triptych temperature

Here's three pieces that pretty much sum up where my writing, and therefore: my head, has been lately.

---

Whether I follow a religion or just

observe these rituals as ways we seek Truth:

I am okay with that space.

I believe in a god-force. She- if I had to label a gender- is not

the wife of a nuclear family, silently vacuuming up our messes in her pearls.

She is active, moving, reeling through time and space.

She is Love embodied and Love unspoken. 

Omnicient, Omnipresent, Eternal, sure.

But She is not all-powerful.

She gave that up when She made this world

She gave that up when She gave us this earth

and the tools to destroy it.

She watches, She cries.

But She also handed me this aluminum can

filled me with fire,

and I’ll leave my rebel mark

graffiti colored Love

all over this broken down rock

and call it Beautiful.

— love rebellion, or: Break the F*cking Rules

---

I’m up to the ears—hairline— lord god I’m just fully underwater

with social media perfection

top-view portraits of world travelers’ brunch dates

hipster thick sliced toast, avocado roses

hashtag mimosas hashtag darlingweekend

soft pink and cream palettes and capsule wardrobes

air bnb wooden beam ceilings in mountains of Vermont

ivy covered doorways with baguettes

instagram mommas and instagram husbands,

babies and beach bods and growing up and isn’t it all

perfectly imperfect—

holy mother of little baby lord jesus christ I need a break.

need to spend my time apart from Interminable Comparison 

to find out what is here, what is still here:

who is still here.
 

— journey through Adult Assery

---

what sorts of things wait in that adult darkness?

it’s not creepy crawlies or tentacles under the bed-

it’s running that red light by accident,

it’s frowning at cellulite after years of self help books

it’s when we talk about love and you don’t believe in it

it’s Darkness, and only Darkness

it’s money troubles, it’s finding time, it’s cancer.

If I could get myself out

alone,

I would.

— I'm scared too, but we'll make it 




love,
bek

 
 

earth day is every day

Thoughts on the earth, which is the cosmos, which is the Truth

---------

Are we on the back of a whale,

riding the sea like a cruise ship

strapped to the back of a marine placental animal;

holding our collective breath

when the rogue mammal dives deep

to feed, to live?

If she is our warm-blooded mother,

slipping into the sea after land evolution

grew too tiresome

if she is our ride through life

this in one fucking hell of a jaunt,

I must say.

But she knows sacrifice.

She knows the extended song

of grief

she echoes her viscous melancholy

throughout the oceans wide.

She travels thousands of miles

to the Earth’s equator to give birth;

calf after calf after calf dying

at the hand of our foolishness

we've been hunting her down for years

for oil to burn,

bones to carve;

corralling her to perform tricks;

her dying over and over in captivity

and all the while we are

dumping toxins over the edge of this ship

on her back

onto her body, into her mouth

infecting her water, her air

stifling the life of our caregiver—

Could we have honestly expected anything different?

------

“The sky looks like it could kill,” he said

as we watched the dark turbulence roll towards us;

we were sitting nonchalantly, dangling bare feet

over the pier; the ocean rippling in

preparation; our old shoes and socks laying lifeless

at my hip.

It could, you know. Kill us.

The universe has no

thought to us.

It’s constant quest

is a search for a balance, that

homeostasis

which is heartless, unfeeling.

Perhaps not evil, but not compassionate, either. 

It's a toss up.

Maybe it could kill. After all, lightning split

the tree next to my parents’ house

straight down the middle

its blackened tar burn

along a jagged edge

of something that tried to be alive.

The wind can make a funnel

that takes you away.

The water cycle, which is the sky,

which is the earth,

can rain, storm, hurricane and flood

when we least expect it

it can freeze us to death in ice

it can boil us alive where the delicate

ozone has started to disintegrate.

The terra firma, which is the ground,

which is the earth

can give way, tsunamis and famines

drown us or whither us away to nothing

The universe has

no thought to us.

But, as a thought bearing soul

in what seems like a vapid chaos,

perhaps it is my job

to have a thought for us.

It’s a burden, to care for everything

to break the planet’s fever

to feed the young

to weep for injustice

to plant trees and sit in their shadows

to rescue the lost

to save the exiled.

It's too much.

But this sneaking thought,

trifling, skirting around my mind-

which is the heart, which is the cosmos,

which is the Truth

slowly growing

like a creakily opening fist

gently, stiff and hurting

from holding on so tightly; slowly

unclenching the world:

the words are small. 

 

if I give some of this to you,

we can do this

together.

 

sing a sweet song of catharsis

a bit of barely-edited work I wrote in writing group the last two hours. It endlessly fascinated me how three different prompts yield three different works, but there always seems to be a through-line. I never know my brain until I start writing, and even then...

1

the tendrils of our roots

intertwine. I don’t know

what’s yours

and what’s mine.

but we’re stitched together,

you and I

bound up like dry twigs

ready to burn with the world.

2

I know you are there.

