The Dance

The spin has begun, the churn

Always to the left, undoing, receiving

The lilt of a hand, tenderness, the touch of a toe

Thanks for connection

Staying current in the Continuum, focus, no focus

Intertwining circles of life, over and over

Falsehoods fly away in formation

The spray waters other worlds

Then stop.  Hands cut the sacred air with sudden, deliberate motion: Four Directions, Six, One

The center point of Center, balance is perfect.

Eyes, still muscling the spin, haywire.  What

Keeps us towing the line?  Certainty

The Heart knows.  The feet

Finding ground, planted.

The body between

Giggles.

The Last Play

Forgive my attraction to Your man

How can I find resistance—there is no footfall for reverse

I am not the one who directs the strings

For is it not Your Dream?   Your Name

Remains on my lips as I shudder my acquiescence

My eyelids slowly rise with the curtain

My heart thuds, right here, right here

Affirming my powerlessness as Your character

A bit part I was told, but really, are there any in You?

You are the Writer, and the Audience

The welcoming applause, answering my fervent sweat for comfort

The Yes of affirmation:  “Fear not, for I am with you!”,  You mouth the silent words

I’ll speak the lines then that I am given, have memorized, no prompting needed

And know it’s up to me to find the resonance that conjures faith

Then stride with confidence, deliberation,  from stage right to stage left,  my costume perfect

Pausing aglow at the front to join the male in this story, my love

I cannot change the lines, the choreography

I’m no longer fitful with false pretense of authorship

But I did pass the audition

So feats, carry me well, keep my head high, bright in the Light

I am Your earnest actress, and only then, the partner for Your actor, leading

The curtain fall will find us: Yours, bowing before You

The unison of that motion, the timing

Yet to be seen.

Hell or Not So Much or The Only Debate, Ever,  my Husband Will Not Win or No Fear

Burn forever?  Excuse  me?  God wants this for me if I just

Fall?  Far less evolved parents cheer the child who falls and then gets back up

It’s the getting up, of course.  So important.  But there’s a hug for the fall!

This Parent provided so many ways to fall, He totally gets it, wants us to practice, constantly

Getting up, in all the ways.   Yay!!

He is the best of Love, to send us off to His school every day, and watch.

He installed a glowing little freebie called Conscience, and another,

 (this one shines, and marches!) called Free Will.  He wants us to think, deduce!

Grow, not shrink away, discouraged

To learn by choice, not by fear.  This is the sweetest, strongest learning,

When His child chooses correctly, of his own given clarity. 

Father!  I love Your Voice’s ring!  Love that You’ll

Call in anytime here, night or day—that phone is the sweetest color, no one else has the number.

 My gut

Feels at ease, instantly, when that phone vibrates.  No fear.

Just getting back up.  The hug.

Feel the Compassion.  Hmmmmmmm…….

Married at a Distance

You asked, after all.

So now being brave

Is about moving in Spirit connection

while living far apart.  I can do this.

I’ll will it.  Keeping my heart bright

In the absence of your light however

Is the Will of God.

How many devoted wives have done this?

Lived in this remote wilderness of spiritual unclaimed territory

A lot I bought, on earth, here,

Rife with the wild pungent forest, unnamable creatures lurking

The timeless sway of grasses, like honeyed thoughts of you

Here, the days filled with the sound of a chuckling stream,

The glint of sun-spangle on the ripples:  these also, memories.

At night, the moon, just a sliver of distant joy alight, the stars too

So far aloft

But winking at me like the eyes of angels,

Grinning in the clean dark cold.

I have blankets for sleep on this silent, humming acreage

The wooly colors vibrant, soothing in their itch: I can tell by their scratch

I am still alive with this love.

My lone lungs feel your breath fill them, right now, and in my subsequent exhale

Is the knowledge of your acceptance, right here at our lips

You, taking in my air, the lively peace of Trust, your way of love.

The Balance

this day

started out with a dawn like

any other only

the sun rose more slowly, reticent,

hesitant colors, not sure if this was the right world or not

i fell out of bed

when these colors peeked in my looking glass

but i welcomed them into this world

right or wrong

and stood upright

grumbling, but glad for the food of colors

i found my way through this morning almost

remembering how to get past each rock and canyon

and that ominous dark doorway

where the colors seem to slip from this world

and in whose arch and depth i spin and howl

every time, eyes white with fear

and in whose whirlpool I drown

juggling my terror and hope like

grenades and kittens

The Hooligans

I was one of the family, still am

Everyone called us the Hooligans

Maybe it was our real surname, guess it works

There were a lot of us, and poor as dust

That one was the summer of ’58, we lived

Perched up by the side of the big mountain

The sun shone on that mountain nearly every day

Making it stand out real pretty

All us kids and gung-ho Dad, we kept building our shack

Every so often we’d go out and salvage,

Pirate away any loose boards, bricks

New or used, we just carted it off

I can still see all the little feet like a caterpillar’s

Walking under the long planks, stacked with bricks

Little feet all carrying our new room, new roof, like new Hope

Little by little, we were gonna get there

That last so-hot day we did that, all the little feet stopped

There was a rumble away across the dry yellow canyon

We could see the town tucked up on the distant side there

And then came the chunks of mountain, twinkling oddly in the golden sun as they fell

At first we kids thought it was so pretty, but what?!?

Then the whole side of that mountain caved as we watched

We knew the spot where Mama stood cooking, our little Hooligan house

The whole town was buried in that slow sun-glinting movie minute

Then a lone pick-em-up, musta been, driving straight through that last wrecked road

Dust boiling up behind is what we saw, it was a miracle, running fast

A lone life, saving itself, getting the Hell outa Dodge

We watched, and one of us middlin’ kids started cheering

That was the day.  Now I am old, and here to tell the story

Today I live in a legal-built house, it’s real nice

Some of those little feet from so long ago still come to visit

Our happy-go-lucky lives have prospered

As I look back I wonder what it all stood for, what it meant

Why it happened that way, so sudden, almost business-like, then so very gone…

Well, I aim to live well, honor Mama, not ponder too much that deadly twist.

I lived, the sun still glints off my roof, these trees, my visions….

Once In Marriage Given

This is it.  I’m yours for what’s still left of life, for better or worse. 

It’s all good, with you.  It’s all His Beauty.

I’ve made the choice to legally marry before

Who needs the law at such a time.  Now that aspect seems superfluous. 

This is about commitment, and the law has naught to do with that heart of hearts.

In the past lie my erroneous efforts at what I thought

Sort of looked like Love; I hoped, I watched.  And too soon saw my mistake.

My failures, my ignorance, each and all.  I did my level best to do each well though

Even after I knew it was all wrong, for years…

God knows this truth. 

For you, my life’s beloved, worlds away from my misguided hopes with others

I will dance or suffer anything.  Let me learn all birth: share any pain and also the baby,

You with me, and I with you.  God with us,  together.

 The celestial music lies between us, and the keen blade

Can never cut deep enough to sever my adoration. 

You can be whoever you most need to be, please, and always. 

I’ll be waiting, for weeks if needed,  at the dinner table with a meal, open ears, and sparkling eyes

All yours.  We’ll say Grace.