What the Muses Leave Behind

  Haltia , a Baltic goddess, is known for holding a house together. Her devotees greet her whenever they cross the sill. Considered the domestic benevolent glue, when one moves away, it is necessary to carry a pocket of hearth ashes for the new home.   Haltia, I’ve got my eye on you, even as I climb from rumbled bed covers, I meant to make up with neat corners, tribute to your nimble fingers removing pebbles from my path.  I meant to fluff the pillows, smooth the duvet. I meant to wash the dishes and wipe the counters because I know how you love to vex chaos, how you bring hearts to hum beside the calico.  I meant to splash three drops of lemon and clove into the diffuser, invite a hint of your fidelity along my shoulder. Instead, I rolled some floral essentials across a wrist and imagined meadows.  I am testing your sublime spirit, seeking blessings without alms. I am baiting you to shadow me under the hickory beams, help you understand how they miss their ...

  The labor’s been as hard as it feels, the rends as deep and wide. What rhythm of  jitterbug swivels beneath our feet? What kindness of ravens waves in the strange expressions of this persistent becoming? What stubborn web weavers hold the audacity to truss up earth and sky?

 Lost my tweezers this morning, and my attention to detail.  What's the point of plucking? That fascist, entropy, spoils everything. We want to do things once and done. Tweeze a chin, pluck a brow, Sweep a floor, sort the drawer. Entropy's mother is doubt laced up tight as a nymph, for a little while. In the meantime, my chin glares back from the mirror  righteous with white hairs - vestigial colonists, Plymouth Rock; like a little Aryan Nation on the rise. My white terrier runs nose to ground, trails the vapors of last night's forage, raging against the scattering scents - more entropy, more spoils. What is the point of chasing what's long gone anyway? The king of confusion complains his election win was stolen. Corona virus says, more like metabolized by facts. Imagine the celebrations we could be having now. But that revelry rocketed off with the SpaceX Dragon; and we watched it board the ISS. The party is overhead until spring, and  we skulk about like ghosts of ...

The first human voice was African.    Divine essence grew a tongue,  wagging with fricatives and open syllables.    The telling tongue walked out of a Great Rift Valley carrying its necessary words:  mama matiti mfupa imbwa   It gathered more words to embellish necessary ones:  mungu   cheza   ndio      Listen In our mother tongues live all the dawning conversations.     Confabs with        wind and rain,  storm and fire,  bugs, birds, beasts,  tall grasses and trees.    The same conversations curl beneath our modern breath, ready to feed the heart to hearts,   we need to remember how to have      again.    All those words even now  fill  a loom with the weft and the weave                 of desire              ...

I took a breather, got some work done, ended another school year, hit the road, changed chapters.  2020 continues to tumble us like we were Pleistocene river gravel in a lapidary drum. We ping around the side walls, make a lot of noise. I have launched my epic road trip - big Western Loop for the next five weeks or so.  It appears that COVID is raging as a pandemic more than ever, the push for social evolution away from our racist roots is determined to make a crater in the status quo and the Trump regime continues to astonish and divide us. I will keep to the edges as I go.  I knew before I left where my first stop would be.  Upon arrival to Judyth's, I walked onto her porch, knocked and when she came to the door, I asked, "How shall we meet?"  My hands were already prayerful at my heart.  Wordless, she flowed out, wrapping her arms around my waist, mine took their cue, enveloping her shoulders.  The reunion moment was a tall glass of water. I had car...

May 28, 2020 This week's observations and ideas – As the economic and social flood gates slide open, I try not to get washed away.   There is a full spectrum of realities in this riptide of reentry.   I was grateful to visit the nail salon for more human touch – ahhhhh; and for the innovations that gave the salon a sense of enhanced safety and hygiene: suspended plexiglass panels hung by fishing lines between Pedi-chairs; plexiglass shields mounted on mani-tables. Masked nailists have been the norm for a long time, but I showed my respect and gratitude to them arriving in my cotton face shield too.   I was not too bothered by the naked face in the chair beside me because shields were up!   Word on the street is that restaurants and bars are packed and partying like it is 1999.   I expect that the CDC will collect more data from these science experiments. I predict that it's the servers who will newly join the "most at risk" essential workers list, right behind...

May 24, 2020 Today’s idea – We have one more week in the 2019-2020 academic year.   Tomorrow is a holiday, then three days of classes, a remote school field day and graduation. The field day is a long-standing tradition going back decades, a friendly competition between the two houses of Imps and Tigers.   We are all sorted, each as we arrive, everyone a life long member of their house.   This time next week, graduation ceremony will be set up on the nest of lawn at the campus’s center – a small affair (one of the blessings right now of a small school) of seven graduates.   As we are in Iowa, masks are recommended but not required.   So many of us have arrived at this present moment by living large.   To pull things in is a challenge, one that feels too granular and one that presents the most viable path forward. The day after graduation, we get organized for the summer, the shape of which is still a mystery to most of us.   Our new normal demand...