GROWING YOUNGER
With each day a new wonder
Every question has unheard answers
Hands find new textures, new foods, new non-foods
Another adventure beyond the door
Another friend, another shore
Gathering stories to retell
with lessons to live well
Growing Younger
in our hearts, in our songs.
12.26.22
But how can I let go?
My hands are holding so well,
my arms are strong,
These legs have covered
miles, they’ve kept me
safe, they’ve kept me here.
I cannot go from them,
I cannot let them walk away.
The shirts and jackets,
the minutes and mornings,
All holding tight, they
couldn’t leave, even if I turn
away. The laughs are here,
where will we laugh when
they’re gone? How will
the tiny ears react to
the thunder, the hands trace
the rain on the window
keeping, keeping, keeping me
in, safe from going, safe
from the future I don’t see,
I can’t see, holding my own,
keeping me home.
12.5.23
We could yell at the
clouds all day and
they still wouldn’t rain.
All the power holding us here, is invisible,
is not the molecules that make up the air.
The power is deep in the center of everyone of our cells, it’s what holds us together.
These kids walking up the road
with their boots and backpacks
They don’t want to walk up this road,
They’d rather go to school,
or works or visit someone and laugh.
All day they walk past barren
shoulders and distant homes,
curves and straights, light
heating the colors like layers
of cake.
I don’t know what they’re talking
about, or thinking, I just know
this is not what they want to do,
not what anyone wants to do.
But we do what comes to us,
or we run, and these kids
aren’t running, they’re walking
straight towards fire, straight towards
war, maybe they hope that they
are the last ones to ever have to walk this road.
MILLIONS & BILLIONS
Fresh clear harvested air for these billowing bags undone. Branches cascading, leaves permeating, stars hides in the day to repaint the nights sky. Why up high,
I implore your eyes to see all the natural construction of what has been
building itself
To make us
And to trust that we will be worth the millions and billions of years of genetic failures.
You
You are the sum of all that you have done, plus everything that everything has ever done. Even the sun, every loon, all the fish in the lakes, every wish with cake and frosting covered paper plates are a part of you, integral to all you do. All the moms and the scores and the rocks at the bottom of the sea are with you at the store when you buy celery and wash off the dust that’s flown over the Atlantic ocean which is a part of the commotion when you’re
Running late
Running late, you’re not even running at all you are flying through space at 57,000 million, billion, trillion miles an hour.
9.12.02
A step before
I step
to
sleep
In my mind
you begin
to sneak
A step back
and I’ll look
behind
But that’s a
way I may
not walk
A line
fluorescent
And my choice
to neglect it.
Reflect a step
before
Sleep and
If I remember to dream
you shall creep.
OUT ON MY OWN
I’ve been out on my own
I have waited for lights
I’ve hurried past towns
In need of new ways
I’ve been out on my own
In the brush with no color
On my way with no others
I’ve been out here slippin
When they tell me I’m growin
They tell me I’m growin everyday
I’ve been two hundred hours
With hearing all lies
Lost on a one way highway
With no exits
Carrying empty bags
That were heavier than horses
Waiting to start and remembering that it did
I’ve been right where I should be
But not where I want
I’m not where I want to be
Imagining a future
Where someone knows what these words me
And they argue for validity
And then everyone just gives up
And everyone remembers
That there isn't one line
That they’re waiting to find
That’ll set straight for all time
What we’re all about
What we’re all about
I’ve been waiting here
Looking and hoping to stop time
I am not on my own
I’m surrounded by light
Moving slow through old towns
Finding new ways
We are not on our own
We’re in the woods made of color
Just looking around at each other
We’re out here growing
Growing together like a tree.
From Rooms
Taking these songs out of the room, they’ve been for walks, they’ve shared in places beyond their home, but they never left. They’ve never been put down, debated, decided upon, they’ve only been mine, existing only when I wanted them to. Now they won’t. Another hand, another trigger to start, and they’ll change beyond my mind’s possibilities, and all I can do is keep my heart in there, and if that happens it’s all ok.