What the Muses Leave Behind

 What I didn’t know yet swallowed me,   and I sat in the belly of that bliss,   a toad hibernating under an old clay pot.  That winter was a LazyBoy recliner of wait and see.   It would launch me like a jewelweed seed –   explosion of what I could be now.  What I forgot was that life feeds on life,   bloody carcass to forest to cicada song, we all take a turn.  What I believed was that mercy is a red blanket,  permeable and frayed along the edges, sometimes spread wide  as the Platte, others torn deep as the Hudson.  What I couldn’t figure out soared over the prairie of spent days  like a hummingbird, a hawk, a heron.  It followed the skittering shadows of every holy shit surprise,  then nested under long, surrendered streaks of dusk.  What I buried was a kernel of green in my heart,  ...

  I do not belong to myself.  So says a woman of my years in Mariupol, Ukraine, after she walks out of a bunker, returning to the streets and the dust and the stench and the rubble. She perspires wisdom, amid the deafening boom and rattle, so that the ghoulish din becomes a screen, a trellis for another vine of knowing to climb from the scorched Earth. Here in Tennessee, tendrils of spring tease us. Ukraine’s winter has its long claws out. Still bomb shelters fill with music, to coax Persephone to return to her mother. After all, it is the green fuse that convinces death to share its plunder and feed the parts of Earth being born, germinating, adding another supple layer. I plant potatoes in black dirt full of worms and beetles and slime mold, while the moon is still dark. I pray a pledge into each sprout, Phoenix rising from the muck to lift dreams of the careworn, up and up and out. Nearby the oak and beech watch each feathered wish drift past their canopies on wings of yell...

Twas bilious and the swarthy slugs Did writhe and flitter in the salt. Oh scabby were the wifflewugs and the cherry fop all at fault.   Go beckon the dragon crone my dear, With eyes that know and tongues that tell. Escape the banshee prattle and wear Your gooseflesh proud as night fall.   She took her hazel wand in hand. For years the venerable sage she sought Then squatted she by a mimosa tree and gave her rambles some thought.   And as she combobulated her quest The dragon crone on nimble wings Came swooping past in gingham vest, Her digits lined with rings.   One and two, around and through The hazel wand did swirls and swishes. She touched that tail and bound her spell with a Brideog 1 of rushes.   I see you have met the dragon crone! Let’s dance, my fabulous lassie. Oh, licorice dreams, oh jelly belly screams. In glee they spun faster and fastie.   Twas bilious and the swarthy slugs Did writhe and flitter in the salt. Oh, scabby were the wifflewugs and...

I never knew you as a fish nor a fern, never as fig nor fox .     I wish I’d known you a s the elm before th e blight, pre- 1922 .     I can see you now, tall and buxom, your vibrant June crown.     I never knew you as a Bandersnatch 1 nor banshee, never as    basilisk 2 nor bigfoot. It’s good we never met as dragons, ruby   scaled and fuming, a fountain of sparks to bring us breathless.     I never knew you as gesture nor high five, never as stomp dance   nor sigh. I did mistake you once for a moan cast low across the   deadfall, tide of gloaming saturated with small secrets.     I never knew you as disappointment nor cartwheel,    as keening nor balloon bouquet. I heard you hum the tune    on my tongue; simple notes to drift with a cold, riffled stream.     I never knew you as the word of God nor fable, fairy tale or myth. I’ve learned to hold your gaze, ubuntu 3 , beside a ...

  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 ...