Love Is the Risk

Love, the dutiful wheels

of time, the mother’s

milk, the arthritic

fingers rinsing your dish, the words

you can’t remember (to the music

you can never forget). Love is not the rose

but the soil kissing its feet and water

feeding its verdant bones and sun care-

ssing its palms lifted in prayer.

Love is the risk

the sky took, be-

coming, sacrificing,

letting the stars each take

a share of its heart to shimmer

with the generosity of a being

who has known how it feels to be

loved.

Feet

I hear between you and I

explosions that wail
that sting the skin like hail
griefs crystallized in time.
With my fingers sense
sympathy’s frostbites
mutations of distance
carved into the hearts.
I see myself but only
with your eyes falling off
the Earth into the clouds
pouring into oceans
sinking down a million feet….
Oh how I miss hearing
the sound of your feet….

Why the Two...?

Why the two feet?
To kick yourself.
Why the two hands?
To shake our own.
Why the two eyes
that can't reach?

It's Easy

It’s easy to sing and dance
It’s easy to hate and cheat
When your shoes are
your own feet

Gentle Touch

To write a poem feels as though a game 
Like hide-and-seek: To speak but make no sound. 
Winnicott said that it's a joy to be
Hidden, disaster, if you're never found. 

Meantime I hide behind the rhyme and feet,
And hope you love me or the game so much,
To step around the words and reach inside,
To say "I see you".  With a gentle touch. 

Bless Me

Oh bless me Father (muttered I) 
for I have sinned, for I have sinned, 
for I have roved against the wind, 
and over lands that house the hands
that—blithe—unfold beneath my feet.
The branching hands, with love imbued,
thus reaching out they've made me food.

Ungrateful yes, but blind I'm not,
for I have known the sun, the lands, 
the trees that fruit, and blooming shoots,
the taste of figs (I've not forgot),
the peach has long perfumed my hands,
the grapes and dates, angelic fruits.

I've seen the moonbow over falls;
the snowfall gather over roofs;
about the coast, descent of gulls;
on grassy plains, the dance of manes,
I've heard the tune of trotting hooves.    

Yet I have stepped on aging leaves, 
and drank atop their withered roots,
I took and took but please believe
my heart is not so black as soot,

Now here tonight I'm sober, weak,
this conscious-guilted rueful thief
inhales the scent of grass with grief.

I beg you father now once more 
to bless this worthless selfish soul:

For I can not—Oh I can not!

Resistance is Fruitless

Apricots, pregnant, hanging low,
the golden drops of blessed sweet.

Be careful! Some have fallen, split

against the concrete. And as though
they're lips and tongues prepared to kiss, 
have flowered open 'round the pits.
They're silky mines below your feet—
It's too late: You are part of it.  
Oh now it's fruitless, why resist?

Bury the Ruby

Ruby array of  dry dismembered bones,   
rounding a pair of sodden coral boots;
her frame concealed by cherries hanging low,
that's what she drew—the artist saw it so.
What the artist saw now hangs on the wall.
She stands beside it, perfect—Such a doll! 
Bodiless feet been buried deep below.