a ritual to start the work week
being is braving
flowing is fierce
seeing is saving
knowing can pierce
armor forged over centuries
ribs hardened around hearts
aching arches and bended knees
heave beneath our broken parts
kneeling renews us
dissonance rethinks
feeling refuels us
listening relinks
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
fold myself like paper
to find my length
sighing thru the stubborn bits
that resist the bend
not quite creasable
so crowded with scribbled sentiments
dashed off promises
crossed and dotted
forgotten and blotted
that the sheaves of blank sheets
lined up behind
lay lost from sight
smell their freshness
as they slide
fish slipping thru weeds
wishing on sun wrinkles
fleeting glimmers
waiting to be wonder filled
some new awe to be held
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
This Purse of Doubts you cherish so,
praise high above, keep deep below,
that you fill and you pack as you go-go-go,
do you know what it holds? Do its earnings grow?
I see its weight behind your eyes,
can hear its heft inside your sighs.
I know that it seems a manageable size
to bear through the trudging on which life relies.
But stop and slip your hand within,
remove a coin, so bright and thin.
Now rub off the glimmer of where fear has been
to learn that it's rubbish, so you can begin.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
capillary swell high tide
moon-murk swirl full delta
tendrils flooded big ohs
gone and going bend and reach
rich mighty slow heavy roll
branches breath ebb sigh flow
cycular sudden slips easy now
ooohhh red lips round aaahh
crease corners return in
held full glowing wide shine
for given word marsh all out
to seep sweeping trickle fan
oh how deep our river runs
I a m b l oo d re f r e sh e d
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
How can I square
your thoughts and prayers,
your vows and oaths to change, for growth
with all the fear
that keeps you here
so sad and still, no drive, no will?
Perhaps our lines
will never meet,
my spirals mine to find, complete,
and your tower
yours to protect.
Slept-on power can not affect.
So if I must
unearth my own,
then let my gratitude be known.
I need not throne.
I need not crown
to tear your broken systems down.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
the tip of the spear
the flat of the coin
pricked and pressed
prepared to stack
to stand to grind
to join the grip
of your hand the awe
of your gaze resolved
renewed and relieved
to see to breathe
to prove to praise
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
Quiet can settle and firm like soil:
rich with potential, heavy and dark.
Press it into your palms.
Quiet can blow and flutter like breeze:
lifting hair and leaf, sliding over skin.
Spread your fingers for it.
Quiet can flicker and burn like flame:
warm and bright, expanding.
Keep it carefully nearby.
Quiet can spill and flow like stream:
pouring over and into itself, slippery.
Cup your hands to cleanse and sip.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
Hands spin ticking off old hours
our fingertips flick past fresh posts
ghosts of silent laughs and gasps
grasping at our backs and beckoning
us toward reckoning with the rewards
hard won and wired into our brains
trained to fire joy off like guns
automatically responding to thumbs
and hearts and hands replicated
insatiable thirst for perception
desperately fearing deflection
destruction of our carefully framed
faces and names wild places tamed
racing to bottomless brunch mimosas
forever refreshing but never
addressing our pulpy fictions
friction bubbling under sunny skies
wise words forgotten as bunny hops
cops tried and the crying never stops
just so many digital tears
tearing through our motherboards
another hoarder holding the heat
taken and shade thrown under
thundering buses backed up
stuck and cussing out cups and
handcuffs for cutting us in line
time and time and time and time
wasted worrying who when what
why and why and why and why
hold that which can not stop?
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
I come to myself my phone in one hand and a candle in the other
set for the expansive, expanding universes they reveal.
One we fall through in tandem, hand-in-hand,
float and flit, flicked and flowing, swept
by so many streams. But the other,
this webbed and dusty attic,
must be mine alone.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
If I can't be your beacon,
let me be your bay,
if not your bay,
your shore,
or hoist your arms up wide
and hold my breeze.
Let me carry you
and you me.
Whether we stand apart,
deep seas between us,
or sail atop them,
shipmates,
we sing the only melody
either of us knows,
our voices wide
and high.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
One more stone is all the cairn can hold;
earth's riches move lump by lump.
Two is too is to juggle is to drop;
each blaze only lights the way to the next.
Three assemble forming four and five hums;
multiplied, seep to flood and flow to rush.
Six feet clear an easy path for seven, alone.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
