a ritual to start the work 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
love notes
a ritual to start the week
The bottom layer of gray breaks
briefly enough to reveal brilliance
that dances around us always,
a wide open reflection of our depth
and potential, of our history and
mystery. Returned to our corners,
these glimpses may be all
we get, may be all we need.
love notes
a ritual to start the week
Through a low ceiling of creeping
branches on a night when
the moon forgot how to shine,
a single lantern reveals
each step as it comes.
Yet by the time it peeks
its cautious head beyond
the tree line, the path behind
teems with needy seekers
who follow its soft warmth
and the shadow who holds it
high in the dense wooded depths,
the first star, rising anew.
love notes
a ritual to start the week
A leopard-spotted sky slides
toward sunrise, magnetized
by new whys, uncertain what
waits farther west. Birds fly
south or hunker down, dark
crosses crossing the yellow-
splotched blue to escape
the cold or folding
into themselves, nestling where
the prowling orange tabby below
can’t see. Trees shed their dresses,
cast their ballots down just
as they always have, naked
bark calling quietly upward, unsure
if their votes for growth and
for rest, recovery and rebirth
will be counted.
love notes
a ritual to start the week
Decades-old cheers tingle, echoing
upper-vertebrae open and
an army of forearm hairs
leap to attention remembering
a fandom becoming a family,
thousands of anonymous bodies
electrified by a perfect string
of shared moments.
love notes
a ritual to start the week
