Through the brambles I called you back to me with a willow branch and a rosary. Can you hear my name whipping with the wind? Can you taste the pear and the breath of sin? Cassiopeia, point your toe toward the Eastern sea, rend my ship from a piece of your dress, my sail full of your breath. In a dream you stepped to me quietly. Harried prayers for waking washed over me. Like the glowing eye of a watchful beast, some unlikely light rose up from the East. Sun rising so slowly. Impatience weighs stubbornly. Shaken away from dreaming into the writhing of morning light. The heart has a duty to love, a devotion no halting can hinder, but give me the Winter to die like the Lavender. Nothing is always in bloom.

I thought I was a bird flying through the air. I thought I had wings. I thought I had wings of gold. But I was a rock thrown by the hand of the one who made everything. When I was young, I never questioned the speed of my growth. The world was good. The world was green. Till one day the morning came later than before, and the chill in the air hung around till it fell like a fog to my feet on the floor. Oh, but I don’t want to die. I just want to know why. I just want to know why. I just want to know why it’s so hard to be alive. My bones are like iron sometimes when I wake. Gravity pulls my feet to the floor. When I was young, I saw the gleaming, the blossom, the sun, horizons of gold spinning out like a coil. But everything fades like the lip of a wave. You know, we’re never too young to grow old. Oh, but I don’t want to die. I just want to know why. I just want to know why. I just want to know why it’s so hard to be alive.

A bright morning comes with the scouring sun. I can see all the dirt on the floor. This house that we keep, it moans and it creaks, but we soundlessly sleep in the mire of our dying dreams. From mountain to sea, I hear the same speech: a community dreams of itself. But what have we done if we hide and we run from the pain of a person in need? This house that we built, we could lift it on stilts, but the mud would still rise to our feet through the cracks in the floor. Careful now, don’t go sleeping. Don’t leave me alone. We came bearing gifts like a map for the shift, but instead we must work for our pay. So we labor our days for a small, honest wage while the light in our eyes starts to fade. Don’t you let it fade. Our time, it is brief. I will fall like a leaf. We will all be returned in the end. But here we are now with the staggering power to live out all the dreams of the Earth. Will we wield it well? Careful now, don’t go sleeping. Don’t leave us alone. This life, it means nothing if all that we’ve done is lower our heads and wait for the gun. Sickness in soil, sickness in soul. The sun it will set, the bell it will toll. Where will you stand when the gloaming surrounds like a judgement? Salvation lives under the ground. Where will you stand at the moment of truth when the weight of your promises comes looking for you? Where will you stand?

Today, a woman with a love for drink who shakes and hardly thinks when she speaks, she handed me an old bouquet. The flowers were brown but I smiled anyway, cause even the magnolias are melting in the gutters out where the rain has its way with the Spring. I should have hung a sign on my front door to warn the April saboteur: Do Not Disturb. I’m doing just fine. If I don’t live, then I’ll never die. The preacher may tell you that you’ll live forever. Just keep your gaze high, keep your toes on that line. But I was born human for friskin' and foolin', for feeling that wind on my indulgent skin. So, I should have hung a sign on my front door to warn the salesmen of the lord: Be On Your Way. I’m doing just fine. I’ll find my own way to paradise. I’ve learned all my lessons at the hands of a lover, a maple, a mother, that holy other. Living and dying and breathing and crying all posture like children just wanting our time. I should have hung a sign on my front door to warn my wounded ancestors: Do Not Disturb. I can’t spare the time. I can’t live a hundred lives. Now we’re all waiting at the crossroads at night. We waver in our choosing. We’re just biding our time. And we should have hung a sign on our front door to stave the crumbling of the shore: Spare Us Today. We’re not ready to go. There’s still so much more that we’re longing to know. And do not disturb. We’ve closed our eyes. Why can’t we just live a hundred lives?

I’m scared of the water, and I run from the sea. Like a baby just born, I’m eager to breathe. But the Moon is a Cancer, the creature I mean, crawling back to the lip of the sea. The footsteps of an insect clap over my page, as I sit here lamenting a contemptible age. But what can I say that hasn’t been said? I’m just one of the mourners. Ocean Moon, wash me clean. This world is looking awful mean. My tears are as salty as the sea. As my soul slips toward solitude (the solace of space) and the world strains to recognize its own changing face, somewhere a feather falls up from the void pushed by a small exhalation of joy. After the flood, what will remain? Will I feel like a garden just after the rain? Will the shadows dissolve from the wall of the cave with the light of a new day? Ocean Moon, wash me clean. This world is looking awful mean. My tears are as salty as the sea.

