The wish in your eyes,
the word on your tongue
    leaps to be seen and change me.

The fire in your gut,
the hope in your heart
    burns and billows and beseeches.

We reach for the right way
    and find the road washed out.
We heave for a quiet place
    and only hear from our doubt.
We grieve and we breathe
    and we step forward on swords,
stab the ground with each step
    toward our wars with ourselves.

The moon eats the sun,
the seas eat the moon
    and we build a boat and set sail.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Eyes on the tries: time sighs
as fire flies. The wise revise
when lines turn lies. So why,
my prize, not try to rise?
Why grind? Why so dry? Why
so wry? Why not cry? Why
not rhyme? Why not align
your spine and find your sky?

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Fern spikes sprout cranial
and wild, bright ideas
speckled with creamsicle
clouds and papery smoke
puffs. Blades droop,
a cluster of upturned mops
with winding and forked handles. Tiny
smiling umbrellas huddle
and hang like the stringy
threads of moss that recline
restful on the sofa. A pane
of forest reaches over
a bough-crowded frame,
striped with vines that spit
broad palms, open and hungry
for sun. Gold cuts
through ceaseless green.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

A stampede of clouds hurtle
over Lake Michigan, make
leopard spots on the surface,
teal and cerulean faux-fur
flecked white in the wind. Sand bars
ripple, zebra stripes reaching
north-south beneath the east-west
push of the water. Checks
and stripes of city blocks
and boulevards, paisley parks
that curve aortic into the hearts
of neighborhoods, each pattern
feels closer than the last
until we touch down
on the yellow-hemmed tan suit
that buttons this city to every other,
all business, lined with caution
and a wink, a welcome.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

brows rise, sweat clouds rain
on this pea soup of a day
— “because it’s August”

small feet thump, groove tunes
hum from old speakers, still crisp
— “Dance, No One’s Watching”

tables of empty
cups, clean plates and full bellies
— “thanks for being here”

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Facing unfamiliar faces, it’s easy
to turn and face the sea
instead, look into
endlessness as if it were knowable,
or known. It’s easy
to opt out of
unknowns in front of us,
self-select for safety
and tell ourselves
it’s exclusion. It’s easy
to turn away from
our fear of being seen and
face the perfection outside
ourselves, forgetting
our part in it.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

One for the spark to start anew.
    Light the wick. Melt the wax.

Two for the flame ’tween me and you.
    Feed the fire. Keep it back.

Three for the blaze that lives to grow.
    Light the wick. Melt the wax.

Four for the torch that holds the glow.
    Feed the fire. Keep it back.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

Patience, friends, we are
    but human: bound
to pack and stack
    each muddy brick
on our endless quest
    toward the sky.
They leave our hands
    weary, our feet
worn, but our hearts,
    bellies and eyes
never check their reach.
    Upward, we strive,
slowly molding impossible hopes
    into our reality.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

The leaves are not the tree’s clothes
but its mouths, scarfing
up sun to inch ever closer
to what feeds them. The mountain
does not shroud itself in shrubs
out of shame, it shows itself —
a home left unlocked, daring
us to loot it. The smell of upturned soil is
a blessing, a thank you
for taking up the invitation laid
at our feet. Only we
felt the need to cover her
as we cover ourselves. Open up
my loves: let us in. Share
the letter your bones send to your skin.
Fold it into your palm and slip
it between my vertebrae, make me
lean in, inch ever closer
to what feeds me.

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

your fire soothes like summer rain
my icy blood gushing
deluginous through gutters
deep inside me delusion
rises to my mind dumps its drowsy
steam into synapses burdens
their gaps with aplomb
emptied into puddles
and cleansed of portents
leaving only cascades of
potential pride
in its place to reign

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love notes
a ritual to start the week

look in to             look out for
yourself: find       signs of yourself
radiating                in others:
riches within        their hearts expand
your heart             into cracks
like gold               to heal them:
and behold           your soul
how it glows         made whole

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love notes
a ritual to start the week