Home (i'm trying my hand at songwriting lately)

i swing on the swing set
at sunset and wait
for some childlike hope
to overcome me

like waiting for you
who i have not met
some hibernating love
yet to wake me

from a dream of bright color
that i fear will fade
like a love for which
i cannot find faith

here will you find me
home that i long for?
where to find you
home that i crave?

i've built you & moved you
and felt you & soothed you
and now i need you
to find me, be brave


i've built you & moved you
and felt you & soothed you
and now i need you
to find me, be brave

bushwhack bakery

I bushwhacked and baked and finally made it to another one. There's no one I'd rather be with right now. Just me. The burnt horizon and lavender sky. I can sit here in the dust and love it. And miss nothing. The oft companion - the tender belly of nostalgia - can't compete. If I can get here in old age, I don't need to fear it.

It's not quiet, though I might mistake it. The cicadas quake. The National blares. The light lends me perfection. It's not the fresh sweet bread this time. Or the pungent holiness of basil tea. Sure. We ransacked the forest of its light. You always had better lines than me. More raw. More real. Tight. But this gorgeous wasteland perfects me. I don't need to turn you on from here. I'd like to stay. My mother's sweetness still matters to me, but this emptiness is exactly what I need, and it's such a relief.

This needle can still go down and ride the groove. Someday my own music will spill from this place.

Tender Belly

And though we fled the flaws of it all, I see now perfect design in the moment of his body. Perhaps that's why nothing comforts me like the perfect honesty of the body, its complexity & contradictions & refusal to leave anything unattended. It care takes the metabolism of every stimulus with painstaking thoroughness. It holds every dream unthought, every unsung wounding, every fancy of longing, every deep whim passed by, every cherished silence, every fullness, every emptiness in its cellular weave of blood & tissue.

Why should we begrudge its pains & aches when they are such a selfless favor, such a generous grace: embracing without judgment the ink of every stroke. The endlessly gracious body does not know the limits of our attention. It carries everything for us & waits patiently as we pass it by. And if we listen, it will tell us what it feels with the wisdom & frankness of a child. It will take us on a treasure hunt to some corner of expanse. And yet we insist it is the body which is limited and the spirit which stretches across galaxies? Perhaps the mind discerns (only that which is conscious, or close to it), but it is the body which is enlightened already. The body never left a single thing unattended. It never left a single thing behind. It loved every detail. Every crumb along the way. The seeds of democracy lie in the body. Its attention treats all as equals.

And this is not to disparage the mind. it plays & twirls & somersaults with the sweetest feet. It dives & dashes and hides & flashes. It keeps us company when we cannot comprehend & comforts us with tales & ties us with tethers that help us feel safe. And when the body wants to unwind & unravel, sometimes the mind even cooperates. Sometimes it takes its long, slender fingers & looses the tethers, wipes away the dust, lifts up the shirt and touches the tender belly of the body until blood is a rushing river and heart is a pulsing sky. And perhaps even, the mind looks upon the infinite stories of the endless body much like a man just released from prison drinks in the star-filled night. Light older than his sentence and fresher than his newly cleaned skin. And nothing more real than the breeze on his body and the cold in his lungs.

Because the infinite cannot survive without the earth.

And then the breeze is gone, and the lungs that fill and sigh & the skin that chills & the hair that falls on cheek. And the fingers that touch tender belly are gone.

And even the persistence of the spinning earth does not dwarf this disappearance.

Camping Solo

The wine trunk madrone. The pregnant rock that reminds me. The wood that knows how to bend and burn. Does it know what it will become as it surrenders to be consumed? For the sake of light and warmth? No, those are just byproducts...it knows only the moment of each newly dancing flame...

And how many before me have warmed their blood by this sacrifice, this bliss, this fearless, steady dance toward ash? And inside is hot fury, ever hunting the next vein of breath, smoldering, smoking, exploding. Will I ever be this ready? Will I ever be this willing? Will it be a decided ax that will hurry me to peace?