An antler, a sweater, a peacock feather--these memories I carry with me. I was wearing your shirt and it smelled like dirt and I wanted to be buried there. It was a long time ago but it feels like thinking of home. I guess that’s how it goes. When first I did meet you, you sang so sweet a sorrowful, traveling song. But I knew by the morning what waited before me: a snare set with bait in the grass. I’ll be gone before you know, bloodied and limping toward home. I guess that’s how it goes. This longing is lingering, stuck in my hair, like the wind in the hills or the smoke in the air. And this trip you did set, oh, it’s tried and it’s true. The blood’s dripping into my shoes. I left without warning on Halloween morning, tears held back in my throat. And here I lay achin’ for all that it’s taken to open the mouth of the trap. Will I ever really know how it feels not to let go? I guess that’s how it goes. Sorrow is sweet when the trees are all bear, when the moon sends a silver shock through the air. Is this longing I feel a distraction from Truth? Is Love just a scent on the wind?

I wake when the night starts to fall, when the sun is rising where you are. My body knows the story of the light against the brick, and the way you took my hand and led me to the fire you lit. My mind it haunts the places where you are, and I’m a stranger to this longing kind of heart. I packed my bags and left the way I thought I knew I should, with circumstance and consequence converging where we stood. Well, here I am, heartbroken at last. Am I paying for the pain that I’ve cast? I thought that I could walk away unchallenged, unscathed, but here I am a world away, with tears all down my face. Let this be a pain that eases with the sun, even though our time is done.

I want to cry. I want to fall all the way. I want to be inside the Earth one day. I want to live. I want to go all the way. I want to feel all of my Heart someday. But I’m not the sun, all constant and true. I’m here and I’m gone like the cyclical Moon. I want to leave. I want to go far away. I want to forget all my thoughts today. I want to love. I want to give it all away. I want to be with you in peace someday. Love doled out like a ration of bread is a valueless offering. But I’m not the sun, all constant and true. I’m here and I’m gone like the cyclical Moon. And maybe I will never know how much a heart can hold. Yeah, maybe I will never know how much a heart can hold.

These summer days just rot away like too many fruit on the vine. If I could only pluck, if my hands could cup each fruit before the Fall, I’d hoard it all in my tender arms and run away from the dark. If I can’t have just what I want then I’ll have none at all. I’d freeze my love in a Winter pond like leaves of Hemlock green. Then I could stare down through the top and know you’re there for me.

The mountains, they began as the space between two plains. Two rough edges came together on a molten day. We climbed the back of a granite scar a mile high, right up through the clouds into the unencumbered sky. Loving is a battle, like talons clutched mid-flight, tumbling around right out of the sky. But we’re born to be broke open like some porcelain swine, though we covet like a mother all the things we’ve left behind. Is this the height of love? Two bodies braced against pain, like a birth from some gaping space between the plains? A man, a monk, he once wrote about a body of broken bones. He said every time we meet someone we feel the seething wounds of having fallen from the sky, from the grace of garden life, from the chrome-filled kitchen of the Gods. To know me is to hurt me. To breathe is to break. So, break with me, break with me, come together. If I had a life for every smoke I’ve shared at midnight, I’d be a complicated woman with a lot to explain. I’ve loved a hundred others, in the past and up ahead, in the spiral of the morning shaking songs across our bed. We gave our bodies to the cave in a sulphuric embrace, but the weight of those mountain gifts was too heavy to bear. The ground beneath my feet springs back against my step with centuries of fallen trees and Maple seeds and Death. I’m cradled by the Love that has fallen at my feet like a seed, like a seed, like a seed. Is this the height of love? Two bodies softened by pain, like a birth from some gaping space between the plains? To know me is to hurt me. To breathe is to break. So, break with me, break with me, come together.

Seasons change still, even though the world’s on fire. Crows still call in the morning, owls in the night. Please go slow. Urgency is an illusion created to break us apart. When I’m dreaming, we’re all okay, we’re all okay, everyone’s safe. Please sleep well. We need you strong. We need you here. Cry if you need to. Cry if you want.