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Fierce Love
Fierce love is a long line of ants
marching through the jungle
their footsteps thundering,
shaking the air and the leaves of trees,
on their way to the termite nest
capturing the termite eggs
bringing the eggs home to crack their shells
and devour them after the war.
Fierce love is mortal combat,
hand to hand combat,
hearts beating as if to break,
a knife fight in which each combatant survives their wounds
bloody, scarred,
relieved,
even happy.
Fierce love is kneading bread,
pounding your fists
nto the powdery flour,
mutilating it until it can be shaped
into a form worth baking
and consuming.
Fierce love is protecting a child,
any child
imagining what might have happen
before the sharp flash of nails, the deep dive,
claws, bared incisors,
spittle and malice,
no sacrifice too great.
Fierce love is a sweet puppy
grown into a wild wolf
roaming the forests
seeking prey and sustenanc
no sacrifice too small
no victim too large
where hunger is great
where hunger is all.
Fierce love is not complacent
not accepting
not friendly
not playful
just fierce
just for itself yet requiring another
where breathing is labored
and mountain paths hard
and solid
beneath your bare feet.
Fierce love knows not play
only revenge
the unrelenting labor of childbirth
blood, the caesarian geyser,
promises of freedom from the fear of imprisonment
and delight in the jail’s metal bars
and the cell’s unrelenting locks.
Fierce love is Isaac
prepared to sacrifice Jacob
and Jacob willing to be sacrificed
Odysseus slaughtering Penelope’s suitors
and Telemachus obeying his father’s commandment
while still repulsed by blood.
Fierce love is tenderness,
soft caresses
accompanying moans
flowers in vases
beauty that must die
prayers that know not skepticism,
deep rest after deep falls and deep failures,
bees kissing flowers
select sperm piercing the egg casing
monogamous osprey returning to last year’s nests
mammals’ milk
the heartbeat of tiny insects
rhythmic song
chanting
accepting nonexistence
crying in frustration
in gratitude for the multitude of gifts
of love that only exists
because we permit it
because we admit it.
I bring you these loves
these sensual songs we sing
as fierce heat from violent explosions on the nearest star
warms this otherwise dead and silent rock we live upon.
POETRY
Lost in Familiar Woods
When lost in familiar woods
One is quickly aware there are no dress codes
And after you’ve
Spun around enough times
To no longer know which way
Will take you further into the forest
Or which way leads out
Not sure of where you’ve come from
Or where you want to go
Knowing only you like it here
Comfortable and present
Lost in familiar woods.
There’s nothing to fear
Lost in familiar wood
No panic at being lost
Nor missing the comfort of home
Survival is not the issue,
Disorientation is
And you are paused
.
Enjoy the pleasures of nature
The trees many and one
And the path before you
Going in both directions
Deeper and safe.
POETRY
God Says Yes To Me – Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
Poetry
A Climbing Poem
When you didn’t come home
When I didn’t hear from you
I was strangely unafraid
Lonely for sure, but not afraid
I sensed where you were … more or less.
I called your office
They said your wife said
“You’d gone missing”
Though they were still searching.
I knew this might happen.
I waited for a phone message
Even email
None arrived
Then one day a postal card
With a foreign town’s cancel stamp
As the return address.
Your writing was teeny
And covered every inch of space.
It had directions.
I called my office the very next day
Told them I was leaving
Laughed with the receptionist
Who said she wanted to leave too
“Take my name,” I told her
And perhaps she did.
I left my not job
My not apartment
I had so very few strings
So few attachments
And I craved you so
There is more
I arrived at the airport
Used my credit card
To buy a one-way ticket
Dome money
Two plane rides
Three bus rides
When I got to the beach
At the bottom of the mountains
I pulled the post card from my pocket
As you asked me to
And read again
“Find the most beautiful beach
Follow the steepest road
Downhill is always the wrong direction
Pay attention to the smell of lavender
Look for pages of an old passport
Land snails climbing the highway reflector posts
Look for praying mantises
And note the direction they are pointing
See the flocks of dragonflies
Listen to the bells of goats
Listen for the biggest herd
The greatest range of bell sounds
Be that music
Walk on up, hard as it may be
Cyclists coming down will be singing
Cyclists going up will be saying “difficult”
This is a sign you are on the right road
Where the seeing-eye cacti stop growing is a church
You will see it from miles away
Four windows in the bell tower
High above the trees
Light pouring in
Real light
The priest will take you in
He will know nothing
But word of your being will seep out
And my shepherd will hear
He will go to confession
He will bind the Father
“Tell her only where to find Him,
Only tell her.”
And the father will,
“Passed the goldenrod,” he will say
“No one ever goes there
There are marigolds
Pine trees
A ladder straddles a fence
A stone house
The smell of freshly made cheese
Of sheep
A fire”
It is there you will find
A freshly made bed
Myrtle
Clean linen
The earthen floor swept clean
You may even find me
Or find dried bones.
Just in case
Bring the heart meds.
