If you do not speak fluent poetry - you cannot worship at my alter You do not speak the language my bible is scribed in
If you do not speak fluent poetry - how will you know the names of my stars? how will you worship the moonlight with me? how will you engage in late night philosophical speculations?
If you do not speak fluent poetry - you will no be able to unlock the hidden parts of my soul I will present you observations gilded with ethereal luminescence yet you can only see the putrid green of florescent bulbs
If you do not speak fluent poetry - how will you ever make me taste your dreams? how will you sound the depths of sorrow? how will you effulge joy?
If you do not speak fluent poetry - I am not your way station You will drown in my abyssal currents and never understand why
Days are growing shorter Light glows with golden warmth Trees have begun to prepare Erupting ruby, garnet, citrine and amethyst No longer content to wear their mundane shades of green
Shadows dance upon my kitchen window The sun arcing shallower in the sky Tree limbs perform a pas de deux with the breeze For the enjoyment of an audience of one Summer's heat attempts to overstay its welcome Despite knowing it's invitation is expired
Roadside signs appear Announcing the arrival of apple season Orbs of every color and sweetness wait Dreaming of pie, tart, sauce, and cider
Clouds nestle sleepily in the mountain canyons each morning Melting away like spun sugar before noon Naked, Mt. Spokane stands watch over her river Awaiting the return of her crown of winter snows
They met at midday Mothers Daughters Sisters Friends Then the keening started One voice Then five Then all of them Screaming with balled fists Until the rage and grief Became breath itself Heads thrown back Hands holding hands Tears streaming and teeth bared No words They had exhausted words Words were ignored The harm was always buried Deep beneath silence Indifference Choked out by misogyny Patriarchy State sanctioned predators Who never faced accountability For the harm they caused But made sure women were punished For talking about the harm Or defending against the harm One in five Likely more Every woman knows someone If not in their own reflection School Book club Work All women know the entitlement of men Now they were done Done grieving In showers In cars In closets Alone So they came In every town and every city In every country To be seen To be heard To create a sound so deafening The Goddess woke Their rage and grief a clarion Heralding it was time for someone else To finally be afraid
The calendar changes With it the season Warm sun now Joined by coolest breeze Night comes earlier Mornings arrive later Trees put on a pageant Autumn has arrived
I look up from my book The air ringing with sounds Ceramics scraping wood Steam hissing Laughs entangling with sighs A woman sits by the window Hands wrapped around a cup Tea tag wound around fingers But I was drawn to the lipstick on her teacup
I lay beneath a starless sky Wondering where they have gone Have they become the freckles Dancing across my nose Strands of silver streaking my hair Glitter in my joyful tears Have they fallen to Earth So I can shine
In these strange days I can’t help but wonder stranger things I’ve heard it said that life here on this earth is a graduate class for the soul You see, we are not bodies with a soul We are, instead, souls with bodies We have chosen to walk and talk and hurt and love We have made an agreement with Oneness To take a fraction of what we are And condense down into this biological machine called a body We have chosen to leave Oneness to become one Single Alone amongst others who are also alone I can’t help but wonder what we are meant to learn What don’t we already know through our original experience of Oneness Maybe it’s the simple act of experiencing the finite A contrast to already being so familiar with the infinite What an existence we must lead in Oneness To allow us to be so curious that we willingly come to THIS place Full of fear and uncertainty Cruelty and chaos But also kindness and compassion And love Love with all its grit and glamour Its risk and reward How brave are we to give up the infinite NOW of Oneness For the finite uncertainty of Earth time Where those around us that we learn to love and cherish are Too, bound by the limits of a linear existence Where love and loss are the rhythms of life’s tides upon this world Such contrast and contradiction I suppose there’s beauty in it Oh, to be able to know now what I will know after To be able to answer with certainty what it was all for The good and the bad To know how good of a human I was Where I helped Where I hurt Where I healed Will I miss this experience when it’s over Will I choose to return again Will you I think about all of the various mythologies of life and death I think about how more than one thing can be true at once How time and experience is such a strange soup So as the world becomes more and more outlandish As long held collective truths seem on the verge of collapse The undeniable feeling that something new is being birthed Through this terror on the back of a desperate hope I can’t help but ponder stranger things And my place within it all
Sometimes A woman is an island Steadfast amid the violence Of salt water and storm cloud Eyes ever focused Where the sky caresses the sea Kissed all over by the ebb and flow of waves Dancing with moontides Volcanic at times Worn and weathered and wiser As beautiful at sunrise as sunset As much a force as nature herself
Put away the books Lying scattered across the floor The table The bed Spilling across surfaces like toppled ink A labyrinth of poetry and prose Keeping me trapped in verbose clutter
