gristle for my mill

I think
you are my muse

another muse
in a series

like the men
who have young girls
in series
muses

I think
you are gristle
for my mill

I will grind your bones
to poetry

you don’t like my poems
I don’t care

hopefully you won’t read them
your bones
ground

Valentine

I am thinking of you
my love my valentine
on valentine’s day
at two in the morning

two to too
much to bear
I want to be a tiger
not an ox

disabled
but still strong
I settle into the traces
again

the load is placed
I look at my path
gather my strength
turn on my oxygen
and pull

no one expects
an ox on oxygen
to be able to pull

you don’t either

why do you think
so little of me
why do you scorn
what I do

when you return
you find
traces of the wagon wheels
on the ground

but once I am on the road
you can’t follow
you can’t find me
any more

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt slender, as in slender hope.

The photograph is neither an ox nor a tiger, but a sea lion, off of Marrowstone Island, Washington.

Dinosaur dreams

Dinosaur Dreams

The problem
With Intelligent Design
Is those old bones
Those dinosaurs

Also that of 10,000 dreams of creation
One would be right
And the followers of all the others
Consigned to hell
If so, I go gladly, clutching
Dinosaur bones to my chest
And will enjoy the diversity
Not the narrow heaven with a narrow
Small-minded deity

But is evolution right?

Well, I think it’s on the right track

But wholly done and all correct?

After all, think how often
Medicine has been wrong
Think of tobacco and vioxx
Think of Galen, over 2000 years ago
Thinking that evil humors built up in the uterus
Causing hysteria
External pelvic massage was the cure
For over 2000 years
For old maids, widows and nuns
Who had no male to cleave unto
Massage was a treatment into the early 1900s
And now we wonder about prozac too

Evolution is an evolving science

I think of when my son was four
And he watched “Jurassic Park”
Against my wishes
Because I thought it was too violent
He studied it carefully many times

One day he asked me, anxiously,
“Mom, is DNA real?”
To check that it wasn’t another of those Santa stories
I was able to reassure him
Yes, I think DNA is real
He was pleased

A few days later he announced
That when he grows up
He wants to be a plant and animal scientist
Extract DNA from amber
And grow those dinosaurs

A laudable ambition
For any four year old

If God left the dinosaur bones
Around to fool us
And they never lived
She has a nasty sense of humor
And my son and I will not forgive

I believe in evolution
And dream of dinosaurs

written in 2009

One must go through the water.

One must go through the water.

One might choose not
avoid
there are ways to avoid feelings

Another one might choose not

I let go
and fall
and the water closes over my head
and I let myself sink
all the way down

even
if I am over
a deep trench

once down
once deep

I open my eyes
and let my breath out
and let the deep rush in

I don’t know why
people avoid this place
it is dangerous
but so beautiful
the darkness
with beings that glow

some attack
of course

but I too am a monster
bare my fangs
and receive respect
or fear

or friendship

I am very safe here
it is so familiar
in the deep

tears falling

I am back in grief
in the ocean of tears
someone has to go there
and I can swim

I can swim on the surface
and I can swim in the depths
no trench is too deep
for me to explore

they think it is dark
in the deepest trench
it’s true that the pressure
is very strong

but all of us
in the deepest depths
learn to glow
and shine

that is what the trench does
at first you are terrified
an ocean of grief
an ocean of tears

but then you see light
beings glowing
some are eating each other
but others smile and wave

if you are not too frightened
if you do not fight and struggle
if you take a breath, calmly
you find you can breathe

and you look at your hands
in wonder as you breathe
in the ocean of grief
in the ocean of tears

you too are glowing softly
in the ocean of grief
in the ocean of tears
you feel welcome

Feathers

This is the final poem in my Falling Angels Dream Poetry series.

Some people say there are

Angels among us

I have faith in birds
I search for a nest
Hummingbird nest
the size of a nut
tiny, lined with spiderwebs
I love the herons too
great blue heron
flying lands in a tree
above me
I look through my mechanical eye
zoom in click click
and there is another
at the tree top
two in a tree
I move around
and there – one drops down
one flies
I am not distracted
a nest
a six foot nest
blessed
I move away gently

I wander back by the tree
gently
in the morning
in the evening
not one
not two
two in this tree
two in that
one in another
as many as five in a tree
six foot wing spans
a rookery of winged beings

angels among us
and why would we think
they would look like us?

ring

I dream a night sky thick with stars

all the stars start falling

I think “That isn’t good.”
sore afraid

all the stars are angels falling

I think “That isn’t good.”
sore afraid

an angel falls close past me
in space
face at perfect peace

I think “Why do they fall?”
sore afraid

I am falling in space
head down
no earth beneath me
with the angels

crying, imperfect acceptance
sore afraid

I wake
I put the dream away

it comes back
in a decade

I write about wings
sore afraid

I try to understand
sore afraid

I am asked what my small self
my child self
wants

wings

I say yes
no longer
sore afraid

did you hear the bell?

yes

Black on white

poem: Black on white

black on white

white on black

it doesn’t matter

angels falling
made to fall
at peace with falling

I let myself fall
at peace with falling

and wonder what that means?

death?

no

though there are times I long
for the Beloved
for union with the Beloved
for all in one
and one all

let go

when an angel falls
they are at peace

they are at peace
with falling

people

see black and white

people

see good and evil

people

separate
label
categorize

angels don’t

black on white
or
white on black

it doesn’t matter
there is no separation
we are one

Beloved

One

hold me

poem: hold me

hold me, Beloved

hold me
I long for you
to be reunited with you, Beloved

to return to you

it is the children who hold me

here

the children
my children, grown
the hope of grandchildren
the damaged children
the new and young children
the old children in adults
who are so sad

it is the children who hold me

here

sometimes I am so sad, Beloved
I long for you

I do and I don’t
long for you
to call me home
and hold me

I know
that you hold me, Beloved
every moment

even when I cannot feel your touch

I know, Beloved
you will call me home

and hold me
now and forever
in your infinite embrace

harbor

sometimes when
we are alone together
and just talking
wandering from topic to topic

and you say I always disagree
and I say …(I don’t say no I don’t)
and I say I like to think about things
from all sides

and you listen some too

sometimes when
we are alone together
and just talking

it is as if we have reached a harbor
and feel at home