Night Walking

Walked to Denny’s with Tyler and Jared tonight.

Flip flops on side walks. Street lights and humming telephone pole wires.

Three stars. One, two, haze.

Sprinkler stains on dilapidated fences. White and grey.

Cars race by--screaming, screeching. Loud.

The city is loud. Loud in my ears.

I brace myself against the abrasions.

Sounds cut like a hacksaw.

I feel alien. I feel alone. I know where I belong, yet

I fight against that urge. Fight against myself and what

I know is truth.

Why must it be about me?

Why can’t I be happy leading the normal life?

Why am I so selfish in my desires?

I sketch pictures of granite walls and blue-backdropped trees in my mind. A quite, contemplative scene where I can retreat and recall. There is peace in the quiet of my mind, the solitude of my recollection. In reflections. In memory. In sounds only I can hear.

A pack on my back. Boots on my feet. A ringed fire with the smell of burning pine. Dirt under my fingernails. Melted snow cascades and finds its way into my water bottle--sweeter than honey. The static lightning that flashes as I slide into my sleeping bag. Home.

But I’m not home, leastways not in the deepest sense of my meaning of “home.”

There must be others like me. But I hope not.

Thunderhowl

The call the call

The howl

The tear of clothes to hair too teeth gnash

No more orange clouds night!

No more no more stars!

Why why why?

And the thunder in my ears

Is the only truth I know

So no wonder why I run run

After my headsound as it thunderfades

Back.

Retreating to a place I cannot go

Want to go want to go cannot go.

It is the green of the shade, of the ground

of the air, of the moss on the side of the stream.

It is the blue of the sky, of the wind in the leaves

of the shade in the evening.

It is the white of the sun in the hot of the sky,

of the feathers of breast of the beat of the bird: Fly.

Why can’t I go

Why can’t I leave

Why can’t I howl

And clutch at the stars like

the sound in my head?

Neverend neverstop--the peace in the silence

of thundering with my howl.

Realization

Realization: I can't make you happy; you can only make yourself happy; you may not think you have the strength to try; if you don't continue to try, I will.... I will...

I don't know what I'll do, but I'll be pissed.

Coming Back

I feel. And I feel my exhaustion like a cloak: a weight I want to shed.

An ache in my bones that seems to call out to be remedied.

Like my car, I need a jump start. Hopefully not a new battery, because I am not sure what that would entail. Cables?

It is too early for this.

Buffalo Sunshine

Originally written Friday, September 15, 2006

Thoughts for a Friday afternoon

An iron buffalo

Contrast to

the animate shepherd dog- pounce!

Take a turn;

lights are green

Here are lines

and asphalt which

demand blood as a sacrifice-

we give it what it needs.

But the sun is shining yet

and birds are wheeling

so are these tires.

Whistles I to the blurred trees.

The bison hasn't moved an inch

I continue my decent

to valleys and deserts

and views of

the sheen of crow wings.

Yellow. Stop. Go.

This is how I go

my thoughts and I

to work

Thoughts for a Friday afternoon.

Blushing Ocotillos

Originally written Sunday, December 21, 2008

I aim for the mountains ahead,

Passing by blood-red Ocotillo blossoms,

Held up against the snowy, white heights,

They become the framework of my thoughts.

They have held back their beauty for years;

The time of the drought is now over.

Miles beyond, the snow whispers to the sky,

Making it blush deep colors.

We all change, we all bend towards

The sun, whatever the season.

With permission granted, I am moving forward.

I am leaving the desert, running like winter

to a land where I am no longer a refugee,

but a woman who can walk in freedom.

Paradigms a Dime a Dozen

Originally written Sunday, February 08, 2009

I think there will be a time when rainbows are not just seen

through our own perspective.

I think we will hit a point where anyone can see what the

other does.

I think we will be able to ride the see-saw of everyone who

is not “me,”

And that is where solid ground will find itself under our

feet

And we will no longer wobble and topple as we fight to find

common ground.

I think we can get there. We just need to open our eyes and

enjoy the weather.