Here from my relaxed perch on this stone, enjoying the abundance of light and warmth, how can I not make a surrender of some kind in this company? Some kindling of a spark? And so I am filled with gratitude for the wood & the flame & the wind & the moon who casts a bluish glow on this tungsten earth. I waited patiently as the knots of anxiety unraveled & I am glad to arrive here alive. I heard my own voice here & that is all I came to seek. How lucky to be satisfied.

Stark Relief

Some days I see you whole against the sky, a shadow in stark relief the way wet clothes highlight contour; you, soaked in certainty that the setting sun behind you will shine on your face in the morning. Your surrender glows ‘round your rough edges & softens the intense boldness of your form, a boldness like a character of pen & ink who ripped his body from the page and determined to walk the earth as a man, a softness that glows on my face as if you were a messenger of the sun risen from shadow.

Ship in a Bottle

I’ve been a ship abreast a wild sea in a very still bottle. At times I felt your hands beneath the tossing, your eyes peering through the glass, helpless to stop the sea from storming.

And at times you had to put down the bottle and look away because your arms were sore from carrying the torrents. It felt endless. Plus, the air was stale and your shoes were too tight and your collar just a bit too small. And many times you stayed, even when you needed to change, you stayed & stayed & stayed. A very long time. And it was so comforting to look up from the deck and see you peering in, even though I felt guilty that the ocean was so heavy. I was so glad for your huge hands and your huge strength and your huge heart.

And other times, you were right there on the deck with me holding onto the mast with one arm and me with the other, rain pelting your face as you kept us from flying overboard.

And so many times I wished I could just pour you a glass of smooth sailing and open skies like I might a wine. And so many times I wished I could break the glass and let in the birds. And sometimes I would feel myself shatter instead. You would calmly sweep up the shards and take out the trash and tidy the cabin. You would fill a glass with flowers and remind me what I can hold when I am intact. And when you felt lost from the cradle of your solitude, I would light candles to light the way and play music to remind you of home.

So while you stood there holding me, while you busied yourself about the glass, while I lay there on a tossing sea, while I paced the deck and dreamt of grass, we each stayed with the other. And that is no small feat. That is an abiding friendship. That is a steady love on a stormy sea. And when we slept, we dreamt. And we sent each other lighthouse beacons of hope and home.

A few quotes from the most gorgeous, classy, strong-minded, graceful, eloquent, steely, soft, crazy, sharp, wise, loving matriarch anyone could ever be proud to claim as their bloodline. Died 2:05pm May 18th, 5 days after Mothers' Day, 4 days after her 84th birthday. This picture is on her birthday:

"Life is all about love and art...fragile flowers, a silent symphony."

"This is a perfect day, a perfect ending."
(closes eyes.............opens them)
"Am I still alive?"
"Yes."
"This is a perfect day to remember."

"I don't belong here. These people don't remember anything. I have a perfect memory. I even remember the things I'd rather forget."

"Do you remember what you asked me?"
"What?"
"'Have you ever made wild love?'"
(Uproarous laughter)
"Don't be embarrassed. I understand. It's overwhelming."

"You are perfect harmony. My angel."

I love you always, Omie. Now you're truly free to live through us vicariously. You ripped off your clothes. Mom held your naked body in her tearful arms and you told her she'd done everything she could. You ripped out the IV, the catheter, the oxygen. No tethers now! Only our warm embrace.

Pet Gorilla

It wasn't so much the wrong side of the bed as much as the wrong side of her lover. Had they agreed on that term yet? Was this really the fourth stab at such deliberation? So what that another dinner made for two served only one. Life is bigger, right? It must go on. It didn't have to be another woman this time. They were past that. Which is why she finished up her reading last night after her guitar lesson without a peep. Even after he bounced through the living room while they were practicing, overly jovial, and waited for her in bed. He missed dinner and didn't return her phone calls. She was late to bed and leery of an argument.

According to the part of her that had already given up, his nervous attentiveness did not count as an apology. Even after a night's sleep. According to the part of him that feared her, he shouldn't admit anything unless walking a plank over hungry sharks. Cuddling would be much easier if she'd go for it. She wasn't biting. Shit. This might require a talk...He hated the plank and so left, forgetting his phone. She wished things didn't have to go there in the first place. Still, the day wasn't ruined.

