school bus

dreamed last night

of a school bus 🚌

containing fifty-five passengers –

all Me.

different stages, faces, phases.

students – curious 🤔 and studious;

sensitive and pensive.

on a trip one bright day,

another school bus comes along.

suddenly, out of sight – bam!

“bodies every where!” some one screams.

on my school bus 🚌

frozen, in shock 😲

“why them, not us?”

summer

always so activating,
the summer months,
for me:
so much skin exposed,
flesh seemingly everywhere-
breasts
legs
midriffs
butt checks-
all as overwhelming
and stifling
as the humidity
and the heat
and that inner voice
incessant speak:
cover up and hide,
yours is not a body
for display to the outside
.”

Marie’s Lamentation

The Mother gave birth
To three daughters
None of whom
Would ever bore another.

Two of the daughters –
The eldest and the youngest
No longer carry their uterus.

Two surgeries-
The one, reluctant to wake from Anesthesia’s deep slumber.
The other, she almost did not recover.

The only daughter with all organs intact,
Chose to walk a childless path.

The Mother
is sad
heartbroken
grief-ridden.
Blaming herself
for the end of the family line.
No legacy, only perceived decline.
Why”” she asks, wailing at her Fate.
Did I
in Life
make a horrendous mistake?”

We Fall Down

I forget –

often –

just how much I am privileged

and blessed,

allowing The Darkness to rise

and My Light to then subside.

Ironically,

gratitude never ceases,

it remains steadfast,

knowing this resurrected Shadow shall too pass.

Surrendering,

I will remember:

we fall down,

become lost,

and are –

eventually –

re-found.

Letting go,

I slowly begin to dissolve

that desperate,

terribly frightened façade.

Breathing deeply

and in-tentionally,

re-leasing lineages of conditioning

and very old stories,

the tight knots

in heart and belly

begin to relax,

they unwind.

I return –

once again –

to some humble

Presence of mind.

FORCED BIRTH

Nooooooo!
Please!
not ready to come out
just yet
need a little more time
to ground
to reorient
to a new reality
one where
I sense
the warmth
quiet
and steady  
thump thump
thump thump
will be absent
need more fortification
in preparation
for this next phase
in my embodiment journey
alas, time is quickly running out-
new chemicals in her
no movement
yet all of a sudden
bright, unwelcomed light,
unfamiliar voices
drainage of the fluid that once
nurtured and fed
tiny fingers cling
try to hold on
battle lost,
civil war begins
between what is
and what was supposed to be
eventually
too many causalities
a tipping point is reached –
it is now time
to make lasting peace.

Sacred Moment

this strange,
sudden
lonely
traumatic
seclusion.
A particularly fierce form of Grace.
All a bit of a blur-
so much has taken place
as revealed by this now wizened face.
Innocence gained and lost
as we endeavor to make the most
of what is truly a Sacred Moment
a pause, a break, space
for resurrection and metamorphosis.
Who will come of this?
Already feeling familiar pieces
falling away – cannot retrieve them
for there is no going back-
only surrender –
a radical submission,
to humility and a facile generosity
born from the remembrance
of our connectedness
and shared ancestry.

Tears and Touch

Tears
for lack of Touch;
Touch
then dissolution to Tears.
So fundamental,
touch;
essential
to our development,
to our humanity.
dissolves protective walls,
loving touch,
transforms fears,
awakens and untethers
The Soul.
Akin to breath,
the gift of touch,
a vital nutrient,
a universal must.
So, how to navigate
this time of
distrust
of all touch?

The Smile

It is generating more attention
lately –
The Smile.

It feels as if an urgent message
from The Universe,
a response to a long-forgotten prayer,
a desperate cry uttered
while in the midst of The Abyss.

Re-member what you are,”
The Universe whispers
delicately in the ear.
With each compliment of
The Smile,
a call for immediate re-alignment
of consciousness.

LIFE (scene two)

LIFE

can seem insane.
So many of us are unable
to withstand its pain.
We do our best to live,
to contribute
to a world
constantly changing
and maddening.

Still, through it all
some of us manage not to fall.
Like a seedling
making its way up through concrete,
we spread our wings,
we plant our feet.
We’ve found our place;
we are lauded and celebrated.

But then-
in the blink of an eye,
an “apparent suicide“.

What happened?!
What went wrong?!
Does not success
bring with it sustained happiness?
What of us
for whom no one makes a fuss,
who daily squeeze into an overcrowded bus
to a job that leaves us empty and numb?
If the “extra-ordinary” so regularly succumb,
how then does the “ordinary” overcome?

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…” Henry David Thoreau, Walden