Four and Awakening

Freeze tag
No replays
Keeping truth at bay.

This is a love song, I guess, yes,
Though at first fawn I thought "love bears all things" meant something
Different.

That hook that sends me on flight as a savior into situations
Where I am again a victim
I need to validate this pain and name the stain; 

Release the pattern, the familiar [familial] role play
The fatigue of doning combat fatigues
Of denying my body's dossier.

Owning a trauma response, a conditioning
Noticing and becoming present;
Awakening.

Burnout: but don’t forget the stars

When I start to

Fall apart:

Disintegration

The loss of integrity

Windstrewn

The gradients in and out 

of tune 

Fearfully, fitfully 

It’s not elegant like the movies

Yes it’s more a like 

A swollen red eyed heap of sobs

Every choice a wake

A break a

Stake

A chagrin inside my chest

A shudder

Stunted despair

Will it grow or blow out the flame?

When I feel

the burnout on the inside

a fractured, unintelligible 

Cataract of ashes and 

Dust 

But don’t forget the stars

That flame with a calling and a name

Called out 

Reframed

Those threads that were unraveling

Slowly stop

The shaking subsides

and I drop

Lower, deeper in my chest, decompress 

and find myself again 

More, together 

More like a light

And less like a shadow 

More like breath

And less like the wind 

Only love

When I fail myself,

I forgive myself 

No need to beat her up;

Harass, punish, condemn 

Lashing out.

Only love can retrieve 

What is lost, unspoken 

What has been so utterly broken

Only love can redeem.

Acting out

That fleck in the sky is a crane, or heron chasing the river’s course perhaps it’s northward here, along this curve, this bend not far from Franklin. To the south is the uncaptured rising moon. Also uncaptured is the stranger who held me in samba on the white sand, acting out my secret fantasy. Manifested into a self abandonment reality, complete with whiskey drunken from a stainless steel shot glass via a plastic flask. Again uncaptured is the burning red sunset that watched us like some benevolent fairy godfather. 

Well goodbye to the goodwill, 

good water

drain me away

preoccupied

places

progress

messes

making

Oh free me

believe me

this is a risk worth taking.

No erosion in heaven

Someday,

There will be sod laid over the mud.

Beauty, order, covering

Over the barren ground.

Prairies in heaven, savannas of lush and flourishing land, no more exposed soil, no more windswept earth, all the life lost, blown away.

No more deserts of parched ground where nothing is fruitful, only thorns and thistles. 

Someday, 

redemption.

(Circa 2014).

The Weight of Water

Three cranes glide over the river

the line of flags hang limp in the rain.

The weight of sodden

pageantry; was it calculated in the casting?

Can it be borne?

Does anyone imagine the 

weight of their life 

when it is soaked?

How heavy it is.

Every motion is laden with grief

accumulated weights.

The density of water is 0.99802 g/ml. 

What a pull when it saturates;

filling every space.

The next day the flags flutter northward,

the cranes roosting.

Empty hands of faith

“Prayer is an activity that must be central to our lives... in prayer we are holding our empty hands of faith to the God who is there and you can do far more abundantly than all we ask or imagine. -Francis Scaeffer