Running Away to the Sunset

With the city behind me
the prairie the only answer to my discomfort
I followed highway 36 east
until the light changed.

There on the side of the road I waited.
mind quiet.
bare feet on pavement.

And then this.

 

 

 

All the Pieces and a Bit of Outside

Life now.

 

Is full of putting things together.

Not making unnecessary sacrifices because having your heart full is inspiring.

When you give up everything you damage yourself, starvation isn’t limited to food.

You need to feed your heart, as a woman, and as a mother.

Don’t do this for only for you, do it for everyone around you.

When your heart is full you can give more, do more.

We are told to keep going, that pushing hard from morning to night,

is the only way to succeed.

But if you don’t step back and see where you are and why you are moving forward you loose the plot,

forget the purpose.

When you take the time to remember why, it strengthens you.

It makes you more driven, more focused.

If you present yourself but you are missing the self-confidence and passion then all the hard work is just spinning wheels.

So take the time to feed your soul, be with the people you love.

When you are bursting full  of purpose and love the world notices.

 

 

 

 

3am

3am wakings;
no one speaks of all the arithmetic that goes in to being an adult
the cobwebs of connections
the lists.
Music is just another form of numbers.
Across the street the red lights behind the bar
distract me,
sends me onto the snowy porch.
3am dazed I wonder if it is fire,
I stay outside until my bare feet ache
old habits never vanish just stay hidden.
I stack mental photos of 3am in piles,
tracing my way back three decades.

I still can smell the pennies on my fingers,
staying up waiting for my parents to come home.
Playing cards with the neighbor.
3am only my father returns.

A week later my mother returns
And I got used to 3am,
3am is when the world is so quiet you can hear the stars whisper the truth
3am is when you hide from the unspeakables
3am is when lovers tell lies
3am is when death becomes real
and when the moon it full 3am is full of pain and mischief.

Happy Halloween!

Candy has been sorted,
remains of a Jedi robe returned to fabric
glitter covers the pillows,
welcome November.

For Sarah (who should be studying also)

My history echos pleasantly in the background and I stumble through over due work.
The sun through the window,
I could map the leafless world with the notes of his voice,
the autumn here lacks the smells of decay
the days of gray with no sense of time.

One autumn we found the Italian bakery,
we were too cool for the coffeehouse,
instead we laughed at the shapes of our pastries.
Then we walked to the old Opera House for a movie.

Those years where we spanned childhood to our futures
sanity came from place and from knowing always the world was bigger,
than our teenage worlds.
It was the invisible line of three miles,
past ancient mills and tanning caves,
that was where we found our center.

So many icy mornings I walked that road
to the warm stones of the fire
and younger cousins.
Always finding respite in the dated books
the encyclopedias from 1912 on their pine shelf
held all the knowledge we need on weekends.

Even now when we speak of home it is blue glass
the red board and batten walls,
and secret corners where the sun drew us in.

Home was the first cold morning drinking coco
while the sun rose and the hot air balloons filled.
Home was learning to swim in the shadow of an abandoned windmill.
Home was sneaking into the carriage house to see the hansom cabs.
Home is everyone in the sunroom with a bottle of scotch and theory
or music or books.
Home is a barrel of old cross country skis that we’ve all out grown
and a crop of boys who are learning what home means.

Welcoming Autumn

Fingers stumble through the ground
numb in this race
the anodized silver white tub
sings as it fills
the sun is already rubbed out by the clouds
we still can count the inches until it dips
behind the mountains

The night will come,
and we will wake to a blanket
crystalline.
As the long tendrils of dawn
reach across the prairie
kisses of light and warmth
the cover vanishes
leaving only the leaves
ice burned the color of decay.

 

In the Dogdays of Summer

August does this thing,
it makes us want to leave,
hide from the sun.
We dream solar flares
river edges
and ghosts.
And the clouds
oh the clouds
layers of gray
teasing us with their thunder
we are left gasping
waiting for the rain.

A little inspiration for a day of studying

A walk in the country

I was not blessed
instead I paused on my own
letting the words fall away

until I could see.

the fracture between nature and self
does not exist

it is just a byproduct of taxonomy
and an echo of the coal choked industry
of two centuries ago
Darwin and Arkwright could only guess
where they would lead us.

letting the words fall away
I opened my eyes again
and the world was so vibrant.

This is What I Do

This is What I Do

Sitting here, poaching small pieces of the past,
turning them into textures,
putting them into rooms that have never been,
letting a sun that does not shine in though windows.

At night I walk through these rooms
as I sleep,
at night they are as real as the house I live in.
It is always the day before we open,
the last remnants of new paint in the air.

Waking in the night I reach over to touch skin and cotton,
to inhabit the ghost world of the in between.
These hours are no more real than the model on my computer.