I Say a Small Yes

after James Crews mini poetry retreat

I say a small yes

to writing

to myself as a young woman with passion raging
to myself as a teenager, growing, shrinking, consumed, and lonely
to myself as a child, pigtails & smiles, shirtless and laughing

and all the ways
I was writing always
in my heartspace
in my bodyspace
in my mindspace

all the ways
I was writing always
on my hand, soft with youth
on my napkin, torn with use
on my pages inside all my many books

all the ways
I was writing always
in that lab, thick with rules
in those word docs, filled with clues
in countless emails, rhythmic with my pulse-ing

I honor her

I say yes to her

to all her nuanced thoughts
and layered emotion
her complex feeling
and experiential living
to all her curious wonder
insight and
awe
all of her honored
and honoring
I say yes to her
in ways I never allowed
in ways I never knew how
I honor her now
inside this moment
inside this glittering
gravitational fabric stretching wide

I say yes to me now
to myself now
in all the ways my womanhood
always invites and allows now
these new and ever-unfolding
ways of being human.

I write inside my notebooks in each and every room
as I did before on bits of paper all over the car
as I did when I was young in journals falling asleep in bed
like the days before the internet
and now waking up in texts to friends
I won’t be stopped now
No thing will stop me now
Not him, not her, not them,
not me, not me, not even me, now
not even I, now,
will stop this flooding
circuit inside her conduit
connecting every constellation within reach
to the grounding energetic vibration of my roots
not too much for me, not too much for me
not too much for me

Now

Photo by Horacio Lander on Pexels.com



I Come Raging with Aliveness

The trees have secrets in their leaves,
proclamations and patterns in their veins
like us connected without seeing,
our minds and eyes knowing nothing
of the intricacies of our energies

soft light comes
raining through the air,
between branches, buds, and
blossoms frozen brown in April’s frigid sky,
geometries shadowed against the cold ground,
words tattooed on the musculature of our hearts,
patterns of proclamations sharing old stories,
pouring acid after all of our oxygen is gone.

Now declaring, telling new tales,
ripping roots out of loose earth I hear
the breaking, releasing of tortured habits,
all those familiar patterns, discovering they were the only thing I ever knew.

I love hearing the sensation of
hair-thin root systems snapping when
I pull them from the ground and shut my eyes against
flying dirt. I do this now – pull these tortured, worn, and
shredded thought patterns, feel the muscles around my shoulders
tighten, close my eyes against the bursting soil while I listen to the pull-tug-snap of systems built to keep me quiet, asleep, dizzied, and drained.

I have secrets
now and so do you,
those peace-filled patterns
of pure light flowing through covered
conduits of darkness throwing their sparks against gray sky
and I, I, I,
I claim them.

They are mine and you are theirs and we are
ours inside a new pattern emerging, giving, allowing
us to gather gratitude for just this one birth
now this one
now this and this and now
I come raging with aliveness
Now I shake the ground and all the systems come crashing down around this

and now this birth and
this one still and still one more each day
each breath I birth myself again, oxygen and acid,
again again and again I pattern myself, tattoos on the inside of my own heart

because no one will ever ask me
why I was not the birch or the oak tree,
the beech or the maple, the locust or magnolia –
they will only, only, only ever ask why I was not the real me –

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

Open Letter to My Friend

My Dearest Friend,

We have journeyed.
We have grown.
We have laughed.
And we have sobbed.

We have cooked.
And we have cleaned.
We have shopped.
And we have given.

We will restore. We will recover.
We will refill our empty vessels.

We will linger among the mosses
And we will light along the tress

We are not afraid of the dark
because it’s the dark that sets us free

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Pexels.com