POETRY
A Reminder – found and slightly edited from the webpage of a Methodist Church
We live on a planet
where trees whisper
to one another
through mycelial networks.
Where octopuses with nine brains dream,
and whales with hearts the size of small pianos sing,
calling each other by name.
Where elephants mourn their lost,
standing in silent vigil
over the bones of their kin.
Where bees dance
to the flowers,
and crows remember faces
never forgetting a slight.
Where ants build vast metropolises,
cats purr at the exact frequency of healing,
and the forest’s first breath after a fire
is a bloom of flowers.
Beauty and wonder are everywhere.
Life far more then we can imagine
Far more than we can even dream.
Walk softly upon this earth
There is room for ever more miracles.
Poetry
I Couldn’t Find Today Today
I misplaced my car keys and phone
And couldn’t find today today.
My knowing that the sun
Had rerisen on a new day didn’t help,
Nor did attending a meeting
Scheduled for today
And conducted in my native language
Where I couldn’t understand
The meaning in this context
Of any of the words used
All of which I knew the meanings of.
Even the meaning of “and” and “or,”
And/or, more specifically,
And which and or or applied
To which criteria today
Was lost
Or couldn’t be found
Or agreed upon.
So we didn’t reach closure,
Someone said, “today,”
And the matter was put off
To another today,
The date of which also couldn’t be agreed upon
But at least had not yet been lost.
I hoped this poem would be lost
And/or should have been,
On the day I couldn’t find today,
But that today went on to become yesterday
And a future I imagined would exist
Became the tomorrows of today
The day I couldn’t find today
And I found the poem still there
Or here, today.
POETRY
spring – Safia Elhillo
it’s late now, it’s early, no way
to know which season it is
of the total years of my life,
weren’t we only just nineteen,
tonya & i, wasn’t she only just
alive, long-limbed & cross-legged
on my dorm room floor,
wasn’t it springtime of a year
so unlike this one, thirteen
years past, cool nights in line
outside the nuyorican hoping
to make it on the list, wasn’t it
a friday night like this one
& the only people i wanted to love
were poets, earrings swaying
against their necks, dancing
in the dark of the room where we
all knew each other’s secrets, weren’t
we all just at that party, wasn’t i only
just eighteen, pointed northward
on a chinatown bus to that city,
to watch ai elo onstage at the apollo,
wasn’t she only just alive, smoking
with camonghne, asking me my favorite
song, cackling on the apartment floor,
on the air mattress we used as a couch,
how is it that it was long ago, how is it
i am on the other side of it, long ago, how
did i leave that city, that time when we
were all together, everyone alive,
wasn’t the dream to be a poet, wasn’t
the plan to live forever, our powers
newly acquired, newly in love
with what we could do, didn’t we all
belong to each other, to that work,
going after to the pizza shop
to recite what we’d memorized,
weren’t we all just there, wasn’t it warm
outside, wasn’t the road long & clear,
isn’t it early still, isn’t it late, & why
am i still here, did i survive or was i left
behind, & what season is it that we are
no longer together & some of us have gone?
Poetry
Enriching the Earth – Wendell Berry
To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind’s service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.
Poetry
The Best Poem Ever – Brian Doyle
What if, says a small child to me this afternoon,
We made a poem without using any words at all?
Wouldn’t that be cool? You could use long twigs,
And feathers, or spider strands, and arrange them
So that people imagine what words could be there.
Wouldn’t that be cool? So there’s a different poem
For each reader. That would be the best poem ever.
The poem wouldn’t be on the page, right? It would
Be in the air, sort of. It would be between the twigs
And the person’s eyes, or behind the person’s eyes,
After the person saw whatever poem he or she saw.
Maybe there are a lot of poems that you can’t write
Down. Couldn’t that be? But they’re still there even
If no one can write them down, right? Poems in
Books are only a little bit of all the poems there are.
Those are only the poems someone found words for.
Poetry
The Visit
I visit with a good friend today
And find him crying.
My impulse is to lift his spirit
From whatever darkness has overtaken him.
“Would you like a hug,” I ask
And he nodded yes.
Holding my friend in my arms
I feel his shaking,
His heart beating,
The expansion and release of his ribs
With each inhale and exhale.
I see the air that comes into his nostrils
Watch as it journeys into his lungs
As his heart pumps
As oxygen molecules attach themselves
To the riverboats
Riding on arterial rivers
That travel north and south
Coast to coast
Deposited at cellular transfer depots
Like baggage being transferred
From ship to dock
Each atom of oxygen
Picked up and greeted on its arrival
The contents of the molecules
Sorted from their shipping crates
And instantly put to use
Enlivening the recipient
Who then gives back
What was not of use
Along with a small gift
As together they rejoin the river boats
On the mighty rivers
Flowing further into the interior
And then back into the lungs
Where again the boats take on new passengers
New suitcases
Brought to recipients in need.
I noticed my friend had stopped sobbing
His feet rooted more firmly on the earth
Whose energy helped him stand upright.
We looked at each other.
No words were spoken,
And we smiled.
POETRY