Trust, a gift easier given than found
in myself, I learned safety only in
your arms, calm in your care, belief in your
abilities, not my own. Not knowing
and not caring to self-soothe, I craved the
embrace that brought peace to my crowded mind;
your support saved me. Yet in the quiet
unique to that shared solace, trust found a
way to grow inside me: the tiny voice
of my heart learning to beat in spite of
being broken-winged. I found a new ease
in my embrace of you, a safety in
this knot we tied together to face the
world as one: a light to end my darkness.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

to love is to move

to carry the brimming cup
from far off pools
to share in their purity

to push against the forces
of infringement
to fight for comfort and ease

to dance with exuberance
flowing freely
to energize and express

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

the beat
the trail
the book
the tree

it burns
it thrums
it grows
it speaks 

in turn
in green
in all
in steps

to love
to love
to love
to love

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

When the risks of our youth
make us wary and stiff,
look, my loves, to the children. 

When cuts that haven’t come
keep us callous and short-sighted,
look, my loves, to the children. 

When imaginary doom
isolates and paralyzes,
look, my loves, to the children. 

When loss hunches our shoulders
and pierces our spines,
look, my loves, to the children:

their open hands and open eyes,
their open arms and open chests
as they run, brazenly forward.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Full to spilling, we sit with our wonder:
How we’re becoming and what we’ve become,
How we’ve been shattered and how we’re still whole,
How in the water we’re lost and we’re found.

Glass on the bureau and sand on the beach
Clatters and tumbles like castles, like tears,
Like children down hills, like ice in a glass,
Like visions of who we thought we could be. 

Ache not for wishes that wash up on shores
Like driftwood or plastic or empty cans.
The pieces that leave us reveal us healed:
Freed of our yearning, we scar and we grow.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

waking, wondering
how pools took flight,
how fools pick fights
with dreams, how pages
cup could be’s and
cut seems and seams,
turn won’t go's green,
how youth knows what
justices miss: freedom
can only be taken
and we all suffer
the despair of thieves

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Clouds like krausen bubble
above us, pushed up and
over, spilling dead cells
and protein, plant matter
spent and stripped by hungry
little bodies that give 
themselves for themselves, we
yeasty beasties crowding
over each other to
hustle and make, farmer
and crop, below, focused
for generations, on
and only, to foment
society itself.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

left left
forgotten side
feeling weaker
needing work
balance owed
get even
take space
walk walk
step pivot
own own
crowned gowns
ate nines
tens flowers
gworl gawd
finding strength
fixing power
favored wing
right right

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Bloom, baby, bloom
That’s all and that’s only
Open your light and glow
The world is your dance floor

Bloom, baby, bloom
That’s all and that’s only
Curl and twirl, unfurl
The change is inside you

Bloom, baby, bloom
That’s all and that’s only
Bud out and lose control
Your now is your always

Bloom, baby, bloom
That’s all and that’s only
Rise up and be seen
We need all your colors

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Palms, like poems,
can open like petals,
offering us moments
to take in and touch,
sharing, making theirs
ours.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week

Poesy pauses on pursed lips,
poised to open its pink bits 
with one final silent push,
all breath and soft petals,
its pronouncement more word-bloom 
unfolding its empathy
than some predatory pounce 
by the hungry young puss-puss 
currently crouched and peering 
up at the perched birds who peck
at seed piles, small plant-pouches
waiting for their beginnings.

---

love notes
a ritual to start the work week