Goodbye

 Today I drove my friend to have her most beautiful dog, Olivia, put to sleep. In her honor a poem came for all the goodbyes I have made or ever will make.  Today could be our last day. I will love while I can.  

Goodbye Olivia and your sweet loving eyes, pools of wonder, and the little stick or gift you would bring me every time I came over. 

Goodbye Beaver, your beauty and unending devotion 

Goodbye Ray and your sexy lopsided smile and your stories of galavanting through the world

Goodbye to my children being babies I can hold

Goodbye to nursing and falling asleep with a baby in my arms

Goodbye to toddlers running through my house

Goodbye to being the mother of giddy children who dance and do somersaults on the couch

Goodbye to endless hours of reading to children in bed

Goodbye to my youthful skin and long dark hair

Goodbye to having a young sexy body 

Goodbye to the joy of playing dressing up and admiring my maidenhood

Goodbye to big eyes to put mascara on

Goodbye to talking to my best friend on the phone for hours

And Goodbye to the years my mother was my best friend and we reveled in the joy of having been brought together

Goodbye to my mother

And to my father, getting ready to leave this world

My protectors and admires. 

Goodbye to the drama and excitement of youth and being in love for the first time 

Goodbye to innocence and hopes and dreams

Goodbye falling in love with writing and dancing and music

Goodbye to my children, I hope I leave first and you weep and weep and then have a beautiful world to carry on in

Goodby to partners and all the pulling and struggling we did

And all the sharing and being there for each other

Goodbye to gardens and trees and leaves and all the wonderful sounds of the world

And the million of shades of color

Goodbye cold air and warm sun and moon light

Goodbye to the hum of life and tortured humanity, I love you and forgive you

And I am so grateful to have seen you and felt you. 

I did not know I was thirsty
until I saw the water
I didn't know how much my heart needed you
until I saw your eyes
and joined my voice with yours
I did not know the hunger in my soul
until I felt again
the completeness of connecting to others

I danced with my mother tonight

I danced with my mother tonight

And she watched me dance.

There will be a last time we dance 

Together

Smiling, laughing  

Or not 

looking at each other.

A last time she dances

Doing that thing she does with her mouth

Wiggling her hips, strutting 

Clapping here and there to the music

Her legs that no longer fully straighten or fully bend

still stoat, still move close to in time with the beat.

There will be a last time I dance for her 

Have her adoring mother eyes gaze upon me as if I were a gift of wonder 

she is beholding. 

There will be a last time 

I dance

A last time I turn 

And spin

A last time I hear music

And let all the rage and frustrations 

All the years of disappointment come shattering out 

I last time I roll and stretch on the sweet wood of the studio floor

And wrap my myself around the rhythm of the crushing beauty and pain

and then feel my arms 

My arms 

turn into feathers and wings

and float up 

and touch heaven

I don't want to convince you

I don't want to convince you
or cajol you
argue with you
or take from you
I don't want to triumph over you
or defeat you
I don't want to impress you
or defend myself to you
nor gain your admiration
I don't want to lead you
or teach you

I just want to look into your eyes
and see you
just you
I want to see the tears well up
the pools of water
ready to leave you
I want to reach back with you
through this life time
and all the ones before
and rage at the incomprehensible pain of it all
the terribleness of our gods
how forsaken we are
abused
neglected

Today I want to press my lips to your salty forehead
stroke your soft wrinkled hand
your powdery youthful cheek
I want to hold your shaking shoulders
kneel beside you
and hear our guts
try to roar out of our mouths
I want to come to that moment
with you
where you have to stop crying to take a new breath
else you choke
oh why why
were we put here?
why were we made like this?
I want to let our questions
our pain
rise up in the air
and feel it join all the ones before
and know
and know
know
that we are not alone.




Questions not included in Poem:
why do we fight to stay alive
why do we torment others,
pass our pain on and on and on?
why must we be given gifts
just to have them stolen away?

A wild run

In general, I am averse to risk
I am homebody, a nester

But
I know the pleasure of running down a hill, your legs spinning under you,
you realize you've lost control, you might trip at any moment
and you are scared,
tumbling
feeling the air with each bounce
but also
you are wild and free
carefree of the crash until it happens
In awe of the risk
caught in the wonder of momentum
for a few seconds, time is timeless
the end has not been reached
and the joy of being alive bursts through your body
extends out
and wraps your tiny self
around the whole great earth

Body of Civilization
now we are running
down the hill
tumbling faster than we can control
scared
sad
but oh what a wild ride it has been
how beautiful the music we have created
the lights and explosions we released
The power of the sun we liberated from wood and gas
and the magic of understanding
We have lifted our selves up into the sky
and talked through the clouds
We swam with dolphins
and made millions of babies
and millions of laughs
We looked at tiny crystal cells and mapped our genes

Civilization, I am but one cell in your body
and I weep for our choice
But I love you
I forgive you
and I am grateful for the wild ride












 

A hole is never empty

A hole is never empty

Something always fills it

Air

or water

or sand

Bark 

Or bugs

Leaves

Minerals 

Blood

scar 

puss

Pain

or time

or love

A hole is never empty

Something always fills it

Silence as big as a mountain 

Or a baby’s cry

Like children at the beach

We learn 

The edges collapse 

And the water rushes in

Never Become a Dancer

Never become a writer
Write to get the fever down
because the words come tumbling out
Write to return the river to the sea
and feel the center of the earth

Never become a scientist
Wonder because you don’t know
Explore because it is so beautiful
Look because the world is before you, falling at your feet
and you can’t look away
Search because love leads you
to try

Never become a musician
Make music to save your self
Sing at the sky because it is so wide
because your voice flies up into the air by its own will
Sing because you can feel the stars singing back into you
because you can feel it comfort all the lost souls
Bang on the drum because your heart knows
for all the infinite yeses out there
Pull on the strings because they ring out the truth of your soul
Make music because your longings will go unanswered
but while the tone is going your thirst
will be quenched

Don't become a dancer
Dance because you are free and wild
because the beat is running up your spine
Dance because you have to
Because you want to
Because God loves you
and forsakes you