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Flood

Slipping off into the fortieth night of sleep(less)

off-balance bed. A world of empty

over which I am the queen. The moon sees

as I warm to my own heat; the nights pass

and days follow--a silent spending off

of days, like water on stone, boring a hole.

Perfect with no edges, smooth, defiant of expectation:

a refinement. but the madness!

of the wearing remains unbearable.

my fingers quiver with the heartquake

that comes at sunrise

and at sunset-- the dripping rain

upon my heart; a flood. Forty

days and forty nights. The sea swells.

Drunkish origami: hard to
line up clean,
predictable, symmetrical folds
and creases: intentions and
results. The white shows.
Sometimes the white of the inside
shows! and destroys
a pristine presentation.

Gripes and sighs into the Darkness.
Folded. (Not) neatly
tucked up and filed off
with 32 living and ten-
thousand buried.

You may be among them.
But you are not. Dead.

The Story of the Crane Woman

It is true that in the beginning he loved her and healed a mortal wound; that when she was vulnerable he took her into his home and gave her rest and love and comfort.

And that is how a crane came to give up her wings and roost with an earthbound sail maker, becoming his wife and living with her heavy human feet bound to the earth. Bare of her splendorous and downy garments, she grew together with her love, made a home with him, replacing the comfort of her lost feathers with his body and learning to sing to the thumping sound of her fleshy feet and solid bones which trod daily over floorboards, forest floors, and mountain paths.  And so the sail maker, who thought he knew something about the wind unwittingly fell into love with the spirit of a great bird and the great bird who knew nothing of the earth knowingly loved the soul of a human man.

They thought that love would save them but the woman was of the wind and sea and the man of the earth and wood. Feeling their time unraveling the woman chose in desperation to reach into her deepest secret and give freely of her very essence to save them.  Shut up behind a screen, she began the undoing of her silken feathered soul, pulling all the wind and light from her heart to weave into resplendence a great gesture of love for the sail maker, who profited and became happy by her sacrifice.

In time the sail maker grew rich and enjoyed praise and fame for the sails made of her soul while she quietly withered in her unwinged, earthly body.  He didn't notice when she stopped singing and careless in his comfort,  neither did he perceive her cold and thinning skin as she wound herself in blankets under moonlight.

In his ignorance, the sail maker betrayed her. The shroud around the suffering crane was broken away.

Mottled, and bleeding at the loom, a great bare heaving creature beat her wings for freedom and in the defiance all her splendor returned. As though she had never left it, she took wing, returning to the sky.

She never returned, her long life with the man on earth becoming a dream that belonged to another world.

Song of Mourning

I was so young. And you lit a spark.  We fell in love. 

You climbed trees, raced around on your bike, made music, made art.  You were a familiar. A spirit brother who I treasured and clung to.

We started a life together.  My dishes filled up your cabinets. My rocking chair nestled itself into your living room, which then became ours.  We drank tea in our bed under a hideous painting of a ship in a storm.  We wrapped up in each other. We found warmth and made a home with sunlight and orchids and a soundtrack of 311, the RZA, Mark O'Connor and Yo-Yo Ma. 
I wove words together into poems for you and you constructed gifts of the earth for me. 

We got married over rolling hills and the sea, our hearts running over in joy and celebration.  I remember the sloshing of the water pump in the ceiling above our bed in the cottage.  The priest sprinkled oil around us to protect us from the elements of this world. We toasted our union. We lit a candle.

I still have that candle tucked away with our etched flutes. Your grandfather used to say that whenever there was a storm, he and your grandmother would light their candle. Maybe we should have done that.  Maybe we should have said a prayer.

We made a child. You celebrated my body as she grew within and you caught her in your own hands when she emerged into this world. We have raised her together, a shoot sprung from our own seed; she has grown and blossomed under the protection of our strong limbs.

We have traveled the world together.  Lit campfires, talked late, watched the stars move, breathed red dust for days in the desert.

We made plans and dreamed. Forever. For us.

But now you are gone and our dreams are like vapor. Your love has suddenly dispersed on the wind and I’m left standing here shell-shocked, the hearth cold, searching for signs of what we have done where we have been.

There is a place where your body has lain in our bed for over ten years; the mattress remembers what you’ve chosen to forget.

And I cannot stop remembering. You have betrayed me and forsaken our marriage and our life, leaving a gaping hollowness where you used to belong—where we use to fit in together.  You were my best friend and trusted partner until the day you picked up your things and deserted our life.   

I love you—have always and care so much for you.  For what?

My soul is a constant voice wailing the mourning of our lost life, of my dreams, of my damaged heart

I cry out. Only the walls hear me. There is no response.

My Indigo

It's late. I've come
to find the flower which blossoms
like a saint dying upside down.
The rose won't do, nor the iris.
I've come to find the moody one, the shy one,
downcast, grave, and isolated.
Now, blackness gathers in the grass,
and I am on my hands and knees.
What is its name?

Little sister, my indigo,
my secret, vaginal and sweet,
you unfurl yourself shamelessly
toward the ground. You burn. You live
a while in two worlds
at once.
   
Li-Young Lee

(One of my favorite poems and poets)

You aren't real anyway so

I allow you to wander around

the back room of my thoughts, picking through them,

thumbing them over and paying

less-than value because they are dusty

and unused. "At least," 

I say to myself, "they will be appreciated"

even though you aren't real. I sigh

as you walk off with threads

of ideas balls of words tucked up

under your arms, feeling like you got a bargain. 

The door swings.

I go back to work and forget

You were ever (not) here.