Healing

Did you know deserts are made from the souls of shattered people

who let themselves waltz with breezes and

who beat their bleeding chests, dancing 'round fires

holding the oxygen hands of hurricanes

Time takes an unsteady fist-full of their shards

because she's the only one whose skin is

impermeable to the cruel perforations

of protective edges and glass scythes

The broken ones cannot take up arms if their

frantic arms are pinned to their sides by the

marching embrace of time and weathering winds

Just so, I, the deadliest edge, will be made soft again

once my pieces are made so small that they can only caress

But small doesn't mean insignificant

it's just that a desert is vast

and a broken vase can only take up so much space

it's not what makes you up to be ornamental

but what you're made of

I'd rather bury forgotten things in the

affection of my blustery brokenness

than be a proud adornment that throws itself

on the floor again and again to warn of the

quake that's coming

no

the earth will listen now

for it's covered in me and it never knew

how much it needed me before

Lock up your houses all you want,

but I won't come knocking

'cause they're built on me

New Babel

after a year we found a way to stop spinning
Yes, we still loved our hurricane, but we looked around
Up - riotous stars playing hide-n-seek,
but instead they count to 7 million years
Left - to dry, orange, grass-less fields
masquerading as desolate
Right - tall, reflective buildings praying
no one will ask how the weather is
because they're hyper-introspective
and they don't want to say, "Well,
the gloom in my spirit quite resembles
a tempest"
Down - impish, hot heat making earth into glass
so we can look up the skirts of cultures
that don't make sense to us

it's funny how closing one eye takes us further
than keeping both open
as if the mountains know we are lopsided and primal,
but that we also tend our flower gardens
we stop because our hands are blistered
from searching through Babel's rubble
trying to find the bricks that were holy.
made by bodies in love for a common end
Babel had good stones, wrought from unity
the problem was that it was tower
and not a city, meandering up and away,
trying to escape

but we will win the world back and make
a sprawling and wond'rous city
where no one speaks the same language
but everyone is understood because
all words are spoken between the heights of
12 and 144 inches
where everyone has to convert inches to meters
to miles to fluid ounces, 'cause they want to get lost

our city will be chaotic, colorful in nameless
varieties of green and crimson, water will always be cold
brows will always be warm, sticky with sweat
and unruly wisps of hair
every day we will be astonished by the growing
bounds of our affection for our home and for
how our home is our legs and
dipping toes into new sand
and for how sand is actually weathered glass,
whether or not that makes sense
(How? How is it soft?)

touch my lips "for I come from a people of unclean lips"
burn me with smoldering
coal from forging fires to keep the creeping,
violet cold at bay
for while we build our city we must
serve as the builders and the wall for we are
the blessed saints of Nehemiah and we
sleep with one eye open
because noisy sponsors tear down projects
that have failed before
but they don't know enough languages to silence us
they don't know the anguishes that would teach them
not to silence us

so for now, we weep and cry Shalom
so for now, we weep and cry for home
amen and let it be so.

[Untitled]

I'm proud of my worshipful tribal mask
delicately painted and carved from the wood of trees
I hand-picked for the feel of their
unforgiving bark and smooth interiors
these trees are like me, but right-side-in
my fragile insides, bouncing and bashing against
my rough places that the world can't handle
but, you see, my tribal mask has a few functional flaws like
when people who love me want to see my battered face
they see the smooth, sanded smiles
and cut their earnest fingers trying to see
what I don't want to show them
I can't decide if I'm too ashamed or raw
to open up my fortifications

Plans

Mud adores the way it feels between our fingers
Slippery and tepid, full of the grit of tiny stones
Sliding to the aching earth with whispering thuds

We love the way mud smears like it knows it can be cleaned
By throwing in its lot with fresh water instead of our skin
Dust in disguise returns to dust, unabashed
It splashes into new viscosity

And tree roots wonder which is better for food and for home
Wiggle your toes like roots in wet sand
To see how long it takes to topple

We are endless

Young ocean interlocked her foamy fingers with another
Her rough, clam-shell eyes scanned the dark expanse of her comrade
The sea kills so much, births so much, devours so much that perhaps
She may forget how endless, untameable and hungry that she is
But to see another ocean is to see the truth
And the side of her mouth crashed and grinned a
Tsunami as she sighed from her depths and remembered
"I am vast and we are endless"