I have left my love of beauty

I have left my deeper sense of beauty with my lost love
somewhere between the past and the unknown
in the savannah of high-mountain desert
in the midnight stars of ceremonial mystery
in the longing for the chance to say the sweet thing 
that stuck to my tongue
when the habit of bitterness stood between us
I have left beauty somewhere in the clouds over New Mexico
perhaps in the prayer dirt of Chimayo or a dusty road outside Madrid
where I let my dreams rip out of me into the God-sky
trusting that they would fly back on sacred wings 
and nest in our hearts

they never came home, and she left, too
and I’ve lost my perch and my ground at the same time

Today, I lie in the dirt, waiting for what, I don’t know
just too tired to move my heart in any direction
I can’t seem to gather the pieces, the rivulets of grief
the tears and scars barely holding together what is left

when I long for beauty, it brings the emptiness
of something I gave away with the deepest trust
or perhaps hope, that I would be met

If you had taken it from me and run
that would have left me angry and righteous
but that you didn’t even want it
and let it fall away in the breezes
leaves me hollow and unwanted in such a way 
that I don’t know how to stand

I lie in the dirt and offer my tears to the earth
and to my own self that needs more nurturing than I can offer it
craving stillness in this sorrow, to just be
praying to the mother to feed me in some way

to bring life back into me so that I can 
move towards something again
towards something beautiful again

Losar

Today is Losar
let the wind carry away my grief and sorrow
my fears and unrequited love
blow through me
free me from these haunts

like the grasses in winter
weeping, bent over in snow
brown and dry

let these energies die
and return to the earth
to feed the seeds of new vision

the fresh dirt and young shoots
of wholeness and love
of happiness and joy
of health and sustainability

on this day, I turn slightly
and step this way, not that
onto the path of light again

away from the burdens of the past
those villages have burned
the gates are closed

let me mystery guide me
to the new wonders already here
awaiting my arrival

eclipse

4.14.14

I heard a screen door open and close
across the field
my neighbor, too
came out to look at the moon
her majestic eclipse
in the early morning hours
just past midnight

And I in my solitude
my new lost love
and aloneness
didn't feel so empty
as we quietly witnessed the sky

I thought of the ancients
the many, many humans
who have come before
who stared up at the skies
to watch the beauty and the mystery
the relationship between the spheres
to question and wonder
our meaning and our purpose
and how we are connected
to this magnificence

I wondered
where we got lost
how we have become so consumed
with zeros and ones
always trying to byte off life
in some cyber realm
nothing tangible
the deepest relationships somehow obscured
by our myopic greed and lust
for identities that we will
never realize

So I surrendered
breathed in the night air
gazed up at the shrouded Grandmother
honoring her for her teaching
of being bright
and then welcoming the dark
with the promise of brightness to return

And imagined that I could carry
the same courage in my heart
as I walk through these days
of half-darkness
with the fear of more to come
but the hope
of the return of the light

I want you to touch me here

sunday evening
I’m back from the weekend of
camping with my son

thunder rolls in over the dark foothills
it’s both comforting and lonely

in the soft, undulating drone
of ceiling fan, ambient music
candles and the
post- auto-erotica haze
I almost feel ok

you’re away
maybe for good this time
who knows what you want anymore

I want you to touch me here
in this depth and vulnerability

that would be amazing