She enjoyed a light-hearted session with her client and readied herself for an afternoon colloquium. Amidst her efforts to move on with the day, she couldn't ignore that the habituated seduction of technology would bring him back for a second round. After a short knock, he stalked through the living room headed for his phone, no bouncy 'it's no big deal' joviality this time. "Where's my phone!? I put it right here last night when I came in." She surveyed the dresser and handed him the phone. "Oh." Even if he had stormed out this morning in a cussing fit, he still didn't want to lose her. So he sat down, determined to put her on the plank. She could tell right away that his strategy wasn't going to leave room for much light at the end of the tunnel. An hour and a half of failed signals later, they finally started to find each other.

"It's true. I'm like having a pet gorilla." He snuggles up to her on the couch and leans into her until they’re lying side by side.
She laughs and softens a bit, excited by this unexpected idea. "Yah! Like a pit bull! The kind friends warn about, but the owner swears he's sweet as pie. And he is. He sleeps with her every night, snuggling. Until a sudden appetite for the jugular overwhelms him and all the friends just shake their heads in sorrow. If only she'd listened."
"Um..."
"Not quite what you had in mind?"
"I like the gorilla better. A pit bull is vicious. The gorilla can hurt you without meaning to. It just doesn't know it's own power. Plus, a pit bull would make you white trash." He flashes her a one-front-toothless grin. His implant appointment required a two-month wait.

She laughs and remembers all the gourmet meals he cooked her in the discreet quarters of his old trailer. She'd never been to a trailer park before. She had attended a Seminar on Whiteness at Davis, though, while visiting a friend in grad school last year. An old sticker by his door read, "Don't come a knockin' if the trailer's a rockin'." He's since found residence for more sophisticated tastes in a downtown loft. Gun shots aside, at least the trailer never sported the sound of neighbors in heat while the two of them lay in the cold of an all night stand off.

"It's a good thing you entertain me sometimes or all this emotional drama would bore me to literal tears.” She smiles. ”When in doubt, gimme material."

He squeezes her to him and nuzzles his head to her chest as they buy some time from "Stay or go?"

Memory and Surrender (a long one)

Why resist remembering? For fear memory will leak into longing, maybe even craving? But resistance amplifies. I'm not satisfied with that as a strategy. Besides, memory and surrender aren't necessarily contrary. I'm determined there's a way to honor our memory without taking back the hard won release. So I put on the forbidden album, throw in a load of laundry and listen to Akron Family in the sunshine of my patio, recording thoughts of you, and of me.

It seems as long as I don't indulge in aversion, my heart stays relatively clear of craving. That's where not having a story comes in handy. If I indulge "my side," the nature of things will balance it out. Just the nature of yin/yang. No punishment, no judgement: just nothing exists in isolation, that's all. Kind of comforting actually. Nobody ever gets rejected by nature, though mountains may erupt and the sea might overwhelm the land. Could be interpreted as cause and effect, but that feels too linear. It's more just the way things move. And I'm glad for my moment of aversion because it allowed me to see the craving, which turned around and matched it, in an entirely new light. I wasn't slipping. I was natural. And that very equanimity melted the craving, or at least let it pass through without a spiral of anxiety and self-condemnation.

I'm trying to give up self-condemnation for Lent. It requires vigilant wisdom of perspective nourished by something beyond me. So my prayer to that expanse of mysterious resource is to open daily to the thoughts, beliefs and feelings instrinsic to loving myself deeply. To really be with me. Staying power. The root ball. Breath. Green. Sap moving and flowing amidst knots & knarls & lopped off branches and the rest that axes & storms & stagnation bring. The root keeps breathing, drawing from the heavens and like a billows, blowing into the molten core of the earth. Never holding it in. The wound has to breathe, too. I am not my wound. It just adds a small sweetness of character to the length & breadth of trunk & sunlit greenery & mossy root. I need only remember this and let the aliveness and greenness of breath surge through me. To unravel the rings of time until I can't remember my name. The unamable at once wounded and healed and none of it.

