it is always in october that i

feel it the most.

the tugging on my nerves

to tell me that there should be a breeze,

or when my neck gently reminds me

to bundle up.

and this day, on the last of october,

i feel it strongest.

my bones grew strong with east coast iron,

and know nothing of the search for gold

or red dirt clay.

my bone knows how to walk quickly,

my bones only know how to walk quickly,

stopping only for traffic or the sudden gaze

on a red maple.

i must look upon the face of new york again,

i must drink in the atlantic grey soon.

----
the train station where i picked you up & you hugged me & told me I was real and I wanted you to kiss me, to prove that she wasn't.
there are so many pigeons, still. reminding me of that same day.
funny how pigeons can remind me of something so important. perhaps that was the beginning of this thing that i'm putting back together now.
----
my legs feel unsure in California among so mountains.

poets say it better /

than i know how to.

there are little things,

that may for a while,

or a long time,

make me cry.

like you.

like all of the hope i have stored up in you.

like knowing that you are discovering the

combination of vegetables and your favorite meal.

and knowing what such a discovery may mean:

there is relief.

tour de force

you were not a choice, as much as you were a force that ran up and down my fingers, up and down my spine.

you were not so much a choice, as a chance wind, overtaken, swept up and left ravished dizzy and dazed.

and this was not so much yesterday as years ago but we are all still left collecting thoughts and examining why's of your tour.

and you are betrothed now, or perhaps you wear a thin strip of gold around your finger, right or left hand, depending on the custom.

and he now shudders at your name, even when heard, even when read in the holy book, to think of --

and here i am choosing a man worthy of choice. and it is slower and less like violent love and more like the slow unfolding of a story written in springtime, written in meadows, written for blooming.

and we walk in seasons of night and day and winters and spring. and you were august, hot and melting, and he is april, subtle and unfolding.

i am not so happy for so many changes, so many days letting him sit with me as i sew back together the tears of my inner linen.

he gives me silk.

but, i am happy for the choice. the moments of brief clarity sitting and choosing: this is how i shall live.

i shall live in silk.

vegetable garden

i have found that love

is nothing like what i thought it would be.

rather,

an unglamorous

tugging and tearing of wills

a gentle laying down,

a fierce laying down.

a vegetable garden -

only a couple of sprouts

to indicate the carrots

we are waiting to feast on.

labor on, the soil is ripe

and the harvest rains

are pouring down.

she just believes in him. there wasn't any other explanation she could offer.

a mother, a lover, a friend.

she couldn't help but see all the glory just ready to burst forth.

wait for it. hold your breath and wait for it.

kingdom.

i am aching for heaven.

my bones cry out

with the rocks and the sea

for the return of glory,

for the fullness of glory.

my bones, twisted around my muscles

bend with weary burdens

from an undone world.

i am aching for heaven

in the tender depths

of my heart i cry out for more.

bridegroom,

take me beyond the hills

and let us sit under the tree

and whisper.

my affections bend and sway

and my eyes dart to see who is coming.

i want your eyes, beloved,

the singleness of your presence,

the sweet songs of your voice.

in the land of the broken,

i ache for heaven.

to sit at your feet, beloved

and hear the thunder clap at

the command of your voice.

to see your words flow out of

your mouth like ribbon

and wrap themselves around weary hearts

and bent over bodies

and watch life come forth.

i ache for life

when nothing is wrong

save the dull sickness that

i have felt since i first

felt your presence -

how much clearer life is when

your spirit is near -

how much sickness we have

that we never knew.

and spirit, come near.

i need more kingdom in my bones.

i am being covered in the holy spirit.

the slightest breeze knocks me over.

get back! get back!

liars, thieves, serpents get back!

don't take me one step too far

from the holy of holies.

i am being bathed in purity - bath water for the soul.

glory be.

submission is no longer a dirty word.

the sunshine makes me want to clean house.

i eat raw cookie dough after work.

beach culture inspires me to be to be dignified,

a lady in a crowd,

a scarf around her head.

submission is no longer a dirty word.

glory be, glory be.

canopied in purple

the streets now

are lined with trees

blooming purple.

(i've never seen purple trees

before i moved to California.)

the streets are canopied

in purple and

i walk underneath them

with a contradictory sense

of euphoria

and nostalgia,

a pleasant and strange mix

of dreaming and

desperately wanting to go back home.

in the dream,

i have a home.

the walls are crooked

the plaster is uneven

there are dents in the wood

from children we've never met.

in my dream, we have children,

three, daughters.

we walk down the street canopied in purple

in search of an ice cream cone because

in january it is still warm enough for

an ice cream cone as long as there is also

chocolate fudge.

because we determined long ago

to teach them to believe in magic.

that home would be first a fantasy,

and then a stability,

and then, only when necessary,

a place where we pay bills.

and even then, we pay them in the park.

and it is magic to eat ice cream on an idle tuesday,

the same idle tuesday we got married on,

when there is nothing else to celebrate.

and our children will play pretend

and live out stories and

we will add props and glitter

but never the cold hard truth

that the love letters we write in the park

to distant princes

are really just men in suits with square faces

called Insurance and Mortgage.

and they will think that their insurance is our arms

and our mortgage is our bed.

how can i love your presence so much?

be so hungry for your filling in even in the midst of eating?

