Clandestine kisses in the pizza aisle
eating great dark heart-shaped almonds without worry
like I can’t anymore
fires
so many fires
outside my window
and down the street
on cold dark drenched nights
smoke and steam rising into the spangled sky
shivering with the chill and being wrapped in downy warmth and spirited away despite objections
there was a child
a little monkey spirit
blonde-haired
I can’t recall the setting
and then sitting in the passenger seat
as the car accelerates down the soggy untouched hillside
on the clearing crisp morning
and rain
there was so much rain
it was all rainy
with the music of it filtering through the tall trees
and foggy clouds of it
prowling everywhere
like fleets of ships
from times gone past

Ahhhhh,
these missing rainclouds,
they are hiding in me.
I am filled from oceans
without end.

This bright flame
you smother in darkness,
why hide
from the world
it’s wondrousness?

this is what we are now,
haunting reflections
of lives half-lived,
crushed together in shifting compartments
crowded under the weight of moremorefasterbiggerbettermustmusthavehavingandnot
less room to stretch and grow,
to stand upright confidently and move with ease,
running from the natural rhythms
of the light and green world,
following paved paths
and the trailing lights of others
trudging ahead in line.
the girl next to me
pleads to God
in exquisite blue cursive
as I sit in awe of the artful way
she is searching for support,
and I want to leap over the vast barrier
of these mere inches
and hug her and
beam love into her dark moment.
I need you to step beyond the boxed lines,
I need to feel your heart SING,
to hear it ululate with the profound resonance
of dawn breaking over the ocean
of the stars wheeling above mountain crests,
to see you move as fluidly as your hair in the strong wind
of a bright summer day
unfettered and electric,
to see the smile not just on your lips
but also in every cell of your being
until you are on fire with joy
and contagiously sharing with everyone else
all of the love this world needs,
that these bodies were made to give.

living breathing through bones
blood-edged
heart-bared
naked and shining
in-decisive winter’s grace.
delicate-seeming map of growth
soon to shower
splendor
in all directions.
hard conversations that go
easily
yet leave such
aching awareness
hanging

Birthing the new year into the wee hours in a wild gyration of primal beats, delving deep down to the instinctive root of pure bliss in life and body exuded through sweat and movement in unspoken tribalism with strangers, camaraderie and smiles freely flowing luminescence through the shadowy streets, tumbling into warm friend welcomes and succoring sleep, waking to the sweet peace and safety of the old heart home, delightful discovering that the shining of the starlight still bathes your skin after all the hours, bright clarity streaming through the window strengthening dear connections and warmth in this new day, news of grandma’s passing interwoven through the tapestry of shimmering now-ness, sharp-felt loss of remaining chances to connect, to learn the stories and history of times before you were even a twinkling dream in the deepness, to know how you are a part of the long ancestral mother line, unaccountable unknown wisdom lost, loss of her echoing loss of your voice still runaway hiding in the dark, missing, missing still, even through the beaming joy-filled celebration of radiant futures of this abundant consummate me returned to life, life and death, warp and weft, loss and love, all, all in this beauty-fulled inaugural day.

soft rain collecting into puddles of sound
dreamtime rippling through the fading echo of you here beside me
talking Indonesia and wild Story
and remembering the bewildering feel of those first Bangkok mornings
pinning the map with all the possible trajectories
and counting what it would cost to stay
here
to stay
wo(a)ndering

burning the miles catching up on months and relations missed as we head deeper into the rain-shrouded night for hidden places out of nowhere, resurfacing from long-trodden hours of sleep to morning mountain mists and birdsong and the dear circle of friend, bright beauty rippling outward in all directions, thinking deep about plant slavery while trying to appreciate the beautifully warped specimens in their cages grown for profit and abuse and the sickness felt in them to not be cared and husbanded and loved for their gifts and how many ways we feed ourselves on processes like this without ever thinking of the truths we are ingesting from all the hands involved, talking of Oakland and deserts and betrayals and misunderstandings and New Orleans and heartache and kittens and people we know and pilates or pirates, but not in Somalia, venturing into the land of Buddha to be reminded the treasure is in the practice and the trappings will only weigh you down, peacocks are just svelte exotic turkeys, don’t sell yourself so short dear and for the love of everything you should laugh so easily and often, and onward burning over and through these dear deathly dinosaurs for madcap adventures, returning to rainbow quicksilver skies and seas and a cascade of numbers and skills over this delightfully foreign avenue in the land of don’t know mind future and now past me, still wishing I could just see you and hug you because there’s no real way for words to convey the depth of all this feeling and I want you to know

Even these stained sidewalks
can look beautiful and full of promise
in the bright, unfiltered
light of morning.

Here now,
see how your unrestrained love
can make everything golden and new
like days just beginning?

Don’t hold back now.