My Tree

A trick of light that only happens in autumn, late autumn, sets this tree on fire, every afternoon as I get in my car to head home. The sunlight completely ignores the other trees and hits only this one with it’s high beams.

It is good to pause and stand in utter awe after the day bruises us with it’s ridiculously tiny fists. It is good to stand transfixed in light and color, shaking like branches off the frustrations that make life so beautiful and so silly. Shedding the little things we shouldn’t worry about: Those shattered pieces we pick up every day; those streaks of color that fall just outside our vision; the stuff we can’t keep intact and shouldn’t try. The things we cling to, hold up, compare, rename, classify, judge and collect.

Today, even against the stark snowy backdrop, the tree looked cement gray.  I am reminded of Bukowski and Hinton and the reality of magic.

Place Feet Here

This life
Is a spitting contest
With god,
Or the devil:
Wrestling matches
With my own
Angels, or
Demons;
Two sides: Same coin.

This life
Is an apology.
I’m sorry I’m happy.
I’m sorry for my pink skin.
I’m sorry for falling down.
I’m sorry for crying in front of you.
There is always more;
Most of the sins are lost
In folds of black silk;
The fabric of your death shroud;
Lost in generations
Of DNA,
Or one thousand births;
Your choice.

This life
Is a quest.
A spiraling path
Inward.
The more I learn
To love myself,
You like me
Less,
And the less I care
What you think,
I am able to love
You more;
The more I love you,
The more you can hurt me.
The more you hurt me,
The deeper I travel
Toward myself.
Vicious cycle?

This life
Is the funniest joke,
Told badly,
Punchline untimely revealed
Stammeringly, then
Taken back.
“Let me start over.”
So much practice
In the mirror,
I can only search
For my own reflection
In your eyes and
My own mortality
Among the tiny folds
In wrinkling flesh at
The corners;
Die laughing.

master piece

She had skills,
Many practical skills.
She could draw and paint.
She had been trained.
She learned to drive and shop
And cook for herself.

And she lived like that,
Drawing and painting
Just what she saw.
But she couldn’t see much:
Just how things looked.

She never skinny-dipped on a July night,
Or caressed her own body in the shower.
She never climbed up to a high place
To scream for God to show Herself.

She never swore or smoked
Or let herself stop being careful.
She drew and painted little shapes
That stayed little shapes.

The Masterpiece hides between
the fibers of her canvas,
Hidden by expertly applied layers of gesso.

The little shapes wait to be arranged wildly,
Impatiently. Her body waits to be caressed.
Her skills wait to be abandoned.
Her life waits to be lived.