To S and the Precious One

I’ve melted all the snows within me

to warm the grounds of your arrival.

Between the visible

and the invisible

all my fires have dissolved into spring water

that celebrates your approach.

.......

Dear S, all those years

you held roses over the world’s wounds

didn’t you see why candles are consumed by flames and heat?

They only want to be conscious of themselves.

.......

 

Pendulum

The pendulum moves,

but who decides where it is at any given point in time?

Is there a strict dichotomy between flexibility and control?

Is the headless bird a metaphor for transmigration?

And are the deer, leaping across remote distances,

messengers for Christmas?

Or are they here to intensify that feeling of “we’re lost”?

The poet of pessimism and self-restraint

has become darker, or more brilliant than reality?

She recites an ancient mantra:

“In the absence of any meaningful event,”

as if nervously waiting for something to occur.

She feels she roams, but what really keeps roaming is

the expanding disquiet.

Is there any still point

to this turning world

that turns towards the infinite...... Or turns to nothing?

 

Awakened

Standing still,

Gazing into the fountain and the azure sky

That are deep under my skin,

I Feel the roses in my collarbones

 

For the deep pains and sorrows of the world,

There is one and only prescription

Called “awakening”

 

 

A Drop of Water

I pretended to be the running water,

to be the fast rain,

to be the sea and ocean,

until one day

the mirage coughed out spring and all seasons

coughed out starry nights, coughed out sunny days.
It dawned on me then

that I’ve always been

nothing but

a mere, true, perfect

drop of water

which, in its tiny singularity

reflects you, reflects us, reflects all.

 

A Love Poem

 

The lady

riding on a white horse

smells like green grass, smells like spring breeze,

and on her skin

roses blossom.

She carefully removes the thorns from her roses

she begs with her eyes,

oh how she’s been looking,

looking everywhere,

dying to meet you!

 

 

A Love Letter to Time

Time,

I have so much to confide

to you,

 

but it would have to be a love letter

engraved by my will

and posted from my Future

 

 

 A Poem About Poems

It’s not me writing these poems,

they just arrive at my lips

like peach blossoms arriving each spring,

like the ocean falling upon the shore,

like the games kids invent.

 

These poems fall upon my body, caress the tips of my fingers,

they’re just like You

who arrives in my poems

like blood returning to the stopped heart.

 

See? Here You are, over and over,

throbbing in my poems

a willful, lovely visitor.

 

These poems inhabit me

because of You,

because You’re meant to be sung and praised through poems

for they manifest the good in all.

 

I, A Daughter

I sit on the sizzling hot button of my Father issue

Why you, why me?

I’ve travelled around the galaxy

seeking a clean slate

wiped free of you

I’ve gone through wild woods and over frozen earth

I’ve trekked to the land where Oedipus

settled down to hide from himself

His only answer

was blindness and stillness

that’s how he honored his fate

 

I travelled back and forth

from my birth to my death

only to suffer the same honor

as Oedipus

Now I harbor my grief and yours

and I pray to you

that we may be permitted to sing ourselves

and celebrate life’s breath and its hazards

 

 

The Star

We come from nowhere

but compounded dust

Prior to this

we slipped through God’s fingers

to erupt, dance, and roar.

I’ve slain myself billions of times

and from the infinite oscillation,

I’ve salvaged, re-folded and multiplied myself with E = mc^2

 

 

You might have seen me

or maybe not

my self-decaying burning and blazing

is my longing and my fate.

If you ever gaze on me,

please,

fall into the universe of my light.

 

 The Gap of Time 

We’ve walked on the same fields and lawns

been the same buildings and dorms—

between you and me

there’s merely a gap of time

like in a slowed down film’s eyeblink

I want you to see this before I leave

so you can arrive faster

at your true self

heart-broken and heart-healed

No drugs to help you work it out, just yourself

and the hunger of the void that turns and rebounds

from whatever’s lost, whatever’s found

 

There’s a chance that in you

something will grow

that turns into a spirit that you never were—

my you become my silent pal of glancing light