What the Muses Leave Behind

“A secret about the One who has made us all – nuts” –Hafiz Have you seen her? Not the one foam born, yes, center pole for our family big top rising from the froth of babies born from the cosmic swirl of our clan’s own creation myth, wherein it is told Lilith and Eve took Adam and Lucy teased Ricky and Jane hung out with Tarzan and Amelia courted Alphonse. Our creator is a late bloomer full of holly berries and turmeric crusty with November mud wafting long in moments of frying onions and cedar shavings of vanilla and Chanel. She's breaking hearts now wailing in C# to see if the world is still vulnerable to her charms yowling at Venus instead of the moon stirring dreams like they were typhoons of fractals hatched from the push of blue wings.

with minute focus the sun finds me it's a mirror I can't ignore first snowfall  extols the glory of winter and sunrise explodes into a billion shining moments   bouncing snowy limb to limb I am the trampoline  learning to find resilience in the synergy of 10 am  when radiance is bucking its boundaries erupting with an ode to joy pretending it's just an avalanche surging sunward on tiny feathered engines and if I resort to chasing the jet-streams I'll never learn the art of making my road  authentic  and bringing us home

This life is big, room for everything generations long, incarnations deep. We'll be the echo bouncing between first moment and what's possible. Imagine how remarkable this encounter, my newest granddaughter, Maia with her crystal dreams of me  in the holy mire of 12th century Wales. I am amused, for even in such a boundless home our stuff tends to eddy as clutter close around us, the grand piano, the chiffonier, the waterbed and the bookcases. If I grouse about my stranding on some imagined island,  audaciously feeling hemmed in, it's on me. The epic frontier waits here, just beyond  the edge of convention or the morning mirror. And the March winds are right on time, ready to rise in our bellies, open our hearts,  sweep out the cobwebs, the dead limbs. Blackberry winter, sprawling as New Jersey, wants in.

Start at the edges where it begins  to fold  into frozen pond, run your fingers slowly  between that tiny seam of earth and sky, warm gradually, feel for the ember, it's under thin ice, press it to your palm allow that cool rind of doubt to soften wrap it thrice around your first thought after waking, blow them both a kiss with swish of swallow it can scatter stupid notions about brittle and hope and winter.  there, already this steely mood shifts, pewter sky to morning robe; the rest is duck soup.

"Mirabai says,  my Beloved is a steeped herb, he has cured me for life." Twenty three thousand times today my lungs will collude with my heart to find you. A sandalwood base note, a silk rug  wants to carry us another day  but it grows thin. I drag the air  for passage beyond  this time and place  with a drift of apricot and amber. Like chambered nautilus, I'll curl around the last molecules  of your scent mingled with mine. Look, the ground shimmers in ghost trails, and breath implores its caravan.

Hang my heart in a southeast corner to catch the morning breeze. You mind the wind, strumming its canopy  with a contagious lament. I know love is no private matter, more like  a circus or Sunday parade.  So  let it feel brilliant and raise holy fuss, you know where that can lead.  We'll drift as   this heart bongs on and on,  a metronome echoing rubies.

Nothing fits feet in the wrong shoes face squinched ribs shrunk something grew overnight push! said the radicle

What purrs in the belly opens a way to my heart makes obsession promise to carry me tightly one day at a time promise a hejira soul journey  no maps just follow the stars that rise as earth turns  that billow within finch chatter that shine in my eyes, in yours in dreams of babies with flaxen curls, within the ache of Ariadne.

Listen like flat water  sweet is somber is stillness rest today I dreamed of vining tendrils,  each nested  in a vibration  liquid song like baby's breath outside the morning wears white 

Angel in my back pocket Pokes me like a rare penstemon Crimson rising from ivory To whisper - no answers today Golden twine, next pocket Threads our magnificence Mind each moment The labyrinth pulls us in