So what of memories? Forgetting him would mean forgetting my life. I'm here now. Yes. I'm also the 10,000 things I have been and will be. So then.

Playing "Festival in the Desert" over and over again. A phase during which he happened to show up on my doorstep night after night. He took "vigilance" seriously. At that time, I was so clear in my solitude, as if I'd steam-bathed my soul for a year and evaporated so much uselessness. It was almost dry, glass-like. And he greeted my post-windex soul with the kind of ebulient gratitude that only comes just after exiting hell and finding your soul miraculously intact. And his flesh was still molten, fluid. Sometimes I wondered if residual poppy pollen still flushed his blood. And sometimes I felt within me the strength and repose of a diamond. I felt it refracting inside me as he wrapped his big arms around me on the porch and my blue light met his molten core. And I felt the privelege of being welcomed there, into his huge gratitude. And as hardness turned to light, we cut straight to our preciousness and languished there, embraced. I'll never forget.

And it was right that later - with more vulnerability - I felt my glass, and how it might shatter, and how the shards would sparkle, too. And it was right - with more humanness - that the gratitude turn to enjoy the delicate feast. We weren't perfect in the beginning and we're not perfect in the end, but it was perfect. All of it. The phone conversations from Oregon or my delight when I saw him again. Or the gourmet meals in his trailer. Or standing in the doorway naked, everything finally on my face. Or together, looking into Julie's eyes on her wedding day. Or his children. Or another bullshit night in the city. Or clicking our heals down the alleyway. Or screaming into the roaring train. Or so many moments when Truth showed up right in our midst.

Because that was the meat of it. Where we sank in our teeth and drank in the honesty as if it were the blood of God. An ineffable experience. Our chemistry was all flesh and divinity. The workings of an outer planet turning in our gut. More gravity even than all the things we never got to do together. All the things I imagined he might do with someone else while he was forgetting me later. More gravity than that. First I attached my redemption to his, then claimed sacred separateness instead. Enough distance to witness his depths. Without control. Without attachment to outcome. But with every intention to love truly. These weren't easy lessons and there were many. And they took time. And so the unity of us bore witness to incredible growth and deep-rooted loving.

It was all right. The late nights talking. How safe he felt inside me. The gut-craving, self-loving split when we parted on bad terms. The summer we found discipline and surrender. The fall we were graced back together again. Cuddling all night on the hood of the Nissan. Trepidation. Giving everything. Building something in tandem. Alchemy in the kitchen. Forgiveness. Satisfaction. Hope. Feather-faces. Bathroom sinks. Mirrors. Not walking away again and again. Staying power. And eventually, the brokenness that came between us. The glass that turned to sand. And I won't say it was all fear and pride. I don't know what it was. The Fate we thought was ours slipped through outstreched fingers. So soft beneath my knees as I knelt before a Greater Hand. Bowed to the mystery between us, the tragedy of our parting, and the grace that embraced us both as we learned to release. Into the sea. The salt. The tears. The waves of grief and gratitude and unknowing. Setting sail some deep integrity, the gravity of a neutral charge. Cutting waters. First moved, then moving. A billowing breath through blood all the way to my molten core. And so again the sharp edges turn to light and I will always be embraced by our loving. And I will never be alone.

Only My Heart

My cravings are mounting, like a horse that wants to be ridden: hard, into the wind. Sometimes I want to be that animal. The one without appoinments and deadlines of time passing too quickly. The animal that simply knows scent and which way the wind blows if a storm is coming and how fast to run if chased. I want to find water and make love behind cattails. Sniff. Smell. Search. Find. Reach deeply into the crevices of my body, pull out my beating heart and eat it. And know it's the only thing at this moment that might satiate this appetite. I need more time to be human, to be animal. To take off into the woods and desert expanse and find that sweet, unforgiving rhythm of a world that is created for me and will take the dust of my body in one swift gulp. Nothing personal. Just death.

