ghosts.

the dead rise.

the skin peels back and dry red threads spill out.

the terror did not go with your going.

I heard your voice thunder down on me.

your sharp, cracked hooves split the ground where I stood.

You reigned down. like rain.

wet and feral and fierce.

all bluster and blame,

hissing like a pot boiled over.

"black. black. black." you cried,

branding me with your rage.

for a moment, I stumbled.

struck by a sudden blow, my feet faltered.

I recover.

Feet firm, connecting to the roots that stretch me into my strength and power,

I brush off this dust and dirt, grit and gravel, stone and stampede.

hear this.

you faceless, fearful force of fury.....

you are smoke and mirrors,

nothing to me.

whatever bones you occupy, I will forever recognize your stench

and I will not bend or melt because of it.

I recover.

Your wave after wave of terrible storms is nothing but spit on the wind.

I no longer run from you.

I will stand and stare into your empty eyes and all your hauntings will lose their shape.

Without my fear, you don't stand a chance.

This hand of mine that holds this end of thread,

holds this end of thread softly.

I am woven by my ancestors

and, with my ancestors, I will dance,

joyfully.

The legacy of monsters does not continue with me.

receive.

winter is wrapping around me,

stilling my skin and bones, breaking my impulse to move.

my skin is a shiver and shake.

the day crawls from a crouch to a low lean, never quite standing tall,

never quite in motion.

I've submerged myself in music and musings,

searching my soul for a song.

now, the evening breathes heavily down my neck and I am to break from the ice to go discovering.

a pause in the words to hear a story about beauty in all the impossible places.

and, I wonder, and I wish,

can I learn to let this in?

I'd begun to memorize the script of the old days; the hollowed out soliloquies, the surrenders to stone.

Is this a trick of the light, this dazzling light?

I keep waking to a smile stretched across my dreaming, I keep feeling the weight of my heart being held.

All this summer seeping into my room, tearing off the blankets and languishing in the simmer; a coastline of gold placed in my palm.

a gift, a gift, a gift.

and a thank you.

garden.

We arrive upon a garden, wild with abuse or abandon,

and discover in our hands, the magic of how to invite things to grow.

Our fingers dig and reach rock and root and riches.

Our arms ache with the abundance of earth.

We have come here to plant and sow and weed and grow,

to know the things we nurture,

to call each flower by its name.

How sudden and sweet to realize, it is we who are tended and grown by this garden.

Every bloom that arises, a perfect surprise.

Our own revealed colors, a mystery.

terra incognita

a wide, white ribbon

is the stretch of the arms of the gods,

meeting my reach and surrender.

it is time to lay down on this solid green earth

and laugh.

the unshakeable hideouts are shaking.

light is shimmering on every blade of grass.

it is time to stand up in this everclear sky

and cry.

sorrow has come and gone; loneliness, too.

that old, weathered road is starting to show its weeds

and soon it will be hard to find.

this step now, with these new and naked soles,

is the start of a path; a worthy road to ride.

how to expand in this inhale and let the world and all it's love come rushing in?

it comes in these soft hands, these soft eyes, tendered with tears.

I am given these words to hold and my hands fumble to know their shape.

They are the sweetest songs that I have never heard before.

This new music tangles my tongue and catches my breath.

how to open my mouth and drink in the swell of this sea?

it comes like untamed rain and I have been accustomed to a teaspoon; patient for another drop.

now, there is an invitation to step into this dance,

trust my weak knees, my stumbles and fumbles.

It is my turn to jump these feet into the muddy puddle, to feel the splash all the way up to my smile and to recognize that this untameable laugh is my own.

it begins.

let me stay curled inside this moment for as long as I might.

old histories are singing like swans, relinquishing their hoarse

voices to the hush of a thunderous joy. inside of

each thin shadow, a delicate light is growing.

i am the star within the sky within the star,

she said, long ago. i have carried a

handful of wishes in a pocketful of holes. With

every step, I leave a trail that someday, something

real and magical might be recovered by this journey that will

end with its beginning.

open.

in the pause, I sort the tangle.

I tug at the threads;

the reds,

the blues.

weaving like a net from there to here,

the chaos to the clarity.

these humble hands fold together and soften like tiny animals

under a cloud of rain.

accepting, surrendering

and

calling from that smallest flicker of flame,

for the next deep exhale.

I have stood under a million stars and awed myself silent

so many times.

miracles happen.

remember that.

now.

swim, little fish, swim.

just from this small distance, i can catch a wave to ride

and feel the surge and tug and lose my sky in an instant.

the ground is up and all my limbs are cartwheeling.

the nearness of you does it.

the guess of when next I can burrow my self into the curve of your neck

and smile against your scent.

there is still some time to take another deep breath, and

another.

the wanting to fall headlong into the rush and the waiting to find the stillness of the deeper currents.

all of it is swimming.

and the best way to enjoy it is to stop all the flapping and flailing,

surrender to the stretch and buoyancy,

lie back and let the

water fold me into its fingers while we touch this weightless dance.

and, with a full and bold breath,

I lean into the weight of the depth;

let the body of the sea press itself certainly against me,

and then dive into the everchanging, renewable force of love.

tag

thinking I must've sat myself down on the sharp end of cupid's little arrow.