Be

Who told you to love like this -
this inscription of the heart?

who told the flowers to open,
toward the midday sun,

who tells the sun to rise,
against the faded moon,

who brings breath into being,
bloated life bleated into seeing,

who taught your eyes to witness,
the bounty of the earth?

who taught the earth to fill round,
and bound it to the stars,

who told the water to matriculate,
circulate through the body of life?

who taught your mind to speculate,
educate it's own meandering,

who thought up your dreaming,
told them how to sing?

Who told you to love like this -
this madness, insecurity -

creation has always said "to love,

Be."

Love Poem

dream with me
like the wild, fiery skies

dance, dance, dance
sing to creation
step with me, land
with me

feet under foothills
guardian hills, rocks
tumbling in our time
our rhythm

love alongside
my imagination
your dreaming -
soul speak

"it's a marvelous night
for a moon dance,"
a story we told
when we were younger
laughing, holding on
to youth

dance, dance, dance
fling your heart open
let it spill across
the painted skies
northern lights
like a love poem
we wrote
with our souls

Undefinable Me

sense of belonging
or longing

nations commiserate
enjoin members

yawning across a divide
as wide as the sea

dancing alone
inside the undefinable me

Lucky Pennies

sorrow is like a penny
turning up beneath
joyful dancing.

face up, tail down
postures of grieving,
wings spread, lifting,
neck bent back,
stars leaning into
stretching palms

it comes, it goes, comes
and goes
day and night, day
and night
and joy leaps between
two sorrows, two tears,
two leaning into night,
broken hearts.

though the dancer
dances under the gracious sky
she always scans the earth
faces up, tails down
postures of grief
reasons to cry

The Last Lesson of Living

The gift of silence
can be powerful grace

Instruction-
teach nothing by teaching
only by living, for
everything you need to say
is in the way you move
through the world.

Loving is the only lesson
worth living, anyway.

Birth

rootless trees are like empty oceans
silent speaking, still emotions
rage that breaks apart the sky
broken wings that do not fly
or rusted tongues stuck in teeth
rigid hearts without belief
sickness spreading fiery graves
thousands heading from what saves-
not grace in spades, not faces laid
upon a withered stone, replete
neither truth that wakes beneath
the laden soul, the things we know, we know
we knew all the while
carried seeds in our disgracing
what feeds our embracing- like loving
only never acted out or stretched too thin
never parceled out or kept within
not labeled or produced, not stolen, ordained,
given like wine we pour on affection
causing us to lose direction
instead a taste of open truth
the smells we gathered in our youth
intangible tangibles tasting
forgive and forgiveness wasting
our moments here on earth
we know what we know from the moment
of birth

Insanity Is

They told me
I'm crazy
like lazy with a neurotic bent
my shame as frogs
born with extra limbs
talking to the winds
shaking in my bed
shedding social norms
like exoskeletons
breaking under the light
of my half-crazed mind
half-sighted blind
they told me

They- they are
a mysterious them
them behind social curtains
social certains that tell
of right versus wrong versus
the timing of my lunacy
the frailty of my thoughts
spilling nilly across
hearts and minds unsearched
besmirched with affective knowing
effective growing in social soils
a mind like mine that toils
and churns the fettered lands
challenges where it stands
has nothing to offer but painted ruin
nothing officially human
only madness where they see
this is what "they" told me

In beauty, as some say
walking carefully through
healing dances that laugh my pain
into quickened recognition-
superstition to the world, but I
dance freely in such spaces
paces matching ancient time
rhythms matching ancient rhyme
and I am sewing up the things
torn open by the world
the sea of faces that ripped open
the softer places in my soul
my dancing makes me whole again
and my poetry is my heart
art walking through insanity
no matter what mysterious others
try to say of me

I am not an affect of existence
purely trained to save balance
clown dancing on your "normal"
but cloud dancing in the skies
I am not proof that you are sane
in comparison to my longing, my suffering,
my pain
I am not proof that you are capable
or culpable, or mean, or good,
because you cannot stand me up
against your soul- against the whole-
and declare my mind unfit
God created and He designed
aligned the heavens with our earth
declared our birth to the angel clans
formed our hands inside the womb
lifts us up from our tombs
carries our souls in His warm embrace
knew our face before we could breathe
and all of that with such mighty ease
that calling one of His creation
an aberration, a sin against all life
or trying to fix it to your own likes
seems to me you're trying to be
a God amongst men, hypocrisy
pointing fingers across to me
damn near idolatry of the human ideology
that's what "they" try to sell to me.

But, I don't believe it- not for a minute
not for a second do I stress
I just do my best and I know
I am dancing in God's own shadow
in His filling grace
my face upturned and ignoring "they"
no matter what society tries to say.