Poem: The Mind Wanders

Your body is a space suit;
your mind is the universe;
and you are a nomad.

No hope of survival lies
out of touch
from your body’s biological airlock, 
but your mind is another story. 

The moment your brain bloomed
its first coherent thought, aware,
your mind broke
free from its mechanisms, escaped
a life of vehicular computation, and became
you: an opened portal.

You are a particle collider
but made of thoughts and dreams;
you are a deep space telescope that curves 
imagination into a lens, at will.

You are a peculiar force of freedom calculating 
towards infinity, trying 
to find a limit as imagination multiplies. 

Home and world are packed
into greymatter sacks, and your mind wanders,
literally, through its self-created
door: the glittering potential of being
you.

On your journeys, the less you carry
insofar as facts, the better. Nomads make
do in every circumstance imagined
with few hard truths, improvising
solutions anew as if creating
its tools from loss and hope, 
vacuum and pressure.

So you are free; you may go
wherever your creativity conjures 
as no mission was ever issued
alongside your life. Simply persist 
and make camp with meaning. Make 
meals with meaning. Make
meaning from hardship, make
meaning from triumph. Make 
meaning in any way you can,
lest you grow weary of exploring
the wild beauty of all you are,
and close that door forever.

Poetry: In the Cracks

a random poem that spilled onto the page just now.

*

People who fit into the cracks
don’t get there by falling —
they slide, duck, and twist,
slick as shadows,
as they’ve always admired
tree roots for their secrets.
Jeweled branches that reach
above ground into sky praise
themselves too much. They’re too loud,
too brash, too selfish, always
in the way of someone else.

Those who fit into the cracks
can be but a blur of light, barely seen,
the way curls of smoke
are scarves for air.
These souls smooth
themselves into a second skin
over wounds and ugliness, hoping
to be unnoticed,
like a stitch that holds
a despairing heart together.

Those who fit into the cracks
become what is needed
in the manner of an underling,
a servant quick to please,
or a mother-goddess tending
her young;
the same thing, sometimes.

And those that notice
the wisp of a quiet girl hidden
in the cracks
might see a frightened deer
or the bravery of star-birth.
She doesn’t mind
which you choose;
she’s busy knitting
purpose into the lost,
and perhaps, looking
to see where she fits
into the cracks of you.

Kassie’s Strength (Poem)

Acorn babe says

maybe this is the afterlife,

because she’s awakened

to the Earth; she knows

she’s always been an oak.

Here Kassie babe reigns

as the lollipop queen, owning

her land, herself

as if there is no separation between

us and us and us.

There is only freedom,

full like a vast land that knows

no emptiness

though there’s no trees in sight.

 

 

 

 

Fierce Gentleness

The gentle ones get called

the worst of things

(of course they take it lightly),

and they know victory doesn’t lie

in how loud you can be, how proud

or how abrasive, how brutal.

Authenticity shouldn’t be an excuse

to inflict one’s insecurities

on the unsuspecting. No, the wise are still raw

when speaking in varied dulcet tones,

knowing how to reach people at their level,

how to win an argument without arguing

at all. Real strength goes undetected

most of the time, but humbleness is

underrated besides. Why take oneself

so seriously, when everything

is infinitely meaningful

and infinitely meaningless at once?

Gentleness is no mere trojan file,

but wild freedom to live

thoughtfully, and keep youthful, longer,

watching more than talking.

When did authenticity come to mean bravado

and pride in your tragic flaws?

Othello’s sorry, but most asses aren’t,

as an ass continues to be an ass —

glorifying assery, throwing ass parades.

I don’t have to be loud

to be heard. People will lean in

to hear a whisper, and remember it.

Maybe even treasure it.

 

 

 

A New Shamanism

Spirit knows no time or place

besides everything, everything at once,

all life and all death at once,

all beauty and ugliness,

all passion and emptiness,

everything, everything at once.

Everything that has or ever shall have

spirit are now alive, forever.

It is but a little thing

to slip into this vast river’s flow, visiting

sorrows past and future

to breathe comfort and love

as the spirit guide you are and were and will always be.

Reaching back

to your pain-struck child self, or youth, or adult, whisper:

You’re not alone. You are loved. You are infinite

and wondrous and perfect.

I will come when you need me.

Keep your promise. Face the pain. Visit

until you remember

how a spirit of light came

when you needed her.

 

Human Effort

There are days when you try to be an amazing person

and days when you just try to be a person

at all, still breathing, holding on.

This is the face of someone expertly trying only to breathe

— you probably can’t see it in her eyes,

which is why all judging is but a waste of time.

This is a plea for compassion

for everyone struggling to exist.

 

 

 

Life; Death

Disaster days keep us alive.

We eat the dead. We burn the dead

and build from the dead, a fate

no cry of compassion can quit.

Disaster is the elixir of life, bringing

us to boil with adrenaline

until we feel on fire, so alive.

Complete peace only stagnates, dulls and deadens

as cunningly as poison,

and small sips make us all think we’re immune

but real salvation lies

in the terror of existence, where we live

just atoms away from death, always.

Here, there’s nothing to do but dance

between every breath

that could be our last.

Anything could happen.

It’s the disaster days that throw

us onward through time; it’s death

that gives us life until we die.

 

More Truth, Less Metaphor

I have carried infants in my womb.

I have given birth,

but not by choice. I was a mother,

strong as a dandelion

gone to seed

who bows to the wind and lets loose

her offspring to fly,

without thought of her own will.

Some seeds dry out or rot or are eaten;

some take root, out of her sight and touch.

Mother dandelion can only ride the seasons,

blooming, seeding,

and does not grieve the irretrievable

or hate the wind

or wish she were something

other than herself.

 

 

 

Mothering

Be gentle with yourself, always,

as a loving mother to your inner children

who have scraped knees and aching hearts,

and remember that true success in life

is not measured by the fewest mistakes.

Exercise compassion

for who you once were

a fleeting moment ago, or in another life,

and be gentle with yourself, always,

to teach what has been betrayed and cannot trust

how to love and hope and give again.

Poetry

In bed, my legs split and scissor,

seeking the cold spots. There,

I am comforted, imagining

I am alone

and no one can touch me.