contradictions

sometimes i think that we are wisest

where we know the least

strongest when we sink in grief

or rise in joyous sparks

most able when we cease to try

and simply lie unresisting in the stream

of all that is, 

just sitting with it in the quiet dark 

where we hatch our souls.

lunacy

i know why chained dogs howl at the moon

i turn my teeth on myself

i rend what is already tattered

rather than tear at the one who tears at me

how mysterious, the changeable and ever-cycling moon

how mysterious, that people can say they love,

and mean such different things

we make our chains by what we give or keep

i gave you all and freely

i made you all that mattered to me

if my lonely spirit sings in the dry spells,

if it sings to you of rain, of waxing full again,

it sings to the unhearing, incomprehensible moon

grammar lessons

past, present, future

there is a grammar to life---

you need to know how to conjugate

your hopes and memories,

how (and what) to decline,

what tense to use for the tensions

amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant

cogito, ergo sum.

(the sum is sometimes greater, sometimes less,

than the parts.)

past tense:

after my daughter was born,

i asked him

more than once---

come with me, i said,

please, come with me

on this journey i cannot help but take

because it is my life.

present tense:

i sit at the window

watching cold rain

slide down the glass,

confronting all the ways in which

i've failed,

fighting the temptation

to keep doing nothing.

future tense:

i want to take these broken pieces

that were my life

shake them up and let them fall,

glittering and turning

and watch them land,

to read a pattern into random shards

and hope they make some new whole.

grow

who among us is not

a girl interrupted,

a woman spinning wildly

as she tries to find her center

we face our challenges

as best we may

long weeping nights

and long enduring days

we spin, we fall,

we pick up, pack up, and move on

we bravely enter and re-enter

our own unknown

we turn aside from fears

and stubbornly we say

we will care for all,

no one excepted

not even ourselves

time to plant the tears.

darksong

the slip of skin on skin
as pillows lump and sheets tangle
at night, a forest grows
green leaves twine around us
who lie like tangled ruins
hearts beating still
with the rhythm of the night
which sings of secret things

blooming scarlet and gold

beneath a cold moon

helen

 irresistible,

 you see her walking,

 her hands full of poppies

 and silver-gilt barley

 you cannot help but follow

 the sway of her hips

 in flounced skirts,

 the sway of her breasts above,

 the gold and faience beads

 sliding over gleaming skin

 brows like a swallow’s wing

 reddened lips

 and scarlet suns painted

 on her cheeks and chin

 kohl-lined eyes

 deeper than the sacred pool 

 she has aphrodite’s love

 all men are fools for her,

 all women too

 the poets will get it wrong

 they will forget

 her power was of the earth and sky,

 not just of lovers’ sighs,

 yet that the two were linked

 in their songs

 they put too much eris and thanatos,

 a sullied eros only,

 a betrayal of charis,

 too many bright blades

 and cities burning

 in her world

 her beauty was not a tragic gift,

 but an emblem:

 the favor of the gods made clear,

 a kingdom’s talisman

 against all want and fear,

 the sun’s own child,

 her radiant face

 fortune’s magnet

 she is waving grain,

 figs and olives bending branches,

 rain on the fields,

 bounding lambs,

 dripping combs,

 grapes bursting in the wine vats,

 children laughing in the lanes,

 the glowing sun

 drawing goodness from the land

 when she stretches out her hand

 the earth hearkens

 let the girls dance for her by the river,

 let matrons offer mirrors in her temple,

 let men watch her walk 

 and ache

 she is the spark

 that lights all fire

 dispelling all dark

 irresistible

howl

in every woman is a wolf,

a trammelled wild thing,

in every she-wolf,

a wild tenderness.

Red went into the wood

and found a wolf,

which is to say

she found herself.

she should have seen it coming---

that red cap, after all,

is the ancient badge of womanhood,

the heraldry of our power.

red cap, red rose,

all those ruby portents,

all the cross-stitched prayers on clothing,

were like the map's edge warnings:

here be dragons (or wolves)...

here you will find pain,

and dance with death,

and make new life,

and we will celebrate you for it.

the world changed,

women burned,

and wolves dwindled

with the dwindling woods.

we have been told stories

where there is no room

for a wolf within a girl,

a woman, a grandmother;

where the women are in the wolves,

consumed.

so i shouldn't have been surprised

when i asked for a rose

and you gave me a bramble.

doesn't matter---

i will find my roses in me,

there with the wolf and the memory of woods,

and all things fine and fierce and free.

i will take the thorns to heart

and make a rose-cane flute,

and play my ancient song,

i will move in moonlight,

and howl in my red dress...

and if you fear this,

you are not the wolf

for me.

i