some random physics
will determine which
lucky air particle
will swirl sporadically
through open doors
and eager ducts
to feed my
oxygen-starved soles,
gently pressed together
in folded welcome,
while identical forces
leave other bits
of breeze and
atmosphere hanging, unused,
in my windpipe,
now so desperate
to dispel them,
let some wander
beyond these windows
ever upward and
feed others savagely
to the ravenous
orange flame set
before me reaching
upward, ever upward,
for its life

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

breath-swollen hands open slowly
finger-cage to platter top: 
a morning offering

skin invisible: pitcher and 
planter, globe and lung, smooth-hard
delicate-durable

double-walled reservoir holds calm
potential in earth-basin,
flame flinches, thought-billows

complex gifts; one-and-one-and-one
is four, seven—I hold you
inside me even now: 

churn, settle, flicker, fill

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Where did you come from?
How do I know?
How do I trace you back,
follow footprints and crumbs,
take the twine, feel it slide
between my finger and my thumb
as I inch my way to the root,
dirt pushed under my nails?
Who blows the wind in your sails? 
And if I knock on their door
with the rain at my back,
hair slicked and mud-flicked
from my nose in your tracks,
would they see my filthy face
and open their arms
as you do? 
What earth nourished you?
What fire burned?
And would I feel answered
if I sought and I learned
how you love me?

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

When I asked you what I can give,
you just looked me straight in the eye, 
smiled faintly as you blinked twice
and said, “be whole.” 

I have nothing
if not myself. I won’t always
forget to breathe when the world plays
a hand for keeps and bets my soul.

Hold me, hold me, hold me.
So I can breathe, so I can see, so I can be.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

anchored well below
her power casts me
forward my shadow
ripples on ghastly
waves left murmuring 

net stretched and billows
jaw oped to catch free
streaming notes that float
teem unnaturally
swallowed and circling

fuel sickens unfroze
ice worlds drop crackly
returning screen snows
fizzle to wracked sea
soar on fertile wings 

With the moon at our backs we can voyage triumphantly through
dangerous and cold waters for the sun.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Restacking discs strewn about by some
not-quite-four-year-old’s temper tantrum
that toppled their tower and spread them
disordered across the playroom floor,

carefully placing these wooden coins,
stained red and blue, green and yellow — toys
cut and smoothed to tune small hands and spoils
to earn and lose, cherish and trade — for

now, at least, one atop another:
we realign what may fall over
again into rainbows, forever
arching fleetingly to something more.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Loops completing, now set right in the sky,
their recrossings, our regressions,
just a trick of the eye 

Frozen vapor-bits join with leaves, all dry,
and spiral back to earth, return
to warmth, settle and sigh

Cycles renew us, reroot us, revive;
when autumn reveals us, our bones
regrow from tears once cried

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Two eyes flicker between disparate suns,
drawn away by the gravity of days.

Fluttering lashes wipe clean double guns,
aimed and re-aimed by my fiery gaze.

Stretched beyond peripheral bounds, I won-
der how each route loops into the same maze.

Behind stone facings, stitching never done,
the mind weaves old threads into a new phase:

Strands twisted infinitely into one;
the curl of smoke emitted by two flames.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

As the night rises in the valley,
Listen, friends, for the water.
When the howls itch at your spine,
Feel its weight return you.

As the fire lights up the mountains,
Listen, friends, for the water.
When the smoke tears up your eyes,
Feel its weight return you.

As the streets tremor in the city,
Listen, friends, for the water.
When injustice crumples your skin,
Feel its weight return you.

As the bedsheets dampen with fever,
Listen, friends, for the water.
When your hand can’t comfort and grasp,
Feel its weight return you.

As the dawn whispers of new life,
Listen, friends, for the water.
When it drips and streams and rushes,
Feel its weight return you.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Our center crowded out by clouds,
I carried my own sun with me,
a small flame to focus on and 
find within me, tethered below
the surface, reaching up and out. 

Driving through rain past weary heads,
I chose to laugh and not to weep,
lightness in my chest to carry 
me onward to a grind that can
not shatter, simply reshape or 

refract it into a fine mist. 
I take and remake it with each 
breath, press its resilience into 
letter after letter, spaces
to hold our hope, recentered here.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Warrior: one whose depth hides her strength and
readiness inside a broad brush-stroke, ink
lifted up skyward by thin bristles while
deep-rooted. Warrior to her troops: set
on your prize, hold steady, invisible
behind the foci of your aura’s wide
ellipse, taut bow-string. Warrior, three
points guide you: holding you one-footed in
the lead-up, reaching your fingertips far
into the future’s fog, yet rooted, still.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week