Strength, they told me,
builds not from strain
itself but in
the breaks—
a needed rest
to let the notes
linger—
the lion tamed.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
Neighbor, spare a spoon?
Whether king or key,
love knows no closed doors.
We all serve its grace,
cup our hands to pass
the warm bowl, ladle
and loaf. Care and crown
bowing before bare
cupboards and empty
hands, unlocking
them, filling the void
to open it further.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
Clouds may thicken
before they float,
those supposed shadows
that splash and flop
as the tides swap.
Sapped, like sheets made
blank again, or
a shared hatchet,
dull and rusty,
after the gush
and roll, their gray
lightens, sliced gold.
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
belly and breast
begging for rest
for action and
empathy for
doing and done
held in careful
hands and let fly
into orbit
yellow powered
by blue green lit
up with red these
oppositions
churn up the soul
stormy and whole
love notes
a ritual to start the work week
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