Which way home? At once everywhere and nowhere I have become a stranger to myself mute to sigh, sing, grieve I long to know the truest thing but have lost both west and east now only a citizen of this middle kingdom
Tag: poetry
Sleepless
These sleepless years how many now? There are directions for every finger to point I'm weary of explaining with exhausted words More than sleep I miss my soul These dreamless years how many now?
Olema
Follow the road out through the wet wood breathe there where the path ends Twists and undulations windows down know the curves as your own body Cross and climb the rise gravel crunches welcome black dog barks and wags keeps pace as you drift, stop Door unlocked even in the dark the way is marked by lift of laundry and smoke Wherever you are wandering the wide world know you may turn today to find home
Stones
When I go let me leave only words no other mark or monument If you must stack stones let them swim from a river or stumble from a field Know that this dissolution this resolution greeted me as a friend
Vernacular
You never knew the ones who loved me first and most places I remembered myself with ease those many splendid little markers that cried out: home! home! You knew me only as a stranger in a strange land liminal lover versed in your vernacular and not my own
The One
I am the one who got away you say When I hear that story I remember How much it took for me to drag myself free Limping toward the promise of something better without you
Two
Oh, Sugar I wish I didn't know what it's like to love two at a time To love the vowed and the dislocated longing across distances gripping the messages from that other world Belonging everywhere and nowhere at once I wish I didn't know the ache of wanting something different for your children than you need for yourself I wish I knew the way to be two
No Feeling
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Rainer Maria Rilke
One day I might be brave and let happiness befriend me. Then I will know everything can be trusted to happen just as it needs to. I will know that you can be overtaken by beauty and inexplicable peace and find ways to meet terror without being devoured by it. Just know that this is not a secret to keep but to share: we are all going home together. There is no loneliness too vast; each feeling can become a gateway to what is most true, beautiful and final.
He Asks
Have I missed my chance? He asks too late I have already packed up my projections the people I thought you were and put them in the bin
Impermanence
I like things spare Tell myself I'm embracing the true nature of experience: impermanence In this way I borrow my life without owning it Today I wish most to exhale into no-thing-ness But no matter how empty I still have enough to give away
This Verse 