable
Deeply feeling people cannot stop feeling
Life is nowhere near so black and white to allow for such
I send with you the last of my hope
Hope you will find your way
Hope you will learn to heal your fractures
Hope you can become the father you wanted to be
As the calendar counts down
The minutes marching relentlessly by
I reflect on my love for you that never died
It just couldn't thrive or survive the wreckage we became
We have forever marked each other with kisses and scars
As stamp and ink erases us
I gratefully return you to your own keeping
And truly wish you well
-gws
I thought there’d be one more Christmas
Below the foggy redwood line
In the temperate golden sunlight
Of California’s winter time
But life had other plans for me
And so the next I knew
My life was packed in boxes tight
And northward bound I flew
Here the winter skies are gray
The hush of snow abounds
No California winter sun
Shines down upon this ground
The life I’d come to know so well
The sea salt and rolling fog
The Bay and golden foothills
Now grace this monologue
This Christmas in our new home
Amongst the peaks and pines
Finds my tiny family brood
Building new and joyful lives
Those California Christmases
With lit palm trees in lines
Painted purple sunsets
Now only in my mind
Here night descends at 4PM
We tuck in nice and warm
The PNW slows life down
Outside my new front door
More time to talk about our days
New adventures we began
New traditions being created
With new family and friends
Another California Christmas
Has rolled around again
I reflect upon it fondly
As my new chapter begins
-gws
The leaves change here
Oranges and reds popping out
Amongst stubborn green
The wind shifts
Autumn comes to call
The world leans in here
Demands life to slow down
The quiet season is coming
The world makes ready its winter bed
Telling you to pull out your blankets
Candles and hearthfires
Demanding preparations for long nights
Wood smoke and hot chocolates
And much needed rest
gws
1 cup courage
3 cups self-love
Mix gently with a handful of self-forgiveness
1 cup worthiness
1/2 cup of grit
Season with wisdom by the heart full
Knead in generous amounts of humor
Add a splash of multifaceted and glinting tears
Let rest for as long as instinct dictates
Your heart will know when it is ready
Garnish with wonder and joy
Consume slowly to allow the medicine to work
Partake often until peace and wholeness feels achieved
gws
Earthly treasures buried deep
Mined from the richest dirt
Jewels of every shape and color
Amethyst
Russet
Red
Gold
Yellow
Orange
Faceted with eyes
Roasted
Steamed
Boiled
Fried
Crown jewels of my plate
gws
I find myself standing upon another threshold
Bags packed
Affairs ordered
The past at my back as I stand poised to step into my future
In this liminal space I wish to pause
To linger in this brief moment
Between heartbeats
Between footsteps
To reflect on this transition
I have packed the important things
Lessons
Friendships
Memories
Love
Potential
Hope
I have purged the obsolete
Pain
Fear
Illusions
Expectations
Obligations
A version of a life I outgrew
I note my era of milestones
Marriage
Motherhood
Misery greater than a person should ever hold
I will miss the map pin piercing the shape of what has been and always will be home
Marking the places and people that ripened me into the woman I am
Whose stories now inform my mythology
The second hand strains
I breathe in one more breath
Infuse the ether of a fading life
Into the nucleus of my cells
As I complete my crossing
Into the dawn of my new life
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 