Breath slips over the bend of my bottom lip and swiftly
unfurls into the space above my kitchen-table-desk
setting little bits of me-stuff about, dancing their ways
around Shift keys, paper days and the spatulas beyond,
an invisible do-si-do. 

There’s no knowing these days
if those twirling air-bits — mine and now no longer mine — 
hold dangerous potential, some villainous plot afoot
to take up drying dishes and tango them half to death
with lecherous delight, or if childlike they flit and flop.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

New growth slices up through soaked soil,
Fingering its way to heaven, bursting. 
Pushes aside worms and pebbles to feel
Warm sun pulsate and energize, rises,
Back arched and face lifted upward with an 
Elated grin. Beaming. Its arms reach out,
Palms open for morning breeze to tip-toe
Between its fingers; a cool embrace that
Gently lifts it into half-flight, grounded,
Afloat on air pillows, brave as a child 
Spinning high above an uncle’s embrace.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

That’s more like it, we decide,
Chin reaching most of the way
Over shoulder, eyes slipping
Out into the downpour, jaw clenched. 

Clouds of rain blow off roof-tops
To blend with fresh hordes, their weight
Somehow crippling and nothing 
At all. Blustering about. Dead,

Yet somehow living. Breath 
Fills air pockets with new wealth, 
Face slackens, blinds open wide,
And eyes slide back to other windows.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Thanks be to the blue of the sky,
Crystalline, serene and pale.
Thanks be to the breeze at my back
That reaches around my gait.
Thanks be to the ground underfoot,
So supportive of my stance.
Thanks be to the soil that holds
All our secrets. All our ghosts,
Thanks be to their slow, icy gaze
As it ripples down my spine.
Thanks is all I can give the days,
All that I feel can be mine.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

How many millions of chirps, I wonder, 
Screeched from the throats of starlings
Over hundreds and thousands of years
Til the particular tone and tenor
Of the specimen out my window
Could scratch so precisely in my ears. 

How many mornings, called out from under
Heavy blankets and eyelids, my darlings,
Will we wake, brew the coffee, pace the room,
Sip and circle back home before
We sit at makeshift desks and go
About overhauling old patterns via Zoom?

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

I’m so sorry for my delay, my loves,
Grave matters kept me away. 
Apologies for my tardy oding, my loves,
For the world hangs heavy today. 
The ache in my chest held me still, my loves,
And the terror silenced my hope to say
That I need you all so deeply, my loves,
To help keep my demons at bay. 
I grow weary of fighting them off, my loves,
As this sickness leads nerve astray.
And I fear my fear spreads within, my loves, 
Winding thickly around my DNA.
So please forgive me the time to repeat, my loves,
I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay...

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Batten down the hatches! Take cover! Hide! 
An army of invisible nuisance has risen far and wide.
Prepare to sit in solace, out the wave to ride.
Take up your sanitizer and hydrogen peroxide.

In soap and suds and bubbles, your secrets to confide,
But don’t forget the water. Skin, shriveled and dried,
Needs warmth and care and oil. Keep it well moisturized.
And keep your heart a-pumping. Laughs laughed. Tears cried.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

little hearts
pulsing with
scribbled-ink
sentiments
flutter down
from footbridge
to brook rush
taken up
and sent out
near and far
first just one
but soon love
floods and flows
from creeks and
streams into
rivers and
lakes and seas
spreading like
tiny germs
that take root
in water
and our air
searching for
some body
to beat in

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Like tiny feet hopping around the floor of my heart,
your absence from my everyday thumps and thrums,
a happy, playful reminder that, though we’re apart,
our fondness finds each other and gently drums—

some circles of stretched skin that hum in the dark,
steadily echoing around fire’s flickering tease:
the rhythm that tracked howl’s slow turn to bark,
and monkey’s unending march from the trees.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Poking through piles on piles on piles —
the weekend’s amassing;
the slack from those missing;
and bigger things approaching — he smiles
in the warmth of friendly light.

Though the Monday morning depth
has him weighted, under pressure,
lists awaiting, cracks and fissures
to patch and fill, he stops for breath.
“One plus one plus one... that’s right.”

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week

How, one wonders, could a Tuesday be
such like a dreaded Monday that we
waddle to work, all dazed and dull
despite an extended end-week lull?

Perhaps, one thinks, it's just one of time's traps --
as night swaps with day when ending our naps,
or years fall like paper-days to office floor
while love stretches moments to eons and more.

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love notes
a ritual to start the work week