Featherweight

When the strength you need

becomes all of the strength

you've given...

When unexpected loss

Takes your breath away

too...

When you balance 

All of your own weight

on your own 

two feet

without feeling

push or pull...

Flight may occur

When your vision is blurred

from speed, you see,

Direction is irrelevant

to destination.

When arrival is relative

to departure

and landing is only

One stop

of many...

It starts to feel 

Easier to open 

Both arms, wings 

and just soar...

A rough legged hawk soars over Seedskadee NWR, looking for its next meal. Photo Credit: Tom Koerner/USFWS via Wikimedia Commons.

Rubber band(ages)

Tensing, pulling, readiness, and resistance

as much as we can 

gather

before     -SNAP-

to hold a purpose 

no more 

holding together

Just

when life recoils, takes cover

inside

and becomes slack

limp before

taut

all comes back 

to holding on-

to Nothing

tight.

Photo credit by Oroo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Pace

Around the mountain
The way to proceed sideways
Looking at the rocks.
*
Loosen the rein
the heavens unlock in gasp
exhaling hail.
*
Each step taken
is a charge
without receipt.
*
Certain of what we
do not want and cannot take
our bags bulge with These.
*
Lighten with laughter
Serum of Sun, what is done
is never complete.



Artist Unknown, 'Pavillions in a mountain landscape' c. 1550 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art [Public domain].

Mantra(s)

(1)
Put this is your mouth
tasting this flavor of thought
smell the breath with in.

(2)
Lingering outside
you choose the notes to pick up
and savor the sounds.

(3)
Prove you can jump in
and out of the echoes left
in the chorus line(s).

(4)
Get inside between
and stretch as much as
you can momentarily.

Painting by Thomas Eakins [Public domain].

Lock jaw

Her too young jaw locks 

And she becomes her father

In this tic, to clench and wrestle

Her heavy breathing seems

Reminiscent of the little girl 
Not letting go

Of her bottle

For one second

Chance to make it without…

She gags at the mention

Of breakfast

Quite suddenly,

She says she is repulsed

And it may be

Because it reminds her

Of those café's and

Scattered mornings 
Here and there 
With her distant father.

He makes her stomach churn 
She says, she thinks she never needs
Breakfast again

It wasn't me, it wasn't 
Him, it was the way it started
To get tough
To hold on
To promises 
That are hard to swallow.

She learned about nourishment,
and its ultimate
End.

Nurture does not provide enough

For closed lips. Empty rooms, 
Empty calories, empty pockets 
Never kept us alive.
She is learning that it is more 
Fruitful to say, than for 
Him to hear.
Standing here and listening
Through the cracks,
I see narrow bands of light seeping out.

Forgiveness will be the only key

That opens her too young lockjaw
Allowing the Light its fitting
Liberty. 



Painting by Albert Edelfelt, 'At the door' 1901 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A handle on things

Of course her hands would eventually

Change, I accept the adaptation

And know I must let go of the little one.

Trading the paper and the pencil, manual

We labor, we trade and I watch

The same ring on me, though this one

Is rose gold-

And I cannot demagnetize my eyes or

tear them away from her new woman hands.

It is

The way she holds the pencil

The way she hovers over the white page

The way she hopes it will be good

I am confident

She is in good hands. 


Painting by Marie Bashkirtseff (1881) in [Public domain, Public domain or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

What a Strange Trip we Spin

When we can finally
Let Go
we should hold onto that.
Forever young is not aging wisely.

No gain, less pain;
less risk, no reward.
In fact, 9 out of 10 persons,
in their final hour,
utter
Should & Late
now knowing it could come early.
Anyhow
on the seventh cloud,
in the ninth ward of heaven,
I see clusters of humanity acting civilized,
some are sleeping, some seem to be
searching around,
feeling nothing and gasping

for nothing they found
was there.
Ten out of ten,
just held on too long.

Painting By William Paxton (http://www.taller54.com/736.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The rise of casuality

Because we are the effects, not the primes

as in Primates,

we are moved,

as in affected.

Because we breed

maladies and machinations

we create

as in Creatures

more than was there before Us, 

as in BC (Blind Carbon).

We infer our differences 

in grand designs and poor planning

or preferences and likenesses

as reflections of self-expression

and omit the other view

to simplify.

Why do we need to know

Why

as though living without question

helps with this affliction of mortality

or enlightens eternity...

Shall we give up and let it go, as though

we influence more than our mind 

-do not answer that-

Instead, let's suppose 

the conclusion 

need only a new name 

or learned skill for our adaptable

immutable

Fin de siècle

or inability to sit

still...

We move On

and are moved ever more,

for even though in an odd way

the Word made it the first 

to day. 

Image credit By Strobridge Litho. Co., Cincinnati & New York [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

To Rise Above

To Rise Above

does not challenge

volume of voice;

Rather, 

to Rise

we must become

light-er.

Start by letting go

of what was never able

or willing to support your weight-

in words;

it may be all ready 

too late

to try to fly

on your own.

Up or down, to fall or float

dares us to face that timid demon;

in doing so, we learn 

a bit about freedom-

not of choice or right, 

as in 'Fight or Flight',

but to maintain and conserve

the quiet right 

to let go.

And move on,

to knowing

there is much more

than time

to exist and resist

changes 

of the heart.

Painting by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1802) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Catch & Release

You may have caught my gaze,
strangling my breath
by the gauge of your twisted line.
A casualty,
in a swoop of wind
disturbing the flow-
now you will let me go
for sport.
Remind me of the rules
once more,
since participation is voluntary
and mine has been cut short.
Spar and span, pick your sport,
there will always be one better.





Painting by Winslow Homer [Public domain], Fishin (1879) via Wikimedia Commons.

A Skybroom or Windwisk

Where there is wind
Why not-
Fill the air with nothing
but conflicting directions?
Roar with static,
bumping jabs of hot-cold
thrust through if it must
as though it is nothing but
A natural occurrence.
A nuisance. Non-sense
of white noise, endless sighs
of discontent, lamenting
leaves fray like nerves.
Shooting blanks, synapses short
fireback with backfeed too high.
Determined to go Nowhere,
Now with haphazard intents,
mischief is made,
trepidation is mistaken as
raw with ennui.

There it all goes...
This too shall pass...
Giving the barbaric wind
a safe place to play,
with words like To and Fro
and don't forget, Let Go-
Blowing away
my uprooted mind
freed from knowing
how heavy
we should have been
bolted down.



Image of painting by John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.