Hail Cesar!

Hail Cesar!

Chavez that is

who art in Heaven

this prayer’s

so you can look down

upon your children

If you se Martin around

Luther that is

not the one tu madre

would say is

named after the devil

tell him there’s

some work

to be done

down here

Brown and Black

chiquillos

needing your love

and protection

not getting a

good education

still

Ay what a disgrace

and a shame

after all that struggle

and your protests and

marches for

social change

Hail Mary!’

Guadalupe that is

the brown virgin

of Mexico

Mother of the poor

and the disposessed

If you’re into cooking

these days

why don’t you have

these two santos

over for some bean,

maybe some rice

and a little miracle-making’

you know

a little alphabet soup

and send some leftovers

down in a tupperware of

inspiration

You know what I mean

for the locals

of the Southwest

No, not the locos y locas

that’s locals,

the grass roots activists

who get so tangled up

in nets of laws, politics,

lies and mutual distrust

and when you’re through

and having your cafecito

and conversation

Won’t you send us a vision

for your children

who keep lighting those

candles of hope

So Hail

Holy Trinity

symbols of humility,

poverty and dreams

Assuming for a moment

that life and death

are separated only by a thought

I have one here for y’all

in this petition

which is resting on

a wealth of documented

evidence that indeed

el trabajo is not over

In the name of the

fathers and the mothers

and the children who

deserve a hulluva lot better

Amen.

El Fuego Budista (Buddha's Fire)

A candle burns

As does my life

It moves in the breeze

First gently and then not

As do the waves of

My maddening thoughts

It stands straight

Looking to the air for

More light

And then it withers in the darkness

As imagined shadows tell it

Don’t burn so bright

The fire flickers 

As if speaking to me

I imagine it to be the

Silent  voice of  a ghost

Of someone who once sat also 

Enjoying a morning  prairie view

On these midwestern lands

I look at my hands

That held the match

For this small candle

Finding tiny wrinkles

And brown spots

A gift from the sun’s fiery

Light on my aging skin

Which like my patience

Begins to wear oh so thin

My brightness edging to the

Lower half of my own life’s

Wick

I feel the resistance

When in the morning

These knees sound a light creak

And tense worries rise up in my chest

Sometimes forcing my breath to catch

And sometimes just making me wheeze

I observe the rounding flesh

Right at  my middle

It’s too late now to

Contain them with a girdle

A judgment from a two-sided mirror

One man made

The other an image of failed

Womanly perfection

The product of expectations

I challenge silently with a stubborn furor

A candle burns bright

For as long as the god’s of light intend

I sit here thinking of life

And the suicidal death last week of

A younger woman named Gayla

And I write desperately against time

With a firm young pen

A tired hand

A bold heart

But still an aging woman

Frightened by the fire of

Deep suffering in life we

Cannot escape

Watching the fire burn

Watching and waiting for

The next page of her life to turn.

Oak Park, Illinois 8/28/02

Prairie Morning

I didn’t touch myself

Between the legs

This morning

As a gesture to think

Of you and our last embrace

In a bed together

Naked

Closed doors

Open hearts

Tumbling the sheets

And ourselves in the

Austin sweat of our hungry love

I didn’t call you to say good morning

I didn’t know for sure

Where you would be

I’m listening to the sound of music

From the next room

And the whirr of the fan

Where it always gets too hot 

And above the drone and strum

I’m trying to listen to my heart

To see what it says

About you and me

As I breathe and sigh into a

Lonely Dekalb morning

Feeling the changing breeze

From summer into fall

Passing through the kitchen screen

Raising the hairs of our long haired black cat

And sending him to a warmer spot

For his daily nap

I just wrote a while ago

That I didn’t want to go

Through my life asleep

But oh what a task it is to be

Awake and feel this

Slice of coldness served

On my bread of life

This morning

Without even a  spoonful of

Your honey

To comfort me today.

Contemplative Walk

When you walked around the room

I saw you hurting

in the left foot

the look of uncertainty

clouding over you

I noticed the change

in your pace

as you slowed down

the need to make it right

as you remembered

oh, that’s just the critic again

cackling again

on its own rhythm and cycled return

you can tune it out

and I’m so glad that you did

Your arms then rose in prayer

to the heavens and the angels’ breath

filling the room

I saw your eyes tear

the warm river of release

I felt the stirring of an inner girl

of seven, eight and nine

at the ages of innocence, first knowings

and uncertainty

and I wept for her

as I weep for you

and I held her

the girl in you

who is the girl in me

with frightened eyes

and careful, too careful step

with a too adult need to make

things perfect

holding life in polished rooms

that she cleaned so well

trying to make Them happy

trying to stop their pain

so they might have the time

to notice hers

Yes, I saw all of this

in that tender step

as you walked this room

as you often walk through your life

and I heard you listen

to the sounds of love

from sweet music

to your own quiet sobs

and I loved the moments of holding

you and her in my mind

and the inner landscape

of my very soul

Chicago

The old panes

Barely keep the wind out

Frost builds at the edges

Offering me the crazy notion

Of scooping it out to make

A snow cone

In January

But warm blankets

 wool socks

and hot tea

beckon me

to lay beside

a fat cat who wants to be

curled up and asleep

at my knee

tossing to the freezing

gale 

my despair and my doubt

Winter 2000

Cave in the Marrow

OK

so I closed my eyes

and I went right into it

I took a deep breath

B R E A T H E.......