Sometimes you’re the bird, and I’m the cage

and sometimes we switch

I don’t know which I like more

to hold you, or to be held

3

these steps to my heart are small,

like rungs of a dollhouse ladder.

you can scurry up them

and get here quickly.

and just as swiftly

you may also leave

4

There are ancient scrolls that say

many great things

many great things

many terrible things

about the world

how it was made, how it died

while God flew over

and watched us burn the world

over and over and over

and over and over and over and over

----

I was really going there.

Those were the two sides you needed

and I, of course, had been all of those.

It’s a dirty place, scattered and

I don’t remember thinking

"she’s just lost her mind"

I just think:

most of the good things

toward the end

was a bit like love

I didn’t cry

the first time I saw it.

I didn’t go up with tears

in my eyes

I said “Mine.”

You hated me for that

and I thought it too.

You said ,

“You only get an exciting chase

once.”

I could hardly breathe

I was just part of the landscape

along with drugs and a big glass ashtray

turned upside down.

You sat on a glacier

snorting cocaine

and I quit until I became sober enough

for you to stitch me

together

I should have done it

differently.

--

the bird cried

the ice caps are melting!

the ice caps are melting!

into the sea!

into the sea!

I was aware once

of things that brought me joy

I used to know how to fade like a gradient

into the background of the party

and be happy enough there

the textures of people places and things

adjusting, scooching, scraping in such a way

to make the world a bright light

you could see from space.

I was known once, by a man

who knew my name that no one else did

he asked me

min qalbi? Who is my heart?

in broken Arabic I answered “ana” “I am.” 

ana

min eayni? Who is my eyes?

ana

min habbi? Who is my love?

ana habibi.

min rruhi? Who is my soul?

ana

ana

ana

Then,

You went away, I do not know you.

You disappeared, melted, sunk, drowned

like those ice caps

just as the bird said:

into the sea!

into the sea!

min habbi alan?

min habbi alan?
 

who is my love now?

Spring Equinox: Her

This is a quick piece I wrote last night during my Sunday night writing group. It has not been edited and it is not finished, but as it is Spring Equinox today I figured I would share it anyway. But enough of these apologies. Here.

---

Her legs grow up from underground, her spine is the equator;

Hot and electric,

each vertebrae stacking

and un-stacking as she spreads herself across the globe.

 Her brain stem the core of the world.

The tectonic plates of her shoulders press together

when she’s worried or upset;

relaxing into deep waters when she sleeps.

Each limb is an ecosystem

And she has many;

More than you can count

Each arm emergent and bustling with busy lives

of bees and inchworms, katydids and whales

half of which are dying out

as she watches, giving all of herself but losing it all the same.

It’s a bit morbid, to think of her there- buried in the ground

sprouting trees from acorns fallen into animal carcasses.

But she is not alone. She has the world to care for.

And as a mother, there is nothing else but your offspring,

to offer. Your womb’s handiwork, your baby blues

blinking at the Sun,

gazing upwards from the oceans--

You are only one, but you are not the only one.

Life is powerful. It can be
powerfully destructive:
tearing babes from mothers' chests
ripping through dead rain forests like a dragon
breathing fire
sucking dry
the oceans that feed us,
spreading famine of
tears that make us beating hearts;
spilling blood
on unholy ground
as the dying rivers cry
their songs of weariness--

But we
who rise from the ashes 
over and over again, 
dawning like a phoenix flecked with gold
after choking on the dust, after 
breaking every limb; 
climbing the spines of our own backs 
up again
and again
and again
racing our hearts to beat
faster, live longer,
love deeper.
 
We are the beauty of this world. 
We can 
claim that for ourselves and 
be beautiful and free, 
in spite of the slavery.

Wash yourself. Again and again.

Be beautiful.
Build your life
as if it were a work of art.
You fall, get back up. Be brave.
Tell your truth. Live.
This is what beauty is.
And you are a part of it.

Once, all at once, I saw it all

When I listen to the world,
besides the never ending ringing in my ears
and the air vents vibrating the room
and my dog having a dream
and the microwave telling my mother her leftovers are done
and the cuckoo clock ticking in the front hall
and my fingers plunking away and scratching my chest
and the air rushing in my lungs and out
and the birds outside the window
and all the other noises these sounds are drowning out:
is it silent? No. The world is not silent.
The world is telling us what needs doing, all the time.
Learn, and Listen
with ears
with eyes
with closed mouths
with open mouths--
the music of it all,

the cacophony. The dissonant humming
making its way
in through our ear canals
up into our brains and
down into our hearts
where it echoes like lost love
as it grieves its own death
and rejoices in its new birth.

Once, all at once,
I saw it all.
All at once.
Crying and laughing and crying and laughing
louder and louder against
the wind and the darkening clouds while the ground gets ready
the tide creeping up carrying messages from the deep sea
the moonrise a year in the making:
the empty moon, blacked out and hollow like
an empy heart
ready to be filled.

That is how the world answers me
when I ask
What do you need?
Your heart.
Your heart.
Your heart.

little t's

I looked back one day

and instead of the dutiful structural wall

I expected to be standing, marking the path I had been walking

the past few years:

each stone set on a foundation of Truths

most little t’s, with some big T Truths

God is Love, and Love is Real-

But that day, whenever it was exactly,

I turned around and found a little gremlin

was smashing around making a mess of it all-

even the foundation stones were crushed.

