with love for those who can't help their red skin

You’re rosy in May—are you mine?

Are you mine? Walk this way.

When we look off the edge of the bridge,

we can tell it’s still raining,

but we know it won’t stay...

Cast from clothing, our legs hanging down from a pier,

quite the pair of true lovers we look from afar.

Can’t stand still or sit still or be still and still,

it’s the motion that turns me to stillness inside…

Wait one afternoon, or two hours, but don’t hold your breath.

A fresh scent lingers on the deck from leaves left…

When the sun dies down, we know it’s time.

Are you mine?

You are mine…

rain, rain don't go away

i am all kinds of aimless fury inside.

where can it go?

where can i go?

12/15/09

"i need you so much closer..."

image from IS Photography

pages

(the edges of these pages are as ragged as my thoughts, but they are beautiful, they are beautiful too...)

12/12/09

He looked at her with the sorrow of a grown man crying. A mysterious sorrow, one that she couldn't help feeling in her hands, her face, her eyes. Every pain of the world was hers in an instant, her burden.

She wanted to touch. She couldn't touch. She wanted to cry out. She made no sound. She wanted to breath. She had no breath. A new part of him was laid bare before her, an answer to the glimmer in his eyes that she had come to know by making him laugh. She regretted asking the question.

If the silence had lasted any longer it would have killed them both.

"We're right here," he said.

scatterbrained

my fingernails are yellow from peeling clementines.

each time i approach the door of my building,

i notice the head of a red carnation

broken from its body,

neglected,

underfoot.

every time...

i may be acclimating to white noise,

but my mind longs for silence,

silence to fill with its own clamor.

forming letters is therapeutic.

forming words provides relief.

words that become solace for you

are my greatest successes.

Time is threatening me with its motion,

right now.

inescapable,

but not all powerful--thank God!--

it leads and follows,

pushes and drags me,

a leash and a weight at once.

but this gift--for that is what Time is--

this precious gift is a most valuable tool.

without it, i am lost.

without it, you may be too.

without Time, we could not be timeless.

our words would have no walls off which to echo.

like a blanket

weariness wraps me in its arms.

they are uncomfortable

and overbearing.

yet i belong here...

i have not done if i cannot be done.

i have no need for rest if i am never weary.

it provides a hope that constant respite could not bring.

focus--

see the letters are all cloudy.

though deep in thought,

i have naught to show,

not yet.

and even this

will slide beneath the cracks in the floor

and find its way into the shadowy recesses of history

never explored...

but it wants so earnestly to become something,

to develop a face,

and to be recognized by that face.

it can see, with one-sided eyes,

that no one is looking back,

not yet.

not yet, it chides.

my sleeves slide down my forearm

to remind me that they are too short

or my arms are too long.

my sweater's faded pattern takes me to my young self

on the carpet with her dolls...

the smell of the basement,

that lingering scent of books,

of learning...

(and i have separated myself from this moment...)

let me not live in memories, however dim or bright,

but in the light given me by hope,

that hope given me by faith,

that faith given me by love.

what Love!

what Love...

away,

i've come a long, long way...

back from the bookstore

i like to be on the road. by myself, i can sing. with you, i can talk... and sing, but we stick mostly to talking. it becomes a state of being. neither here nor there, but in between, on our way, looking forward...

i've bought some books. some out of necessity, some out of desire... no, all out of necessity i suppose. a woman needs her books. even Emerson, whom i don't particularly enjoy, made his way onto the pile for purchase. whatever my likes and dislikes, it strikes me that had i lived when he lived, we may have had a conversation (however unlikely...) and now that his words have made their way to my eyes yet again, why not converse in the present?

"off to it then," i tell myself. soon enough i'll be back on the road, on my way there...

thoughts in the not-quite-silent library

almost gone...

whispery voices to keep me company

as i convince myself

not to close my eyes...

i'm fighting,

in my corner,

with its little window and blinds...

the draft,

the lamplight,

and my reflection...

feeling sorry for her

because she's on the glass,

transparent,

cold.

i can feel her blowing on me,

blowing on my shoulder...

"go to sleep..."

she doesn't take or want my pity.

she wants to hide me.

she wants to hide.

in the darkness, she more than disappears;

she ceases to be.

but she likes it there.

unlike me, she can reappear from disappearance.

once i am gone, i'm gone.

the body, such a fragile thing...

inward pressures out, and outward pressures in.

so weak though "the spirit is willing..."

almost gone...

just barely here,

transfixed by dark reds and purples,

and poetry,

mine and yours.

"will you take me in your hand,

turn me over and over,

and read me

like the eyes that proofed my lines

once practiced?"

"will you have me then?"

you will have me then.

never gone...

the words

i want to give you the words,
the words that will warm you like cider,
smooth, pure, natural...
the words that will make you well.
the words you can taste and breathe
and use.

reading and writing of writing

"... passion to proclaim the truth..."

don't try too hard, or you'll just dance around it. the search for profundity often ends in nothing. the exercise of one's God-given gifts to search, to communicate, to articulate, to feel, to reason--these combine to form the knowledge, even the wisdom, others may marvel at. these are the things that connect us to each other. passion is necessary. passion to proclaim the truth more vital still. if truth is relative, there is no end. since truth is not relative, the end is in sight, though still perhaps unclear. we write to it.

don't go away

it's raining, and though i cannot share the sound or the smell with you, i can share thoughts, memories of summers past and expectations of days and nights to come. rain is like a gentle friend, and gentle friends are good ones to have. even a heavy downpour is still graceful, still just as it should be. i have not yet been swept away. i have not been displaced by sudden waves. if i had, perhaps i would feel differently, but as it is, rain is my sole companion tonight, and a good one. it does not listen, though; only asks to be heard. as i have so many things to tell, but really nothing to say, that may be just right...

basically

i will try not to share too many mundane bits. but sometimes, that is what life is. and that is often what makes it lovely. something simple, unexciting to anyone but me. a sound, a movement, a light, different from (or maybe quite the same as) every other of its kind. i won't tell you to notice its beauty. if you didn't, you probably won't. but if i must be the one to set it before you, i will do so gladly.