IN

WHOOOOSH

OUT

and all I could feel

was this

intense burning painpainpain

and still with

my eyes closed

I thought I could

visualize the meat

yes, the meat

the blood

the muscles,

the traffic inside my veins

the throbbing of the

cellular structure

going about its business

of keeping me alive

and in the meat

was my resistance

yes, tough meaty, jerky style

resistance

and then I saw it

the meat

wrapped around

my thigh bone

the one that was giving

me such a hard time

and guess what

I had to breathe again

in ......

out ........

in ......

out.........

even slower

than before

in ........

out......

holding on to my brown

skin over this

goddamn stubborn thigh

fleshy leg

with muscles over bones

and then it happened

I understood

that I was to go down

deeper into the tissues

and laugh at my jerky, meaty resistance

and when I did

I found

there was a message written

for my eyes only

on the bone

I thought was being pierced

with crazy pain

a message that in my mind’s eye

said

Welcome

Please take off your shoes

which I had already done

how silly I thought

and of course that

is what the mind does

notice things and

silly thoughts

and you keep

breathing and the sign said

or maybe it was the yoga instructor

who said this

RELAX

and BREATHE

WHICH I DID!!

And it was still there

my awareness that

there was something I

was either doing or not

doing about this

muscle/bone

stretching connection

yoga, unity, mind-body-spirit  thing

because I still couldn’t get as far as I wanted

and so I continued

breathing as I

looked about at the rest

of my body which

by now was getting hotter

and more resistant

to this awkward

posture I was in

Sitting on my butt

bent over at the

waist,

trying, but not too hard

because we don’t do that at Kripalu

to reach my toes

Head to knee

and of course

BREATHING.....

and hurting

until I got it

I didn’t have to

bend so far

I didn’t have to

strain

I didn’t have to hurt

I could pull back

and breathe some more

which I did

and that’s when I

saw that I’d gone from

the mind to the body

to the cave of the marrow

to the bone

and when I got there

I felt only one big thing

FEAR

So I breathed some more

and then I realized

that the

cave to the marrow was

holding something

that  I

was not prepared

to confront

the depth of

how much I

have hated this body

and that’s when all

hell broke loose

meaning there

was fire in that

meat and those

bones and it was

coming from my breath and my heart

and I stayed with it

until I could feel, I mean really feel like 

I had burnt off some part

of that thing, that hateful thing

that by now

looked like

a Darth Vadar ish

parasite

that I was determined

to love to death

by drowning it in the

thunderstorm of

my tears of

exhaustion

over how long I’d held

that hatred and that pain

that I found as I sat

and breathed in compassion

and breathed out fear

deep in the cave of

the marrow of my spirited bones

Anniversary

it’s the anniversary today of my

throwing your ring away

amd  my surrendering to

the decision to finally let you go

it’s the anniversary of so many

precious and painful moments I remember

of us together or apart

it’s the anniversary of that

firey moment in my

tiny kitchen on a

freezing New Year’s Day

when my eyes locked into your stare

as I clutched at my cup of cider

and chatted with you about nothing

as I played the  hostess

and shyly let you follow me like an adorable pup

begging for my touch and a gentle hug

and it’s the anniversary of our

first little breakup (of more to come)

and my days of crazy thinking

that if I just kissed a few other people

I’d forget the way you’d broken my heart

of course

we know what happened

as my fragile will gave way 7 weeks later

to your  plaintive cry :

“please oh please don’t leave me yet,

it’s your birthday

and a great time for making up”

and it’s also the anniversary

just a wisp of a year

after having been lovers

of immersing myself in the fantasy

that one day you and

I would truly work it out

and today still another year later

it’s the second day of a year

of knowing

that love is not about going crazy

or constantly breaking up

and that  forever as a lover

the memory of you

and your traitorous charm

are happily erased from my own precious life

yes, it’s the third anniversary of

my chance encounter

with a woman whose passion

wouldn’t let me go

and whose fear fought my

ever coming back 

oh how painfully sweet

I remember how we danced,

and made love

how we fed, and yes,

tortured each other

and how glad  I am to leave behind

the memories of

my hypnotic love

for your smile,

your wit and

your sneaking bittersweet charm

happy anniversary

dear memory

it was six months of passion and laughter

and two years of sobbing as

I crawled back to my own life

happy anniversary, love

I miss you

and then when I think about it

I don’t.