I wept, grieved for a while.

I was angry some. Heaven disappeared

and god was a deepening mystery

I read philosophers.

Nietzsche has plenty to say

But so does Abraham Heschel

and how Wonder is all he ever asked for

and god gave it to him.

I take this back to my wall.

Caputo steeps in the weakness of god:

unstable, barely functional-

I take some of this back to my wall.

Grace Jantzen reminds me that Deconstruction

is a way to reconstruction.

I take this back to my wall.

I wrestle with the gremlin for a year or two,

then decide to take a break because it’s exhausting

spending every moment in existential skepticism

and I’m just tired, damnit

god damnit.

yes, god, damn it, please.

If you’re there, if you have any power left

damn it.

and I’m just gonna take a break

and if that’s okay with you,

I’m gonna just let this go for now

so I can start breathing normally.

I go from being angry

inside the eternal dark night of my Kierkegaard-ian soul

waiting for the rubble to make itself a wall again, to pave itself

ahead of me, and

getting angry when it didn't—

To just letting the world happen to me;

listening to the words of poets

Who have long gone before me-

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” Rumi.

Who have known things closer than I could explain,

“Let everything happen to you; beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.” Rilke.

Who comforted me in my state,

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body

loves what it loves.” Mary Oliver.

Music saved me. Theatre is my Church. Art is my prayer.

Words have so much power if you let them.

So let them.

And then, one day, you may find yourself

asking those small, eternal questions again;

the wall crumbly but giving it a go-

the gremlin tamed and even cuddly. And then

meekly, like a child whispering in her mother’s ear:

“I love you,” to which she responds

“I loved you first.”

On Growing

1

it feels like cold liquid metal climbing your neck

sealing off airways

solidifying your upper vertebrae

and brain stem into a

silver statue

while your jaw spasms

tilting your head backward until all you can see is up

muscles tightening, backing into a dim corner

and it goes dark.

Sometimes it’s just for a moment-

I’m sitting on the stairs in front of the kitchen door

shoes on, ready to go

but something invisible grips me

and I can’t move my body

Sometimes it’s for a long time- days even.

Laying still, crooked but frozen,

a week of night sweats still in my sheets

as the only protection I have from facing myself

and the possibility of the world.

it makes breathing hard, burning like that

it makes you sink into the floor like lava--

the kind you’d avoid as a kid

hopping couch cushions and chairs--

is now what your body is made of.

disappear, wane, vanish, seep away

and every other word or phrase

I can think of to describe

that darkness

and what it makes my head do

I just want to dissipate, dissolve,

disappear--

and then, light.

I can’t explain it

it’s my mothers’ arms

it’s naming green objects in the room

it’s the final slam of the door

or my face on the floor

sobbing into the grass and then

turning over to the sun in my face.

remembering love

remembering breathing

remembering light. life. living.

Remembering beauty and terror.

both things

inseparable

two sides of the same coin

the back and palm of your hand

the curve and the concave

the wave and the particle light

the ultimate paradox

the only thing I call

Truth.

2

There are many things I wish I could do

dance professionally

grow as many botanicals as I wanted

decide the weather

I have my poor-man’s version of my dreams:

I work and stretch my muscles every day

I have a large assortment of herbs growing and

bundles hanging around the house

drying for tea as autumn settles into my stomach.

but I ache to be the best version of myself.

whatever she is.

I dream of her, see visions of her

sometimes catch glimpses of her:

early mornings with coffee and my dog outside

watching her discover every single leaf in the yard

and carry it triumphantly over to me.

I should treasure my possessions

like she does:

delight in every single leaf in the yard.

My lemon catnip tea from my garden

and my bundles of lavender hanging

upside down.

Be in awe of my body holding on through waves

that can crush bodies alive.

To stand in awe, that here, she is:

in the mirror, post-anxiety attack

after crying or anger or joy

after laughing with friends or burning a candle

to look her in the eye

to stand in awe of her

of that version of me;

no better than five-minute ago me

no worse either,

and say

She

is the best version

of me.

3

I came home today with

a bundle of oregano that took two hands to carry inside

a fistful of thyme, a skirt-full of lemon catnip,

a fortune of lavender blossoms and four tomatoes.

There are still five bell peppers swelling

and three dark purple eggplants dropping slowly

from their leafy perches

and still a forest of curly kale.

The squash leaves are withered

and the sunflowers stand their mournful

beautiful ground

only their eyes saw the summer bees

and bunnies

playing in my garden.

They are echoes, those large heads

stalks three fingers wide

of the former days

of early Spring leaning graciously into Summer

I think of my own cycle, echoing the seasons-

echoing the sunflower heads bowed

some of my stems broken; petals brown and dried

like tissue paper.

I was tall, once. Bending towards the sun

I was majestic; colorful; fuel for the bees’ sacred mission--

and I am now cold, dry, like tissue paper

and just as defenseless. Susceptible to water,

damage, fire, frost.

But inside me

are echoes of those summer heads:

ideas floating like bursts of life

the many seeds of new lives that are coming

and one day, I too

will dig deep my feet

and grow again.