What the Muses Leave Behind

-for my sons Give up on everything, and snatch back the meat that matters - this journey only requires skin. You inherit a convoluted path built on generations of dreams, carried all along in the palm of your hand. Free will is destiny when you follow it, luck is the family hound leashed on Ariadne’s thread – The minotaur waits in your belly. If heart lead your feet, best walking is slow – moment brings moment. Your quest, living this labyrinth can feel like trudging shoeless into winter, working naked through June – you’ll make mistakes but say yes, it’s the right answer.

for my nieces enter matrimony Wide eyed how delirious love may start hold Spring in your belly keep summer in your Heart sleep with earth and heaven what fills the space between? your lightning and your thunder or the Satisfying rain? making Mate a Mirror we see what we project the lake looks up into the sky the clouds and sun reflect remember Ariadne who held Tightly to her thread - tethered it to Theseus to help her Keep her head somewhere in the Middle a monster greets his kin you’ve dreamt this Passage countless nights met the ancient one within it’s not the pink and comfy times that give us fullest measure bonds born among Insufferable days – emerge like Sacred Treasure and any woman who’s labored long to have the sweetest child knows deep love comes of Beastly times when hearts ring out so wild - Maybe marriage is a maze indeed a risky venture - so pearls come from irritant and honey fruits from labor With some luck – you find your Self the golden apple from the start there is ...

-for my nieces Given all things marriage amazes - tap root pulls up legend, Apple in its belly - a Minotaur at its heart (google Greek legends – King Minos) coupled with earth and heaven you dance amid Thunder, dodge lightning – rain soaks, kernels swell – what will Grow? (explore I-Ching - hexagram eleven) a convoluted path Rises to meet you feels so familiar – maybe you’ve dreamt it - carried it all along in the Palm of your hand. (meander the maze) already Ariadne – you can Sing out for Theseus - fathers seek Heroes for daughters – even if they’re not around your strong line is more Reliable then cake crumbs (google Greek legends again – Ariadne’s Thread) luck lingers within each fold of a labyrinth when feet follow heart, best walking is slow – in time you understand, moment brings moment. (stroll as one in silence) we wise women savor even Insufferable days - like pepper in soup, and our love blooms deep in Beastly times – wild hearts yowling to the moon. (dust off Lord of the Ri...

"Light can be obscured, but you can't hide gravity," --Dr. Heath Jones. Preoccupied – no, not like a stone, yes, like a river – silent or singing; on thoughts that convey him like Solomon’s great green carpet, he goes. His track is a Silk Road, rippling along a steady dimension where travel is light and payload only pulse and breath, There are days, just past Asimov or Heinlein that drift among Ursa Major and her cub. There are nebulae, he climbs, of brain chatter, accreted like caddisfly cases. There is current that carries him through blustery rhetoric, then breaks into A minor 7th and eddies in with a morning crossword. And there is gravity in memory that tugs his stories back to tighter orbits, dragging tails full of dust, salting old family constellations. He believes in angels, makes sadness the seraph of wind and rain; makes joy the blessed kin of April sunrises and fireflies. Sometimes he broods with the sagging fruit of summer, gathering ballast from pages of Fra...

Her market shares dollars swung wide as a neap tide in May, and like a Ruddy Turnstone on the Chesapeake following horseshoe crabs and squid, she began to splash through the thin waters along Wall Street, hoping to glean enough nourishment to make the long flight home.

Come October mountain flanks sing with the high ambers of summer, and blush deep as old love. Brimming with color empty leaves can fall. To cross the forest floor, we crunch out a raucous trail throwing echoes to the heart of the world, and on crisp mornings when giant elk surrender we survive another winter. Around and around life folds into death and comes back again. Like a cat eyed marble rolled between fingers and thumb the season invites us in to a fat woman's ball - our grand tarantella of harvest and flight tangled with rainbows swallowed by heaven soon, breakfast of dreams.

Remember this moment - yes, the one in this breath, pregnant as a peach orchard with your hopes and fears. Remember this taste on your tongue, so expectant; savor the tang of robust family, every part proud. Pregnant as a peach orchard with your hopes and fears, we know we are the blessed ones. Savor the tang of robust family, every part proud. Remember this tremble in your heart. We know we are the blessed ones, this moment spins old notions into new thread. Remember this tremble in your heart, surrender to it like sweet butter on warm bread. This moment spins old notions into new thread. Give worry a roost to rest - its stillness, our peace, surrender to it like sweet butter on warm bread. Your refuge is here in our laughter and tears. Give worry a roost to rest - its stillness, our peace. Remember this taste on your tongues, so expectant; your refuge is here in our laughter and tears, Remember this moment - yes, the one in this breath. --rm mist 2009

"There is a number hidden in every act of life...numbers screaming to tell us something." - Paul from 21 Grams If it were only a matter of numbers - five hundred and seventy seven minus one hundred and fifty, leaving four hundred with a little margin for error - would that be enough to stave off that one deva who divines calamity, calls it a sacred door? Intrepidly blue as the Arabian Sea, my worries drift on crimson petals, each envious of the nautilus chambers, beautiful raft of Fibonacci numbers - one, two three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty one. But still the world cracks open, flooding us in a feast of breezes filled with squirrel chatter, who don’t care if we’re counting. If it were only a matter of numbers would it be enough to divide a year into seasons, days, and hours, littering walls and tables with the couriers of our imperious fourth dimension? The mist that curls my book's cover is an ample almanac. And even if our whirl-a-gig minds press for meticulous rh...

Last August as barometers fell and skies spun their pewter webs, we dreamed of rain.  Watching thirsty Sourwoods  blush Before the light shifted, we presses that buxom summer to fill our shelves with bottles stacked high in bread and butter pickles, spicy salsa and home brew.  Those dog days courted fat winds out of Alabama, teased us to seventh heaven and hid downpours in fox grapes and persimmons.  That year we looked up, sought safe haven in a farmer's almanac, and days sailed toward summer's end within the graceful orbit of Earth. We prayed like refugees for any clever idea to reunite land and sky.  Patience sweltered in us between line dried sheets. We believed sun-dogs were omens; that we could pull them apart like wishbones and find water. Instead our oracles hid in flowers. still tucked up in the dry soil among the warts of a mother bulb. Come April, they swelled open right on time - each lusciously wet and brilli...