Eighteen hundred feet.
The distance I’d climbed up Machu Picchu Mountain
over stones made slick by the morning rain.
Three hundred feet.
The distance remaining to the summit.
Limits

Ahead
Ascending the mountain, stone steps
three feet wide.
To the left – a sheer drop.
Above the top step – a misty sky.
To the right – more steps?
Or possibly another sheer drop?
Limits

I clutch the rocks on my right,
inhale deeply and exhale.
I smile.
I bend my knees and turn my body to the left
and sit down on the wet stone.

In a few minutes
I will begin the descent
Without looking back toward the summit.
Without making it to the top,
I have reached my limit.

I’m intelligent

But I have a terrible memory

I’ve thought of so many theories

I’ve had the answers

To all miseries

I’ve discovered the cure to cancer

About 53 times over

But I can’t tell you

The method or formula

It’s because of me

That others must suffer

I’m terribly sorry

My muse was absent
this LexPoMo June,
out riding a four-wheel cart,
driving a pock-marked
sphere toward a distant hole,
sipping cocktails in the clubhouse.
I’d planned to play at poetry,
but my muse was set on golf.

Emaciated sun rises
behind loud trees
highlighting powerful blooms
and one precious bird

In memory of my mother 8/9/48 – 3/11/2007

My brush caught the clasp on your strand of pearls  
In a frozen moment I imagined them               
dropping down the open drain one by one               

But the clasp held and I recalled
that pearls are knotted each by each,
carefully slid down the strand by hand     

Unless the whole necklace is lost, each pearl is safe.
      
I thought of you and the pale nape of your neck 
 your hand pulling up strands
escaping your long and graceful hairline.

Addiction II
I listen carefully to gage what you are covering up
To hear if your words are slurred
Or your outlook too bleak,
Or if you have verged into mania.
I tell myself,
This is the nature of addiction.

I try not to take it personally
as I internalize your depression and misplaced rage.
On your good days I strain towards the normalcy in your voice
Recalling how you once were, and could be again
Imagining all the fun we could have as sisters.
Setting myself up to fall when you crash.
I cover for you to try to spare others the worry.
How many stints in the ICU will it take
“to reach rock bottom?”
I have been encouraged to walk away
but I cannot.
My guilt and my love
and my powerlessness weigh heavy.
This is the nature of addiction.

Twilight: the whippoorwills call,
& the faint sound of Bob White
in the distance.  Like a spark that snaps
from the unseasoned wood piled high
on a summer bonfire, we see it: the first
lightning bug.  How we loved to run
through the weeds, and catch
these pixies in flight that seemed
to move at a snail’s pace.
Soon fields were swarming
with the phosphorescent seraphs.
We’d put them in an old Mason jar,
poke some holes in the lid, & find
the perfect place for them in our bedroom.
Silently, we’d watch the yellow sparkles
illuminate the room as we drifted off
to sleep.  I’m glad we didn’t grow up
in the age of technology. 

THE ARISING

The What Is began with a Bang,
an explosion beyond comprehension,
and as energy and matter expanded
       into The Nothingness
stars formed and galaxies came to be,
and as stars grew old and burned out
they exploded, dispersing the heavy
     elements they had forged
           in their hot cores
                  into giant clouds
stirred by gravity into new stars
               such as our sun
      and planets like our own,
where out of the dead dust of
      exploded stars
somehow life and consciousness 
          managed to arise,
   and from where we may now
                  look up 
         at the night sky
    at the end of each day,
       and know we’re all children
         of the spiraling Milky Way…

i want to write a poem that
gives my heart the fiction
it can agree with

i forgot how you smelled
but today you flashed
a hickey at me
a dripping eye
trying to catch my gaze
with a murdering wink

dear amelia,
it took a year plus change but
i finally took your advice

so those invisible figures
you surrounded me with
might pause
shake their heads
take two steps back

i washed you
out of my sheets today
and i’m still not sure if
i’m sorry or not

virginity stripping embrace
dancing arms circle
door parting sweep

hands folded in laps
chewed lips advancing and retreating over
sawn teeth
hunched shoulder hollowing out
a space at the collar bone
for water to collect

you kissed my calf
as i walked up the stairs
and everything was in bloom

i finally know how to feel
and if i could
i’d leave you all over again

Pictures of friends, band contests, shenanigans,

dances, parties, week-end gatherings, fun times,

flood my timeline.  This seems like a lifetime ago.

We were so young, not placing any thoughts on the future. 

We set aside a time to gather and reminisce

about the good old days.  Everyone will wear their finest clothes,

talk about their work, families, and what we spend our time on now.

My time now revolves around my family and my work in my church work.

I enjoy time with my husband, my son, my father. 

Traveling, learning, serving, my priorities are different. 

I will have to say, I like where I am 20 years later. 

These are good days indeed.