ir de compras

Voy a ir a comprar palabras

en un lugar que se supone que conozco 

por palabras que completarán mi alma

el mercado es antipático

y mi dinero está sudoroso y hecho jirones 

el intercambio rápido me causa vértigo vueltas

las palabras son caras

pero sin ellas no tengo puente

a mi corazón secreto      

measure

At the Cairo Hospital...looking at my true love.

February is the cruelest month.
Some couples choose to measure love:

“He took me to a waterfront restaurant with candle-light and violins!”

“He gave me long stemmed roses!” 
 “A two-carat diamond!"

 “He knelt when he proposed!” 

“We made love in front of a roaring fire...”
Measures of love, compared and pitted,
spurred talons sharpened,

greased feathers glittering.
I don't want to play. 

My true love doesn't like the  waterfront restaurants,
especially after a messy incident
(I ordered Maine lobster at market price).
He doesn't do diamonds (not after the mines)

He gives living roses, to plant in the soil.
His idea of a roaring fire
is at the end of a good cigar.
But he puts the seat down,
replaces light bulbs,

and has strong arms. 

His arms once supported me,
all of my weight as I
tried to act normal, plodding
up stairs. Cairo stairs—uneven stone steps,
in front of the hospital—littered
with candy wrappers. Black-wool hijabs
looking up at me, their eyes begging
me not to touch them, their hands
tucked beneath them, (too afraid? too
wise? did they think I was cursed?)
and leaning away as we passed.
He pulled my weight up so my feet
would be lighter. The women, their frightened 

expressions made me believe
I was dying.

Weak from blood loss, no fluid
would stay, no water in my eyes
or my body. It took all the strength
in me to hold on to my true love,
whose arms were around me, supporting me.
The primal scent of perspiration,
his one hand clasped over mine, holding me up.

So many stone steps between us and
the surgeon and we had to stop twice
and when I cried the women hid
their faces. We had to (could we?) stop
the bleeding. 

He kept whispering: “A few more steps, just
a few more steps…” And it was one up, and
two up and neither one of us had ever
been there. He whispered, "Just a few more..."

I pleaded to stop and lie down. He shook
his head and didn't feel sorry for me, and the
hospital was there, at the end of the steps,
just like he said it would be.

My measure of romance will always be this.
The strength of his arms and his whispers.
When the self is a weak, bleeding, staggering
thing, and the world is a bleak place with
long, stony paths, all uneven, he steadies me.
Even more, he believes I can do it and tells me,
and I get there with him going one step at a time.
He knows my pain and he walks beside me, anyway.

On steps like these,
too weak and bloodless to stop crying,
with nothing left to give, he asks for nothing
and expects nothing. He never leaves.
That is the measure of my true love’s heart.

beautiful

Today, in my hand –

I held something beautiful.

It melted into my flesh

And tasted sweet.

I felt the rush of thunder

Like sugar-frosted methadone

And unwavering rabbits

Blue against my temples.

Because.

Because…

The taste was more than beauty-

More than safety

More than honey

The words were a symphony

Of light.

anchorless

Tomika set sail in her ship one day
From all that naturally held her to shore;
She pulled up anchor and sailed toward the wind
Leaving the aches that plagued her before.
Leaving the aches that plagued her before.

Her hair she braided and pulled it back-
And brandished a cap to be perfectly free.
"To the wind!" she shouted, and set the sails.
And her crew rallied with her to sail the sea.
And her crew rallied with her to sail the sea.

In her quest to find solace, her voyage became-
A gentle seduction of the waves and the sky.
She looked toward the shore, vowing not to go back
To the place that once blinded her delicate eye...
To the place that once blinded her delicate eye.

There are some that still see her, time and again.
A peaceful, emotionless, anchor-less bride.
She's known as the girl who cast off her desire,
And chose not to feed what was wanting inside.
She chose not to feed what was wanting inside.

walk

Image by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/estarsid/

I walk a million miles a day,

and dream a million dreams.

I ask to see what people say,

and after, when they go away-

I find out what it means.

I grow each day, a thousand feet.

Not everyone can tell.

And when the sky and I will meet-

I'll call a certain cloud my seat-

and rest my body well.  

And if I die before my day,

I hope my dreams live on. 

There must be some fantastic way-

to keep them alive or make them stay-

When I'm already gone.  

Today's poem, "A Million Miles" was written when I was 16.  Today I remembered my Dad's reaction to it: "We gotta publish that sucker!" It is one of my favorite memories of my life.  

wild

        

Remember the days of big skies

And red dust walks

Where we lingered in the wild unknown

Of God and men

So unfamiliar?

Those days when

(before they were cut from

The shore like ice

To float away from us)

We loved hard and

It bounced back to us?

Remember?

You joined them

And I was left behind-

Like a useless appendage

Encouraged To knit….

or something

Else creative

In their normal scheme of things.

Those days when I broke out

And left the place of safety for the thirsty

Hungry friends

Who wanted to hear what He put inside of us.

Finally. 

Remember the moist tension

At night

Before the days of cool air

Were pumped in?

And the summer heat

Stood knocking;

Unable to cross the moat of

Our walls of plenty?

Distant tribal calls are whispers now

Now we wait

Like breathless children –

Dripping with sweat from our play.

Wait for God

To show us

The wild unknown

Of here.

forgiveness

When I learned the word forgiveness

It had a halo and some feathers.

It was a way to forget and bless -

A trade for uncomfortable tethers .

It wasn’t until much later that I knew how much I needed it

Like a wrench inside a toolbox,

Breaking through whatever impeded it-

breaking  paper, scissors, rocks.

My costly bloody wrench knew more of sacrifice

Than mercy; its costly job released me.

Some places I used it more than twice

Where offense was sharp or greasy.

And now forgiveness breaks my shame,

Not far from my embittered heart.

In case I slip and fall and blame

It lifts me to the place of art.

Because my freedom, joy and peace-

Can not exist without release