Who chose the blindfold that holds those
blurry blades at your throat? Who told you
not to look? Who took your quiet and turned
it into an echo chamber? Who whispers
bitter nothings behind your neck, slides
their sibilant lies down your spine to take
root in the gaps between the glimpse and
the grasp? Open the taps wide. Open
your eyes. Flush these illusions from
your mind with insight, with the focus
to find the multicolored complexity their
white sheets seek to hide.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

wake . . . sense . . . embrace . . . frame
. . . praise . . . pass . . . pair . . . share
. . . copy . . . trim . . . sign . . . cover . . .
crease . . . stack . . . reveal . . . release

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

The neighbor’s rooftop sobs with
so many fragile bodies broken
by the sudden heat, so many boats
set untethered into the sea. Inside,
cheeks flush from steady strokes
by unsteady hands as sheets tumble
in the dryer, cleaned of so many 
nervous salt deposits. A mother
spreads jagged crystals across
the front walk, a feeble flick from
calloused fingers trying to clear the
ice.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

What if we let all these
            spiraling hypotheticals
ripen on the vine, watched them twist
            and grasp their ways into
plump, juicy possibilities,
            futures we could compare,
rate by their weight and depth of their
            color before plucking?

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Starts aren’t always fresh
like snow coating hilltops, like
steamy bread billows wafting
from the oven, like bright rinds
and tart juice oozing from
the squeeze. Starts can be
fresh like teenage talkback
instead, impetuous and petulant,
asking for a raised hand, requiring
restraint and deep breaths,
clear heads and clear intent
to resist hand-me-down habits
and commit to their ends.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Hands clasp — learning creases,
smoothing rough spots, tender
and well-oiled — ready to grip. 
                         Grow deep; fly fast.

Seeds on the wind — blown
by smoke billows, licked by
flame — hunker and resettle.
                         Grow deep; fly fast.

Grids of ground stone — mortared
and pestled by peoples, mapped over
mountain and dale — crumble.
                         Grow deep; fly fast.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

We were made to create. The shape
of our palms carved to hold
another’s, to cup chins and warm
lower backs, the gentle pads
of our fingers, so sensitive to sharp
edges and hot flames, so ready
to curve around knives and matches,
to etch and whittle, to light and
warm, to slip gently around each
contour and learn each other,
our shapes. We were made to create.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Gaze fixed far ahead like the double-yellow
of a desert highway, straight on ’til morning,
we seek sweetness our childhoods couldn’t
savor. Ghosts cling to our coattails, crumpled
fists of misty memories flapping at our backs,
ready to reach through our hearts to grasp
at something just off our track. So we scritch
under their chins and pat their heads. No no,
dear ones, our prize still lies a ways away. Wait.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

practice     tangled roots     honor
timelines that aren’t ours     dig
    clear     unafraid of muck     protect
sacred spaces    the work is ongoing
    deeper     brief missives     tend seeds
we plant in each other     momentum
    head down     dirt under the nails

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

sparks fly from kindling
small caverns of air unearthed
so many treasures 

black ink orange iron
edit bend reword reframe
resist final forms

delicate and gone
tomes etched on papery whisps
smolder on within

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

The curl of sandalwood smoke and the twist
of sage, the crackling amber of citrine held
up in the morning sun, the spread, the support,
the release, the embrace, the promises
of the universe that you can’t break.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week