What the Muses Leave Behind

The old beech to the sky, Roots to shoots, capillaries make rain. Roland’s axe stood alone, rust along the blade, left behind with the house and the woodpile. The road is open, his legs only now tired. Walking, he’s been walking so long, forgotten where he’s going, gold braids on his shoulders,  melancholy, clueless.  His belly, queasy.    Roots to shoots, capillaries whisper lament - Wherein, what-for, the harbinger, a turtle dove, Maybird sends it to comb the wilds, to be her eyes, her herald. She sent word weeks ago. Wherein, what-for, his diviner, the moon, loves to vex his memory, spin webs, dark penumbras. Each morning, his head rings in wood thrush, anon he fingers frayed epaulets, a strand of her hair. Shoots to roots, Maybird laces a cotton bodice. Within the bones of her corset, rides a secret -- Roland was never hers, she never his. One is shimmer, the other a bell. Wherein, what-for, the vigi...

When we are broadsided, by really the most dreadful news, the moments that frighten breath  so it  tangles itself among ribs,  pleads don’t send me go out there, red rain, rip tide! Then we counter like storm dancers,  intrepid       commanding  deep gasps   to release a hijacked diaphragm, push out the coward breath -  feckless guinea hen,  let it be a citizen of elsewhere. And then allow no anxious intruders to hunker down, to take premise that suffering can homestead here – no rank chatter to menace the bright pump-house, to bang about tongue and bellows. Such moments, married to eternity, dance with glaciers, typhoons, black holes. And death has never been a stranger, maybe alchemist, liberator, owl. Even so we live on, and again like bristle cone and cedar.

Bring cash and coin, they make money easy at the casino. Jane Fonda could be there, Gary Farmer, Heidi HeitKamp. Spirits in the camp are good, it’s an ultra-stellar colony, Turtle Island, deep dreams of deep ecology. The local currency: breath and backbone. News from the front line: big storm forecast, so are miles and miles of cars. This narrative spirals inward, no second coming, see how the center holds. Morton County’s finest blocked the bridge on the Cannonball. they want to make the river a moat around their fortress, but today she stands with her rabble of heroes. Maybe we have seen nothing like this before; but defense of the seventh generation,  number one promise for a long, long time.

The day broke 10 degrees, iron-fisted. Parking lot isn’t talking, its striped asphalt skinned in dingy ice, arctic breezes pitch pins and needles at us. The blue tarp over the payload is stiff and cranky, I bang my knuckles tightening a line. Supposed to warm up to 25 today. This wind is pig-headed – wanahosni, some say here. I throw on another sweater. Another sip of coffee. Under my breath, I practice: Mni Wiconi, water is life We’re driving north, White Buffalo Calf Woman way, wondering how it is in winter camp. Will we be stopped and fined a thousand dollars? Water protectors already shouldered the perils, protecting a prayer is their resistance. Living legacy of indominable will - India to Morton County. State Route 14 is no prayer. It cuts through ribs of a sleeping prairie. We follow the wound, its welts of barbed wire and fence posts. My fingers clear a hole in the window fog. I mimic Sky woman peering into a new world, i...

The music is defined by the silence between notes The light, defined by shadow, I live in your story. Wrapped in winter sky under that voluminous missionary, it is told all are one. Whole in its brilliant breathless hoop, the sun kindles our need for closure. For if we don’t shut the door, how can we open it again? How can we unbury our heart of secrets, turn the truth inside out? All is one, all is one, all is one - the bones of our existence exposed: icy lip of river, murmurations of cirrus deep miles of frozen tracks. Here we find what truly supports us, the muscle and sinew of our days - revelation to transform rusted fender into feathered wing, to transpose painted canvas into anthem or dirge, the mettle to welcome pause and shadow. All is One, You and Me, Inevitable - let’s breathe in this darkness, and breathe out the coming song. --(co-written with J.M. Hurt)

What is the opposite of rage? A bass breaking pond skin, ever widening rings of calm. What is the opposite of rancor? Children bursting through double doors, gleeful for recess. What is the opposite of humiliation? A yellow pot of orchids, a riot of summer fields. What is the opposite of apology? Times Square to Fifth Avenue brimming with rainbow flags and pulsing voices, standing fast side by side, feet planted now dancing. What is the opposite of mercy? Knees pressed into a sidewalk filled with road grit and gravel; no shelter from the storm. What is the opposite of moonlight? A dusty corner with bedside table stacked in magazines and plastic lipstick tubes, big screen TV. What is the opposite of celebration? Island of plastic riding a salt water gyre just off the coast of Chile, blue whale beached and bloated, belly full of straws. What is the opposite of preemptive strike? Circle of strangers moving widdershins, shaking hands, blessing each othe...

1 Rain churned puddles to mud, an earthy agitation, unbound and determined. Medea could not remember such audacity, had it been so long? Oh... she knew good, good and righteous as Sunday morning. Divine too, sandalwood rose from her skin, her hair, a tumble of honeysuckle, of ivy, her toenails, tiles of teal, robin egg shards. Like a prayer wheel, her cat circled. The hour was sepia, it twirled with house wrens, handlebar moustache on a tall dark afternoon. Medea slipped into flannel, tucked up with books of blue stories -   with Anais Nin: “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” She took another look in the mirror. The burmese curled behind her knees, bony bag of fur had followed Medea’s trail of spice and Gershwin for a feline century. He was her familiar worn down to essentials: whiskers, heart, liver, lungs - a living altar of impunity. She rose from her reading, the cat stretched; another tin pee...