Listen, God is singing through the Elms, first as thunder, then as wind, then as trembling leaves and limb.
It’s the crysalis that I find painful.
There’s no room for words.
Too focused on becoming to see what is
About to emerge.
What if I told you that here in the dark
We are not so far apart,
We who use our shoulders and spines to push against what confines
Our dreams.
As safe as it is inside the crysalis,
To stay is to die.
Struggle makes me strong
Enough to break free.
Let it be.
I have to interrupt the chickens by making my own sound: fingers tapping out my inner state on a small keyboard.
The chickens make a lot of sense as they carry on converstations and follow social rules,
it seems.
I watch them from the kitchen window as they share with some doves but not with others.
Why?
Better than vision is to listen to them speak to one another on the patio where they gathered
to get out of the rain.
Tonight they will all sit close together in their little house on the upper level: the loft.
The door will be closed against intruders
and they will sit as close to one another as they can.
This is the place where sound and light are one,
here in sadhana, or just after.
Where does the tone end and the light begin?
Imagine the force of the wave and breathe it in with your skin.
There is always snow,
deep and white.
And the woods look black in contrast,
As black as the wolf who waits for me to follow.
He tells me to stay in his tracks
one careful step after another.
There is always deep snow.
up to my knees,
and the trees look black in contrast.
I want to scream it in the streets:
Listen to me!
I don’t even know exactly what I want to say,
But this yearning to be heard is rumbling
around like thunder and I’m learning
that I have a right to be alive
simply because I am.
I want to sing.
Listen to me! Please.
It’s a good song that will make you
feel
something
and when you find out what that is you will want to sing too.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I want to whisper
purple and rose phrases
and take you through the stages of waking up.
It is good to voice the life inside me
because it is love and love needs somewhere to go.
Listen to me.
It will make you
feel
something.
Raven flies through periwinkle skies,
Beck’ning me to see tomorrow through her eyes.
So I take a peek as she soars
through an open door on the horizon.
And there I am ! Stronger than I’ve ever been
dancing with an indigo lion.
He’s all aglow in his golden halo,
and who am I to argue with a bird?
Now I know some say fancy is for fools
and I ought not waste a sober moment.
But there I am! Stronger than I’ve ever been
dancing with an indigo lion.
As he glides by my side he say, “Don’t be shy.”
And we dance till the new sun is shining,
yes we dance till the new sun shines.
Oh I take a peek as raven soars
through an open door on the horizon.
She beckons me to see tomorrow through her eyes,
and who am i to argue with a bird?
This is what I want written on my tombstone.
There was always a tornado in the top left side of my brain. Only my brain was encased in glass, not like in a museum show case. No, not like that. It was more like there was a group of people in those seats that are enclosed in a glass box at a football stadium.
And they were all there, watching the sky instead of the playing field because there was a tornado twisting toward the part of the glass window that would have been my left frontal lobes, if, you know, my brain was not organic material, but the box seats at a violent sporting event.
The tornado dreams leave me feeling drained; exhausted but wide awake at 3:00 am.
In the dream, it was the worry that wore us out.
All the people in the box seats were ragged with worry because the tornado never hit the glass. It was in a locked formation of imminent doom.
No one can live like that for long without becoming tornadic.
What is the solution to such chronic stress?
Waking up.
How does one know when they have awakened?
What do you think?
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she good
She was very very good
But when she was bad…
That would have been me, then,
Horrid.
When she was bad she was horrid.
That was what mom called “my poem.”
I suppose it’s true. When I’m bad, like today, I went to a scary place.
I contemplated suicide.
I envied the dead.
But I talked, sang, wept and tapped my way away from the ledge.
I called for help. I sang curses with a guttural flare when I was alone in the car.
I tapped out my suicidal ideation: tap the hand, the eyebrow point, the temples, under the nose, under the lips, collar bone and 7th rib.
Tap tap tap as the words poured out: even though I feel like slicing my wrist and letting the chaos fall silent, even though I feel like I want to die, I accept myself. Even though I don’t feel like I deserve the air I breathe, I accept the mess I am as I am right now. I accept (tap tap tap) all these feelings and let them go. Tap tap tap.
I was shaking uncontrollably.
The last time I shook like that was when I went into septic shock while waiting to be seen in an emergency room.
But when the shaking stopped I was in a different head space.
I made dinner.
I played my guitar.
I checked Facebook.
Now I’m here.
Tap tap tap.
asingingtree 