what good bread you give,

what good bread you are.

my dear.

my dear,

for you i will write words

that i hope will move mountains.

i will write words for you

to feel through,

to feel the words through.

my dear, there are no

mountains i would not move to get to you.

to get you to somewhere safe.

i would level the earth

and fold the maps

and draw lines with my

feet and my toes in the sand

until the point between where you are

and where i am

is the shortest possible distance,

until we are in a straight line,

facing each other.

there is no condemnation in the sand.

my dear, i would face you and

face your fears for you.

i would hold your face as you face

demons that have haunted you and

i would watch your face,

those chiseled features, those dark accents,

win.

your face wins.

my dear, there is victory in your face,

your face that has been spit on

and tormented and lain face down in the mud,

it is victorious.

there is no blemish on you.

and if i cannot get to you,

if maps don't fold countries,

if planes aren't strong enough

to carry the heaviest weight of the strongest compassion,

the sleep that i have lost

and the tears that i have wept

for you.

the steadfast love that i have chosen for you,

then i will find every good soul that i know

and we will swarm you.

i will usher armies of love to barrage you.

i will build barriers around you.

you will be quarantined by safety.

i will fight all of the battles that your words speak.

i will arrange trains to take you north.

i will buy you bolts and chains

and my dear, i will never call you shameful.

i will never call you ugly.

because, my dear,

you are hope.

i have given you my hope

and it wells and bubbles within you

and hope wins.

and love never fails.

and, my dear,

you have drowned

and you have fallen

into the deepest,

most single place of life.

and life is not death.

and you are alright.

babygirl, you are okay.

weep, babygirl, you're going to make it.

and the lines that are chiseled in your jaw,

and the specks that sit in your eyes,

and the brows that embolden your face,

the have no failure written in them.

my dear,

there is so much hope for you yet.

7

on the seventh day,
she rested.
a sabbatical, a break,
a pause, an interlude,
from writing poems
until they begin to write her.
until they find her.
words now sound like a vengeful G-D
struggling to maintain his vengeance.

and i, a lady,
have no anger,
and lately have not much else
but tiredness
and yearning
and hope
for YHWH
who saves and comes
with mercy.

to fast,
withhold,
remove myself
from food and men
and the drink of our labor
in order to be ripened,
made acceptable,
soft and malleable
to his whims.
and it is a silence
and a submission
and a trial.

but, there are no poems
bursting forth.

and, why try for what isn't working?
it is always easier to go with the current
than fight against it.
remember that
when all instincts say fight
because it hurts.
it is only learning a new way.
a new language,
set of mannerisms,
behaviors,
and boundaries.
it is only readjusting to a new truth
that just wasn't so clear before.

he is really that worth it,
my heart is really that sick.

and healer, Jehovah-Rapha,
a great physician,
has quarantined his patient
and slowly,
submission.
a gentle hope
to be a gentle patient.

because,
secret whispers wonder
what this heart could be
if set set set aflame.
if it was laughing
with heaven's joy.

and heaven can't be such a dull
place because the bridegroom
is calling his bride home
and she is wild.
and she has never quite
been able to sit still
like the bitter told her to.
she leaps at the sight of her lover.
she can't keep a proper posture
when there is so much
divine satisfaction flowing through
her broken cracks.

and, she can feel them closing.
she can feel new skin growing.

and what a good church,
untame and in love.
and what a good heart,
laughing and in love.

and so her words will
sit for a while waiting for
the promises to flow again.
and happy to know that in
the hardest choices his
presence confirms the
loudest yes
to the the greatest proposal.

(you are already a bride.)

6.

we climb mountains

and search for grace.

we wear rugged our clothes

and tell about our scars

in hopes that the honesty

breaks any chance of judgement.

who will condemn us when

we can do it ourselves?

we find strangers in our bedrooms,

and in the rush of some kind of scandal

forget to mention we were never there.

the feeling finds us even when we're innocent.

the feeling of shame almost covers us.

and we climb mountains

and search for grace.

we hold close the whispers that tell us

he will never condemn us.

5.

his absence is felt

most strongly in day three.

i am told that in the

third day

of not smoking

the body begins to ache.

sick from without

the drugs that carried

blood cells to heart

and oxygen to lungs.

i imagine that

it is after

three days

that the top layers

of comfort and pleasantries

peel off only to reveal addiction.

lungs and hearts

sick from the realization

that they cannot live

without this nicotine.

death has been in them

too long and they do not

quite know how to rid themselves of it.

it is so blatant,

so obvious to say,

but addiction runs too deep,

cuts us out so raw

that i think it takes

three days

to withdrawal.

it takes three days to

rid the heart and the lungs

of all of the dusty residue

they might feed off of.

organs like crack addicts

licking the payment

looking for a crystal dropped.

three days to feel the want,

to feel the absence at its strongest.

4.

the rain has not stopped for days.

we wake up with it pouring

and we are locked inside.

the rain has taught us something

about hiding.

we wake up and we are cold.

we wake up and we are thirty

and we sings songs of drink.

we have pruned ourselves for winter,

cut back our useless limbs

and our deadened skin.

we shrink back in winter,

and sing songs of drink.

we wake up and are thirsty.

the rain has not stopped for days

we wake up and its pouring.

the rain has taught us something

about growing.

we wake up and we are green.