What the Muses Leave Behind

Day 1 Mercury Pluto conjunction. You might wake up believing you are in possession of the ultimate solution to save the world but you can’t seem to get anyone to listen. No doubt  Obama got the same message. And Hillary And Kim Jong-un  And my mother It blows in fresh from dream dimension Where all is soft clay, blank canvas, new score, of course we can save the world.  First possession, grit and truth under our nails.  Stardust and cobwebs. Mercury has perched in the maple.  He’ll relay our allegiance To his far brother. I pledge allegiance to the woodlands,  to their cloud conjuring prowess,  their cleansing alchemy, their largesse.  Seems very ultimate, we’ll plant 50,000 trees. I pledge allegiance to permaculture, I’ll chop wood and carry water. Surely it’s the pace that presses us into problem.  Pluto is behind this reinvention. Make it no secret! I pledge allegiance to the shrinking icecaps....

Four AM pulls its brittle seam to snap open another wish bone night, Venus has mounted Jupiter, and they’re headed for the barn. It is the hour of cracked kettles, when dreams simmer, and my dark woman  uncurls like fiddlehead, the bud more painful than the blossom.  She cloaks me and we are spoons in a drawer, we are hidden agendas,  we hark back to somewhere between mauve intention and first light.  She hovers within me, pretends to speak for the chaos of shoes in a tumble around the bed. They might as well be our punctuation  for the day ahead. We crawl on our bellies as apostrophe bridges.  In tantric mudras, we bend like ampersand.  Our vagary is an ellipsis. It corduroys the moment into runway lights, and I have confounded  the undercarriage. We could pray for water, but today waking is a crash landing. Even so, I lift my tongue to croon in awkward aubade  with my shadow kin.  She’s pouring us...

The blood moon craves attention. She bangs the glass, panel by panel parading past a naked canopy, oak and ash. She's desperate for praise, for veneration, for long moments of worship like the early days: a world lit only by fire. It's only as her golden lens floods tiny goblets in a south window, that I notice six little lanterns of moonlight, fire flush, ringing in sonorous treasure, a suspended chord, a perfect 4 th  of salty satin harmony with sky.  And I melt into moment – eyes, ears, skin, tongue, breast, belly, legs – adrift her Indian ragas -  puddle of moonbeam. Heavy with silver lipped boats, moans of stone, With pub revelers, ranting, whistling - something about football; With drone strike bloodbaths, cacophonies of grief, gravediggers, muddy boots, dark caskets, someone’s grandfather, mother, sister. With knitting circles, with sex slaves, with cock fights, with string quartets. Tides of grackles, tides of jelly fish, tides of ...

There is story curled up in the chest. Like a wooden cask, honey filled. Oh! labyrinth into the heart of things, Collapse us into love. Even belly deep in babushka nights, this long road unfurls us. Face in the raindrop, river to the sea. Collapse us into love. Still, humanity coalesces, borders open, a world walks in. Our realizations sit fresh and fragile, Collapse us into love. Sometimes sorrow brings a truer moon, and we dissolve like mist in wind. Surrender rides a waterfall. Collapse us into love. Today, hallelujah brushed a winter sky, a pilgrim peace of pewter day. Into maelstrom of wren song, Fibonacci curls, Collapse us into love.

“The darkness around us is deep.” - William Stafford maybe the Earth is flat, adrift an ocher sea raft of pine poles tethered to it pimply moon, days rise in vast swells and you bob among the hours and dream a billion stars ragged ride for one, but adventure for two one to scud the gales, hold the line, one to tell stories, watch for storms, two could seed a hundred victories, escape at least one close call and heartfelt, comfort comes home here and now, chocolate sweet in spoonfuls while the Earth grows round beneath you

She's given up on men - it's a green ash across the river she wants to wed. Each October as its mantle blushes  crimson with tassels draping epaulets on umpteen shoulders, her knees turn to putty, and a hummingbird heart must carry them home. Love is like that, abundantly handling every handicap; and while left brain raves at the madness, this trans-kingdom infatuation, Montague and Capulet, implores her to reconsider such indiscretion, her dreams  simply leapfrog logic for Shangri-La: tree and woman leaning into endless entwine, their breath a feast of sumptuous light.

(formerly Precious ) Mickey’s Bradford pear is blooming concrete deep in Central Harlem. In a place where graffiti is weedy. Where precious is knowing biota from asphalt, knowing the chestnuts ripe for roasting or redbud too phobic to flower. Trees are sentinels with seasonal wardrobe. Today Mickey’s sentry stands brave and blooming. A feast for the eyes of its beholder. There may be no dandelions, so savory in salads. See where brave got them. There, a dauntless ginkgo kinks sidewalks; crabgrass, its fringe partner. What every plant knows, stealth never sleeps, and up the Hudson, dogwood winter has wolfed a billion blossoms - we’ll feel that loss in June. Today, the subterranean chitters a pulse from Central Harlem. Just off Madison Ave, white confetti lavishes the April breeze. Bloom you Bradford Pear, bloom!