Snow on Saguaro

Snow on saguaro. White prickly pear. Ironwoods pose as noble fir. Red room. Sultry voice in black boots. Drinking hot water and lemon at the bar, holding out 'til the smoke threatens the resolve of my recovering cold. Wild horses. Dreams. Has she caught anything yet? That voice. A crater of time. Does that star-dusted scape ever feel desolate? To her? While she sings? Or is it forever full of what happened there, like the pounding heart of another galaxy: immediate, distant, comforting in its insistence. That voice. A crater. Enveloping and austere. Ready to cave with a finger down the spine. Snow melts on saguaros. Ribs. Flesh. Skin glistening in moonlight.

Date with a Rabbi

Last night. Such a lovely evening. Taiji. Rabbi. Girl & guitar, singing on a swing in a downtown artists loft. Salvador. Heart-stopping flamenco. Canopy beds. Child sleeping like a sculpted deity. A camera encases a baby's heart. Portraits of pregnant women. One wears a mask. Dia de los Muertos. SI 11. He pressed into it as the music pressed into me and my spine filled with fluid harmony. Softened at last. Spacious. Like the high-beamed ceiling that held her lilting voice. God is desire with no object. Wonderment from within. Wonder at it all. This I felt. Even with the gritty darkness circling the eyes of the drunken woman dancing. Even beyond the world mirroring back our deepest absorptions and accumulations. Wonder that sees no dark, no light. No centripetal or centrifugal force. No preoccupation with separation or centredness. The night sky when a tear forms from the soaking. What Moses knew and could not say. The kind of speech that transforms law. The consciousness of God itself.

Desert Oceans

Ocean meets desert. Pregnant monsoon. Dark purple hovering above thirsty crags the way our lack of completion hovers around my heart. Dusk lingers forever on the horizon. Parched desert dust rests contentedly under cloudcover as if awaiting a kiss. A warm, moist breeze fingers my spine. This isn't the first rain. They've been at it a while. Their easy lovemaking fills the air with salt and creosote. I stand erect under the sky overlooking the pass. The ocean has come. The winds pick up. I'm surrounded. Skin melts into grace. I am held, embraced. I am completed by this endless dusk.

To Friendship Afar

As we straddle kingdoms seeking our inner turnings -- those sweet twists & curves that outline the voluptuousness of our souls -- I am content to let the Unknown rest between us. In such an expanse, we can't help but stretch ourselves more finely into form. Our sandcastles may be downstream, upriver; yet, we share the same shore. And I do enjoy the lapping waves. I do enjoy the silence at water's edge. I do enjoy soaking my feet as I break from the workings of my kingdom. And I smell you when the wind picks up. And I feel glad, especially when I'm not afraid. I love my fear. It is wise & telling. And some days, it needs to go on its way.

Thank you for your humanness. I see it. I hear it. I smell it, like the horse sweat on my hat.

While I can

Train tracks. Our feet match, stepping one slat to the next. Our hands swing in time, fingers laced together - so soft & solid - my hand curled against yours. Twighlight trails the setting sun and a thousand miles away my sister hurls herself into the highway as if it might save her. You, silent, support me as I support her. I could lean into you and not fall, but we walk instead. She calls back again. Her fiance's got another lover and she doesn't know if it's insanity or the bottle. Either option terrifies her. No answers yet. You squeeze my hand as I talk her off ledges. Her first call interrupted a discussion of your infidelities. I thought she'd be the one talking me off your ledge, a sudden four story drop, but she didn't hear me crying and she was already stripping asphalt in a craze to find home. You, being the resident expert on mental illness and addiction, took the vacant position of consultant and confidante. Helps that you're my best friend, your propensity to repeatedly risk breaking my heart aside. Maybe you will someday. I might run out of highway and find my heart hurling at 70 miles an hour toward a brick wall. Would you clean up the mess? I'm not sure you would. I guess that's why I'm heading for the backroads. Bus stops and waiting stations feel safer. Still, then I might be left behind without transport. A siren interrupts that thought and we look behind us into the blaring headlights of an oncoming train. We jump off the tracks, screaming and laughing into the rusted flash of roaring metal. I jump & stomp & squeal. I get it all out, made invisible by this thunderous body of steel crashing by, cradled by the rushing air thick with noise. My sister on the other end of the line wondering what the hell happened. I have to explain. She wonders why I'm with you, whether she says it or not. She wonders if she's headed for the same brick wall. She can't believe it. We say goodbye so I can call Mom for Mother's Day.
Then it's you and me again, walking past the power plant hand in hand. You lie me down on the street corner, under the flourescent street lamp, and read me a love letter. I'm supposed to feel lucky and I do. Your chest is always the best pillow and I feel you open to me in that way that melts my resistance. It may come back. Regardless, we know we're headed for a parting, so we love while we can. You love me. I love you while I can. While I can.

