Brilliance

I am quite in love with the sun today
It shatters the iceberg's surface into diamond
And slicks it with sweat.
The heat gets to the core of me
Bubbles, small like frog spawn, form inside this vessel
Of flesh.
Reminding me that life is coming
That life is in me.

The clouds ripple across the sky
Diaphanous, lucent fabric
Wrap me, cradle me
Remove my blindness by igniting my heart
Fine hairs rise on my arms
The electricity of brilliance,
Of organic, enlightened intelligence
Reminding me that life is coming
That life is all around.

A Complaint

A Complaint

Oh, Atlas
We must have a conversation

You hunch there, tensed and groaning.

Why do you hold it up, I wonder,
After all these centuries past?

The weight, you say, is greater
Than last year

I see, I reply

And the year before, you murmur to your toes

I stretch, close to touching the globe and ask, Then why lend your strength to its support?

It is my lot. Your God is putting the pressure on.

Not so, I say,
He has not changed.

Mary, I

Mary, I
Sitting, full as the moon
Holding this cousin-boy
Forerunner to my son
Days tick by as fast as a clock,
As slow as lake freezing

My husband in awe
Nervous sweat on he brow
Thickness in he throat
Each night I swell into him
Painful sleep
Baby say hello, thump, hello

----
A favorite Christmas memory is being 40 weeks pregnant with my first child during our family party, holding my 5 month old nephew most of the evening. I felt a strong connection to Mary, Christ's mother at that whole holiday. My baby waited til New Years Day to enter the world.
Some of my favorite poems are Lucille Clifton's Mary poems. I wrote this in tribute to her style of writing.

Immersion

I think like a river flows
All
Down
Hill
That flow through murky trenches,
those places where I hide
That is my self-made prison.
I hung a painting on the wall there
and my wet suit on the hook,
so I am home.

We're One but We're not the Same

Strange how our hands meet
Unison lines but different at the tips
(Mine smoothed over, yours stress-eaten)
Even our names are echoes
We each wed a mirror of thought, purpose, faith
We leapt at the same moment
Performed the graceful dive
With perfect symmetry.
Currents caught us.
You twisted in a whirlpool
I was thrust away from the shore.
Before I lose sight of you,
I point to a light streaming over the tumult
"Swim there!" I cry
My arms will burn from the effort
My heart will scream
My hands will meet yours at that lighthouse.

---
Title taken from the lyrics of "One" by U2

Existing

Existing

I exist
In the creases of his grey pants
In the tiny half-moon clippings at rest in the blue garbage can

I exist
In the needle eyes staring everywhere
In the hung frames of faces from the familial sphere

I exist
In the smooth spots worn into a keyboard
In the rough skin of my barefoot self

I exist
In the forgotten light, the forgotten dishes
In the bubbling of yeast and the melting of chocolate

I exist
In the pages I have turned
In the words I have read and written

I exist
In flesh and blood memories
In the holy water of an eternal mind

Dearly Beloved

Dearly Beloved
We are gathered here
Doing what we best love at home
But to which we never get.
Fenced in by words, crawling like ants
Across the billions of pages
That flutter through the imagination.
Fibers are zinging through my fingers,
Love in each loop.
I'm going to treasure these hours, Beloved Ones,
Wishing for a small cottage instead of
A house of hallways
Where we get lost in the maze of everyday lives.