OPUS 42

Where are you

my salvation?

Everywhere and

nowhere

I can touch.

From rowing

my boat through

piece of my heart,

the lights of

Gotham,

the dark,

the spark

between us,

everywhere

I’d dare to go,

there you were,

and are

my salvation,

my aging with

saving grace.

Strip me of

my face,

my form,

my torn and

tender trust,

just please

hear my longing

in a blue note,

hear it in layers,

like blue smoke

across the moon.

Ataraxia

Artist: Susan Seddon Boulet

I know we have bodies...bodies behind desks...cash-registers...computers...sex...sinks…treadmills... ovens...link in the chain-strain...bodies full of stress, dressed and waiting for the other shoe to fall,
in whatever way, yes...but we always have our right minds too.  Everything is Everything, after all,
big and small, we are juxtaposed, both with life and with death, with nothing...and everything,
with that, get 'er done left brain...and Let It Be, right side, again.

Through that right mind, I invite you...come, sit with me, if you will...still...between this moment
and the next, before anything might, or might not be.

See outside, a gentle rain falls without a sound, to grateful ground.  Light drops tat themselves together,
knots that make a lace curtain, hanging from curved rail of a mist through the trees.  Breathe...oh yes, that breath, in and out, between birth and death, breath, in and out.  Listen to that rushing stream, air, in and out.  I take four real bellows-from-the-bottom breaths, and realise how different it is from shallow, stressed,
only top of the chest breathing.  Creates space inside, a place of peace on the right side, come sit beside me,
in a pyramid of violet light.

I can feel the rain upon my face, my breath catching with the wind...and I breathe the magic word.....Ataraxia...it makes a foreign voice from the everyday...Ataraxia...the state of freedom from emotional disturbances and anxiety...Ataraxia.  Rain, tears, wind, breathe...trees beneath and rising,
twisting through the mist...the sky...the stars...the orbiting rhythms that make us fly.

I'll meet you, midnight at the oasis, or morning on the mountain-top.  We'll walk along
a crescent beach, finding shells...we'll pick heather in the highlands and make
Medicine Circles everywhere.  Never despair, for the door is right there,
and I've come a-knockin'. Breathe and be free, for this is a gift built-in, the door out,
within

*****************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************.

Nehmes, Temple Singer (Neh-MEEZ)

 

On the first day of Egypt’s

Spring Eleven revolution,

while a young generation

called out for freedom,

they found her, temple singer,

in buried casket, Nehmes Bastet.

She died and was mummified,

nearly three thousand years ago,

lovingly wrapped, sacred cargo

entombed with Pharaohs

in Valley of the Kings,

in Valley of the Kings.

Nehmes, daughter of the Priest, Amon,

rose again to sing blessings upon

rise of an Arab Spring revolution,

songs of yearning freedom.

They kept her hidden in a wooden,

painted black sarcophagus,

hieroglyphics written

all over it, to tell us

about her, temple singer,

Lioness, oh Bast…Goddess

Feline, worshipped as divine.

Nehmes sang under drifting sand,

praying for her golden land

released from a golden hand,

in Valley of the Kings,

in Valley of the Kings.

Nehmes, daughter of the Priest, Amon,

rose again to sing blessings upon

rise of an Arab Spring revolution,

songs of yearning freedom.

Three thousand years comes Nehmes,

through a people’s evolution,

lyric celebration,

musical ablution.

They hear her, temple singer,

timeless, people’s voices,

rejoice in Egypt’s choice,

Nehmes and history sing

of power that truth can bring,

Singer, let your voice ring

from Valley of the Kings,

from Valley of the Kings.

Nehmes, daughter of the Priest, Amon,

rose again to sing blessings upon

rise of an Arab Spring revolution,

songs of yearning freedom.

Wolf and Krazy Crow On the Run

My shift as passenger came at night
this particular run from east to west,
Krazy Crow going to Blackfoot,

Wolf Woman to the old Grey's den.
We'd eaten miles from Manatoulin,
made it through Thunder Bay
before raging clay floods

closed the roads behind, miles

we’d ride from clouds with fire
in their bellies and tears
enough to drown towns.
Then came endless prairie,
lamp-lit straight ribbon highway
under spilling bowl of stars,
Aurora Borealis Thunderbird

flying with us, freedom

to follow my gaze, folding

legs under, upon the seat,
unable to sleep before my turn
behind the wheel, come Alberta
and the sun's rising

in the rear view mirror.

Woman Medicine

Women eat

crises
for breakfast,

eat our

hurts

like snake its skin,

desire

at trembling

thighs meeting.
Women eat monsters
for munchies,

fear

like tiny popping

orange roe
oh,

we eat crow and
our own knowing.

Women make places
movable,

our dance unseen

in sweet dark
imagining.
Life set ark in

motion,
circle to straight line,
yin to yang and
Great Mystery

hangs in its

balance.
Women sing
our own existence.

Women gather

Medicine
for living,

gather our
answers
like seeds

their promise,
hope

in the cold and dark.

Women gather

at tide-lines,

high and low,
gather seaweed

and moon's
glow
oh,

we gather threads
for our own weaving.

Into the Gibbon's Moonlight

Where are you taking me,
she whispered to monkey
as if the trees had ears,
and stars might tell moon she
had wandered far from bed.

Monkeys don't talk to little girls
now follow me,
said he,
running on all fours ahead.

In bella bella luna light,
night-blooming jasmine glowed,
and when her shift brushed by,
shiny pollen wove with cotton,
a Celtic design on yoke and hem.

Come on girl,
said monkey,
tut-tut now, you keep up.

Nightingale sang to the moonlight,
dogstar sang light years away,
she ran in bare feet over
bright green moss, catching up
with monkey at edge of a glade.
Sir Monkey,
she said with tiny gasps,
thank you for making me come so fast,
eyes filled to wide and liquid brim
she leaned into him and stared.

There was a pond,
like melted silver in the moonlight,
flora and fauna of every kind,
truly a most beautiful sight.

Come,
said monkey and took her hand,
led her to rocks and reeds,
lifted slate and pulled back weeds,

monkey freed a water-spout,
monkey pulled his tin cup out.
Children who drink at the hidden spring
open themselves to the Muse.
Monkey held full cup out.
To drink or not, you must choose.

Faeries on her shoulders,
animals whispering in her ears
she reached forward, took the cup.

Thank you Monkey...Cheers!

Playing with form:

Home

O
we
can
spin
upon
string,
ellipse
planets
in space
about sun
but what is
home to us?
What is need
for our seed to
dream of return?
Tiny dancer spins
blue an' green bead,
it may be ripe garden
but is it home? Breath
held within this pressure
swirls lacy clouds around,
wind o’er water and ground.
Can we make this earth move
for us? Am I home if fire spills
down my thighs? Tiny spinning
blue-green bead, jade and lazuli
desires reach for new beginning
through never-ending, inky sky.
Home is where our naked wet
pounding hearts lie, outside
our bodies, where Milky
Way pours its light

in afterglow.