Thoughts of long ago

It's up. The image. The archetype. Something I read caught an edge & it's tipping over the embankment. I feel the gravity of it. I watch it fall, endless weight. No bottom. He couldn't love sex, but he had to have it nevertheless. I used the wolf of red riding hood to describe him to myself when I finally got it. He used the weight of my body to crush his self-loathing. It didn't work. I dematerialized at the crucial moment and he was left with only shame & rage. I had no framework for his way of seeing except misogyny. It took longer to see addiction. It took longer to admit that I felt used. Where did I get such perserverent optimism? Such naivete? Only a history of abuse could explain why I stayed through the upheaval, but I couldn't pin that history. The one link that took me by the scruff was my grandmother who was quickly losing her mind in a mess of abusive delusions. Or was it all just coming back to haunt? Why is it that I desire to understand human suffering so deeply? I built a model concentration camp for 4th grade history day. No doubt the judge found the cottonball smoke billowing from a foam-core board gas chamber just a little unsettling. No doubt they found the pipecleaner firing squad downright distasteful. Was this an 8-year old's strategy for dealing with German guilt? But, somehow I remember feeling the atrociousness of it all alongside survival, redemption, faith in God against all odds. Was I looking for a real-life adult replay? Can I survive against the odds? That wasn't my question going into it, but I certainly learned I could by the time all was said and done, denied & reclaimed.

...it's been a long time... (aka 'those damn candles')

I took you so seriously,
that letter you wrote to me.
Your voice rose from a decade of times gone by
and my entire romantic history seeped from the raw pages
& soaked me in the nostalgic scent of old sweat & tears & breezes:
his fingers, her hair, his chest as I awoke embraced,
his anger as I fell asleep with my back turned.
Did your spite confirm all the digs from lovers past
I never wanted to believe?
Could you truly see my worst parts through
those years and miles?
And always you were one I trusted amidst
your 'delusions,' & sidestepping & understated profundity.
So your letter paused my being,
my whole life soaked through one moment, my breath hovered,
my eyes still, piercing the centerpoint of each love,
wondering.
This is what trust can do.
I don't allow it much anymore.
After all these years, after all the re-keying of my locks,
you reserved a secret passageway,
some door long forgotten,
left open all this time.
So you can imagine when you said the letter wasn't to me,
that it was meant for a recent lover during the bitter torrents of a breakup,
what had already blown through that open gateway.
And you can imagine the beautiful shock of hearing and believing
when you whispered through those open shutters,
"I love you. Your life is tremendous."

We Both had to Laugh

You stood in that doorway so angry, helplessly angry it seemed. We both had to laugh. The subtle curl of your lips gave me permission to transition stunned bewilderment into incredulous laughter. Like the little boy who wants to shame his mother, the one woman who will always be there. That seductive curiosity: can you control her? But the bigger question is: can you forgive her? Can you forgive the transgressions of your youth she couldn't control? And what about the ones she could? Ahh...so we see why when you lie by the riverside her darkened face rises from your dreams. And how I wish her face didn't turn into mine. Should I forgive you? Should I overlook this danger I'm never likely to escape? Your face rises from my dreams and I feel your hands slip about my waist. It's not enough to be held. Sometimes it's enough to be held.