playing the trump card

whether we know it or not,
we have lost our way
though some rejoice
in voices shrill and hot
some feel it like the shadow of a destroyer,
a thing that will eat itself
after it consumes all else.
in a world gone suddenly cold and strange,
today we are not who we thought.
all mirrors are cracked,
we are ugly to ourselves,
changed or changing,
and what we shall become
no one seems to know---
we all reap in the whirlwind what some sow.
time and past time to rise up,
standing ready with light and water,
for the way we go
leads through dark forest minds
and burning desert hearts
where we are beset by ghosts
we never laid to rest,
fathers who didn't know best,
wild hungers never fed,
appeals to arid gods
weaned on stone and sand.
something has died,
and we don't yet know
what will burn in its passing,
what shall come of its ashes---
a black egg hatching light,
or a long and fiery night...

the arc

they say the arc of the universe
bends toward justice
but lately i've been thinking
the bend of that arc
depends
somewhat
on us

i've been thinking
that time isn't all
it's cracked up to be
and that the long arm of the law
too often fires blindly
(but not colour-blindly)
and oh, my country,
we are failing each other
and our children

now,
when hate stands
on public display
cheek by jowl
with the flag
and the hamstrung bare their teeth
like cornered beasts
we have only one choice
before us---
what do we stand for
(hint: it's not a flag)

the rainbow's arc
bends effortlessly across the sky
light and water combining
in a joyous shout of colour
all we need do is look up
and admire

but the arc of the universe
and its bend toward justice
may need our hands
not waving a flag
but reaching out

how may we
put our hands
together
in love
how may we become
ourselves
a monument
of love
of love
of love

grace notes (at the concert)

it's not that the music wasn't good---
it was, it was so good,
rising up and ringing on the vaulted stone,
it pulled your soul right up through your heart
and let it hover there, tender, open,
overflowing---
it's just that in the spaces between phrases
i saw the people all around
and loved them
because their souls too were floating
like lilies on the green leaves of their hearts
i saw the boy with the nervous tic
gradually stop bobbing his head,
settling into stillness as long as the music
swelled about us
i saw the elderly man who gently patted
his chair in time with the beat,
and i saw his wife watching him
while he, self-forgetful,
closed his eyes and gave himself up
to the sound
i saw the young couple holding hands
as they listened
i saw the shine in others' eyes
i felt in mine
as if the music was bringing rain
to all the desert places in our hearts

songlines

in the old days,
everyone danced together
the young men leaping,
the maidens swirling,
the old men and women swaying and
waving their hands like shamans,
like birds,
like branches,
like witches.
the young had the power of creating new life,
the power to bring it to birth,
the elders had the wisdom to nurture and teach.
everyone knew the steps
everyone had the magic
life was a circle of dance,
from childhood to courtship to coffin.

in the old days,
everyone sang
there were dancing songs,
working songs,
songs for children's games,
songs to lull to sleep,
songs to heal the sick,
songs to ease the dying,
teaching songs,
memory songs,
songs of praise,
songs of sorrow.
everyone knew the songs
everyone felt the magic
life was a circle of song,
from lullaby to love song to lament.

once we had the music
the magic
the meanings,
once we had eyes and ears
for the rune-songs of life,
the gleanings of years untold,
our kin all around us
in field and in fire,
in water and sky,
in fur and feather and scale
and stone and leaf, too,
and we sang
all the year through,
patterning time
yearning and eternal,

from baby to bride to baba.

a gift

a woman comes to you
flower crowned, bearing flowers,
and how should you greet
this offering?

nameless and naked
in the night,
a woman who might
just as likely
walk through the wood
with her hand resting
on a bear's back,
ambling in wordless peace
together

dressed in thin linen,
veiled in lace,
a woman who might
touch a face with
infinite tenderness,
and then pour the tea

stark in black wool,
hands full of mugwort
and artemisia
and regret,
a knife-edge smile,
unshed tears,
with a fox at her hem
and a crow faring before her

how well do you know her,
this woman
who is many women,
as they all are,
who comes to you now,
arrayed in flowers?

what precious, gentle thing
can you offer
in return?

totendanz

i have gathered the bones
of what was lost
and buried them, for safe-keeping
i have placed a bell
in a high place above
to ring their changes, weeping
i have sung their song
and danced their dance
in notes that burn and steps that cut
like fire, like knives
i live to give
voice to the silenced
and life to the dead
i live to make a pattern of bones
and stones and song
that lingers stinging in the throat
i carve runes
in the wise bark of trees
and feed them with my blood
i tread the patterns of stars
into the soil with my human feet
what is it i seek
with a burning in my belly
to bring to birth-
what is the worth of this work 

to bring life from the death about me-
what cobwebbed totem
claims me in dreams-
is what was lost
reclaimed, redeemed,

in this rough-shod, beaky love?

The Bone Woman

The Bone Woman, a story from the frozen lands...

Once upon a time, a young woman was thrown into the icy sea by her father. No one knows why this was done, whether just or unjust. After many, many years, what remained of her was still there, floating like coral beneath the waves, a thing of wrack and bone. One day, a man came fishing in his kayak and hooked the bone woman by a rib. When he pulled up his line, he was terrified to see her, a moving skeleton. He dropped the line at his feet, paddled desperately for shore, beached the kayak, and ran to his house. Still, tangled in the fishing lines that dragged behind him, she was there. In the house, he faced the pile of bones with terror and despair.

Then something changed. As he looked on the heap of her, he felt sorry, saddened by the tangles and disarray of her, by the life caught in death. Singing softly, as one would sing to soothe a child, he began to untangle bones from netting, ribs from hooks, legs from lines. Finally she lay there aligned, aright, on the cold floor. Suddenly weary, he looked toward his bed. But before he curled beneath his covers, he wrapped the bones in furs. It may seem a useless gesture, keeping the cold from a dead thing. But the soul speaks a strange language, conjuring sorrow from terror, and being from seeming.

As he slept, he dreamt of the bone woman, and wept. The bone woman saw the tears, or smelled the salt water gathered at the corner of his eye, and moved to taste it. A single tear slaked the thirst of who knows how many years, and she woke again to wanting life. Carefully, so carefully, never waking him, she borrowed his heart. With the beating heart drumming in her bony frame, she sang a new song. She sang herself back to being, sang flesh about the bones, sang back her breasts and organs, secret bits and bright eyes. She built blue-black hair and fine sinews, and rounded her belly and hips. Carefully, so carefully, she returned his heart. Then she slipped into his bed, fitting herself to his side.

They say that the fisherman and the bone woman went away together, and lived well, ever fed by creatures from the sea, who knows how long. A long time, forever, maybe. This is magic, after all.

There is a bone woman in all of us. Find your magic where you can.