#AmWriting

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Why I Write

I write because I want to understand. I write because I don’t understand. I write anyway.  I write to think. I write to feel.  I write because my body is mostly water.

I write to translate water. I write like I’m swimming. I write deeper and deeper to find my breath. I write to remember I never lost it. I write the silence of being underwater. I write rhythm. I write tides. I write endless grains of sand. I write to honor the twisting cypress trees and my grandmothers. I write because the moon doesn’t give up on me. I write because I don’t give up on me.

I write because I was a child with an imaginary friend. I write to remember her. I write to remember me. I write stories moving through my body. I write to hold them tighter. I write to let them go. 

I write because you didn’t see me. I write because you did. I write to hold your hand in the dark. I write a thousand tiny hearts in the margin of my notebook. 

I write to play.  I write to dance. I write because a song made me cry.

 I write because I’m afraid I’ll forget everything. I write because I’m afraid I’ll be forgotten. I write to leave my children pieces of me to hold onto when I’m gone.

 I write because the world is filled with contradictions. I write because I’m filled with contradictions.  

I write to understand how gravity and time change depending on who I stand beside. I write as one who has been hurt and who has hurt others. I write to understand forgiveness.

I write because my fingers and jaw need to unclench. I write because the wind told me to.

I write because of beautiful journals and smooth pens. I write because words cost nothing and I’m broke. I write lies. I write truths. I write as if you have been by my side the entire time.

I write because I hope you will like me. I write because it doesn’t matter if you do.

I write even though the words must be extracted with bloody fingertips and it hurts and I get angry. I write certain you will figure out I’m a fraud, but hoping you won’t care. I write because sometimes I touch something like spirit, like source, and it’s intoxicating. I write because we are all this vulnerable.

I write as one who learns and forgets over and over. I write as if I’m going to never stop. I write because someday I will.

I write because words, like me, are imperfect, and yet I still love them.

My good friend Neil challenged his readers to write a list of why they write. I turned 47 today and I decided to celebrate it by answering. I’d be honored if you took up his call and wrote your own list. Let me know if you do and thank you for reading.

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poetry: floating together

find me where winter waters flow
honey thick. where ferns weave baskets
cradling colored stones. listen for songs
dripping down cave walls, tiny fairy feet
dancing delicately on crushed shells, soft
foamy voices calling your name. follow
them. do not despair as earthen gravity
releases you. let go. reach through murky
darkness until our fingertips merge. hold
tight as our toes taste stars. I’m beside
you watching our bubbly breath connect
inside and outside. beautifully untethered.

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poetry: petals

hold this, please
while I wander underwater
where softness grows
where muted heartbeats
dance

look closer, bend
see tiger stripes gleaming
where fire resides
where boldness bellows
sings

become mermaid, dive
unfold each lovely bloom
where water renews
where bells chime
live

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poetry: snow cave

in Winter
in all Winters
it lays dormant inside 
domed darkness

you walk past it looking nowhere
anywhere, but not there
  never there

yet it goes still
growing bedrock feral
mushroom bellied
lichen ferocious
trapping pain web-like
crackling like ice
smelling like bruised desperation
like untouched skin
like hot ash scattered by eroded winds 

you don’t need to see
to feel

you walk faster looking nowhere
anywhere, but not there
  never there 

yet it goes still
like tides
like movement 
Spring saplings tap-dancing
on rooted tiptoes
daffodils issuing battle cries
thrusting spears upward
dandelion puffs cooing
dreaming light again
there’s a light somewhere
he says

your nested winds sigh
your meadow grasses rustle
your waters ripple gently

just a bit longer
you tell your forest
  hold tight 

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Dream with me

When children are small you can sprinkle nutritional yeast on millet and tell them it’s fairy dust. With a word, it becomes so. Such is the power of language. What if we could do the same with our dreams? Here’s a poem and flash fiction rambling on about such things. Let me know what you think.

little shadow

perched on a purple wall
staring at my sleeping child

what do you see shadow bird?

do you see. see like me?

my grandfather became cloud
grandmother became butterfly.

I sit in her chair. I sing with his voice.

what will be left for her when I, transform?

maybe I become you.
maybe I watch from a wall.

flying with one word.
staying with another. word.

dream me alive. over and over and over.
clove and nutmeg. owl spreading wings.

forest hears, nothing.

another dream

Transform

One night during a dream of chaos and war a woman gives birth to a baby with hair the color of fresh snow. The baby blinks at the woman with eyes as green as ancient ferns and coos like a dove. What if instead of forgetting the baby when she woke the woman decides to name her Mabel and she becomes as real as coffee.

The woman dresses the dream baby in clothes the color of fresh marigolds and wears her close to her chest in a carrier woven of the softest wool. She takes the baby out into the rain and her laugh becomes lightning. The world sparks around them and glows brighter.

The plants in the woman’s house grow with the baby—greener and taller, greener and taller until the woman is forced to cut through them with a large knife, like an explorer in a jungle. She and the baby laugh at the silliness of it as birds make nests in her living room and a family of rabbits discovers the perfect place to live within her closet.

They spend most days outdoors so Mabel can make the grass thicker, the trees taller, and the flowers bolder. The neighbors don’t know what’s making their gardens grow and the woman decides not to tell them. Not everyone believes as strongly as she does and she fears their disbelief will pull the child away.

When Mabel starts walking the woman takes her outside in the middle of the night and upon seeing the full moon the child begins to sing. The tiny lilting notes cause the stars to dance and the moon to move closer and closer to the Earth. The woman knows this won’t go unnoticed and will have terrible consequences, but she hesitates to act because love defies logic and gravity. Love defies most things.

Mabel however makes the choice for her, wiggling out of her grasp and floating toward the moon. The baby with hair as white as snow returns back into the dream where she was born and the woman walks home alone. Her house feels different but she smiles the same because Mabel is as real as coffee and her physical absence changes nothing. She wraps herself in wool and dream walks to visit her child.

Such is the power of language. And love.

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Poetry: Hidden

Beneath the painted trees
lives another world
tilted a little to the left

Open your eyes
walk two steps forward
feel the movement

You might hear raindrops
or the lake calling
don’t get distracted

Lean all the way in
watch as looping circles
turn into golden threads

Pull one

Become a magnet
draw others near
trust you won’t fall

You’re a warmth weaver
create a fireside nest
fill it with moonlight

Burrow deep inside
touch the fabric
tell yourself not to forget

This is dedicated to the lovely women I’m spending the weekend with in Tahoe.

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poetry: playing games

open and shut them
a game with toddlers
to still their hands
to make them giggle
I play it in my head
to still my fears
open and shut them
ambulance out the window
stretcher in the hall
two paramedics in blue
electrodes on his chest
it’s not like last time
give a little clap, clap, clap
take me back to stillness
no ripples spreading out
just flat glassy ease
a breath and a sigh
open and shut them
pajama pants, slip-on shoes
home before sunrise
coffee while he sleeps
hugs when he wakes
put them in your lap, lap, lap