rainy day

drip by drip water wears the hardest stone

cousin air does the same
breathing grit into cracks once, a thousand, many million times

my diaphragm sinks into belly bellows as I
expand contract how often in this
as I live and breathe

when he says
you never she says
why don’t you they say
how could you
galaxies grow between us and I
could let myself fall into echoing
void of not my fault not me how could they

but when I stood on the rim
between huge bright blue and dizzy deep down to the slow green
trickle of ancient river
I knew I am an atom

now clouds rush to where the sun’s glorious rosy will wake us
and I remember
to choose this here now planet

my stone ribs grow strong
wearing all the air I borrow, all the soft forgiving

The vertigo of present time

Snail breath is pushing down the throat of the woman in a room where green light shines staggering through the late summer leaves. She is sitting on a chair, rocking on the square seat that will not move with her undulations as she cannot move from her memories or the air that suffocates around her. Her breath echoes the puff the owl's wings made flying overhead. But that was last night in its cool in its thick in its root blue of moon and she remembers the talons sharp points. Blade at her throat, the cool of metal a rough crush of her ribs. Where did he come from those whiskers rough on her jaw, those rancid huffs of breath. No time to think of why or who, only the instant reflex of do anything not to feel the lava of her own blood.

This morning the shimmer of pavement radiated reflections of the sun but when she closed her eyes all she saw were the skeleton branches of the tree he pulled her under and the white globes of his eyes. She felt cooked in the oven of her four doors slammed shut, the air streaming at her eyes burning but she did not cry. The thin air of heat pierced her nose, sliced the curve of her throat and stabbed her straining lungs. Pull pull away there is pink silk on the path there is jumble in the stomach there is Jack Daniels in the freezer and ice cubes on the stove. She wants to be a wave, crashing, wants to be a motion, endless, wants to be fluid and ecstasy but beneath her is only the cracked eggshells of her stiff reality of her porous heart of her humming shame of her jagged breath of her screen door ripped by neighbour cats that sit outside, lifting paws to the dark within, hooking claws in the metal mesh. Pick pick, they make holes that she can hear. Breathing, she rocks.

finale

Oh I just want to go home, she says, I want to get out of here so bad. Her hand tightens on the metal rail around her bed. She turns her head to look out the window. Clouds moving in.

Another hospital bed, another window, I stood with my back to the sky and looked at the stranger in the bed. They took his eye away and smoothed over his cheek, digging at the cancer. He didn't move, didn't talk.

When I was ten, when it was my grandfather in the room, when his scarred face scared me, I just wanted to go.

Now it's aunt on the bed who struggles for breath. Air bubbles through water and pushes through clear plastic into her lungs. Oh I just want to go home she says, to lie in my own bed.

I take her hand. Feel her thin skin soft with wrinkles. They were pounding on my chest, she says. Why did they have to do that? Nurse says my heart stopped. I just wanted to sleep!

Her fingers are strong but now she sees her long-dead parents in the corner when she says she wants to go home. I tell her to rest.

word play

1.
goosebumps on her my our skin cool of the morning cat's fur on my tongue the read the paper and your day will start your engines gentlemen prefer nothing have no distinctions mar harmony

2.
musty smell the roses are red violets are you ready or not that way back yonder where the sun is up and no time to waste not want what you cannot do that and you'll regret nothing stays the same forever is a long long ago

3.
we'll be there in the blink of mice and men

4.
don't wait up where we belong to the right wing and a prayer is a conversation with enough money you can do what you can anyone blame others and you blame your actions speak louder than a sonic boom

5.
do unto others a child was born free as the world turns away from what is your problem is you think of others before you say anything that can go wrong will you help me I think I can I think I once was a spider who married a fly away from it all I want what you can never go back in the day begins again and again the same thing happens when you don't listen to err is human to forgive your enemies close your eyes

6.
in the beginning was the word is he's not very many people know this and you shall I pour the tea for two and two for ever and ever any doubt creeps in like it or not what you think what you will

Sowing peace

This morning I was enjoying watching the goldfinch pull down from the massive thistles I let grow in the yard...

Before looking out I heard his sweet song announcing he had landed to balance and pull, tossing the spent head over his shoulders and at his feet.

The opening of The Great Law (The Haudenosaunee Constitution) says:

I am Dekanawidah and with the Five Nations' Confederate Lords I plant the Tree of Great Peace. I plant it in your territory, Adodarhoh, and the Onondaga Nation, in the territory of you who are Firekeepers.

I name the tree the Tree of the Great Long Leaves. Under the shade of this Tree of the Great Peace we spread the soft white feathery down of the globe thistle as seats for you, Adodarhoh, and your cousin Lords.

Thank you, goldfinch, for showing me feathery down instead of weed.

P S Susan just reminded me that protocol is that the name of Dekanawidah is not spoken aloud, except in very specific circumstances. He is called, instead, The Peacemaker.

Worry

B writes, I am no longer sobbing every day, finally realized that this IS life not some bad dream that I will wake from

And it IS like a dream, the flow of random events, the stream of nonsense we strive to make sense of later, in a bar, at a table, on the phone, in our minds as we wash dishes, chewing over in our head what happened what happened what I could have what I should have why they should have how I might have when it ought to have why it, why oh why did it...

We say dogs worry a bone but their gnawing ceases when, finally, we trip over the abandoned bit of cow thigh that has been licked clean, every morsel gone. Oh to be a dog whose worrying ends! Our minds relentlessly find fuel in the slightest gesture, the briefest word. At five it can be what is lurking, being made a fool of, being left behind, not being able to, not knowing what to, not trusting not not not. At eighty-five it can be what is lurking, when it might strike, what will happen after that and then and then and then...

Worry's a rushing river we can drown in, our very cells choking on what we can't let go. Cells can't refuse as we re-light the wick, re-fuse the fire, keep it going the mind churning along looking always looking for flotsam to cling to to save to escape this slow suffocation. So busy clenching we forget the path along the shore, the one step by one, one crisis by one, one sorrow by one, one fright by one, one joy by one, one doubt by one one one.

What can we do but remember we're still alive and breathing. Sigh of relief. One breath then another and another till we remember this is who we are, a bundle of nerves tangled in frail magnificence.

Grand River pow wow

all dance alone, dance together
pressing the earth
feet answer the drum

pulse in our skin, our flesh, our bones
beat of the heart
each moment, each step

I am outside, but in the circle
in my mind dancing
on this world's sweet chest

sky is watching, as we gather
patient, gentle
this air is our home

fruit of the month

ah the beautiful plump of blueberries
the round soft lush of bunched fruit
burst of taste on the tongue

drought dulled this year's sweet

some places are drowning in rain and we still
press pedal down down, drive our metal rusting bodies
through the brown haze once called air

thirty-five years ago in school we
heard tut tut tongues clicking disapproval, fertile
farmland disappearing we
moved away from dirt under our nails and
hoeing till our backs ached, we
followed the pull of purchase

now the promise of leisure lies
around our bellies and clenches our hearts
and we treat ills in sterile rooms kept pure with poison

but on this sunny day my
breath tastes water raising cool from the green, my
fingers cherish the labour of these roots, my
ears thank the melodious air, my
oh my I remember what is precious