Words of Mine

help! I’ve lost her like losing sight of a small child slipping out of my hand in a crowd sighted glimpse by glimpse then all at once she’s gone and I don’t know which way to go I call out and that’s when I really know, hear the panic in my throat alarm bells ringing in my system calling out, “Help! Have you seen her?”

she looks like me but a little more sparkle in her eye, more spring in her step and more lust for life. she probably wandered off daydreaming marveling at the sky and the trees, responds to her name and cappuccinos and stories and snacks that are salty and crunchy. do not chase or shout at her, she might run the other way if spotted please offer her kindness and a tangerine and point her back to me.

I’ve lost her and I’m going searching the only way I have ever known through stories and music and booking a flight on my own to where she might have found solace and rest, wonder and serendipity again finding herself in the street art and parks sitting at a bistro watching the pedestrians.

why is it any surprise when the woman who stretches herself thin snaps brittle whip lashing back all around a rage uncontained boiling over on back burner this simmer flame cracks even the smallest of stress fractures tempered glass strong until sudden shatter

why is it any surprise when the woman forged in the fire flings herself back into the familiar, confusing crisis manufactured for the kiln of her kin her hearth no longer

the rains bear no omen but serve their purpose to water to cleanse to cut through humid gray misting our faces breaking open in downpour

so why fear these storms within us when all that matters is how we weather them this water this cleanse will cut through all that has been languishing

after the job after the striving what is left after the leaving

after the busyness after the pushing what is left after the aiming

after the trying after the misalignment what is left after the righting

after the spiraling after the spinning out what is left after the crashing

after the collapse after the freeze what is left after the stalling

after the waiting after the resisting what is left after the depressing

after the festering after finally resting what is left after the decomposition

after falling apart after losing the spark what is left after the dark

after the fumbling after the stumbling what is left after the wandering

after the path after the known what is left after the edges of the map

after the plans after the trying again what is left after beginning again

after the loving after the losing what is left after the grieving

after the numbing after the hollowing what is left after tenderly feeling again

after the fear after the doubt what is left after trusting myself

after the dreaming after the healing what is left after the realizing

we are now in the after the candle lit all night has melted over

what was limbo has dropped steeply under my feet into chasm deeper

and right now I cannot peek over cannot do anything but place each flower

he gathers them from our garden your kingdom and resting place, we light the incense, bow three times, and say our version of prayers

to dawn robin songs we sip out our sobs to not wake the neighbors and moor your treasures

a fleet of abalone shells waiting in your wake bondage mouse, catnip, and greenies to keep you on your journey

tempered glass strong until sudden shatter these pieces of me glint glittering rainbows of matter

you are here and everywhere but I cannot hold you my dear cannot stroke your face though I swear I glimpsed the curve of you around the corner

thank you for the messes the routines and the chores for the crumbs on the carpet dirt and fur across our floors

thank you for making me get up to feed you every morning to scoop your poop and clean your butt even as you're squirming

thank you for the snuggles your paw against my cheek, your purrs and sweet slow blinks even now as you grow weak

thank you for taking your medicine though you still put up a fight we wrap you up and kiss your forehead knowing this too is a sign of life

thank you for the tiny holes in couches, rugs, and clothes for every stretch and every scratch what's mine was yours long ago

thank you for the love bites and even for the scar from wrestle play affection we took a bit too far

thank you for the pain, this grief, and even the tears all this love where will it go when you leave me here

thank you for running to greet me every time I return home you sleep now by the front door resting, waiting on your own

thank you for the days and hours may these last ones be filled with ease we'll give you anything, even goodbye, if that is what you need

I glance over the rise and fall of his ribs he is still here I exhale the breath I didn’t realize I was holding

the tea has gone cold half drunken and poems saved half written the light bathes his fur my kitten who has lived fully his too-short life giving love even to strangers unbidden

I kiss him every evening goodnight I love you and thank you my darling and wake each morning, wondering until I see him oh, he is still here but no longer coming upstairs or waking me to snuggle under the duvet some days not eating or purring but still napping near me or begging for a bite so I give him anything he wants: fresh chicken, smoked trout, roast duck breast, he licks the cappuccino foam off the tip of my finger

the rise and fall moment by moment the good days and the bad and the bounce back and all is still, here while he is somehow still here the hours drip by the sun spot shifts and he rolls over to warm his other side

is it now and not now

or past and future also called

regret and worry or on the flipside nostalgia and fantasy

we find ourselves now

in waiting in limbo (not now knowing) a long now stretching

until some unknown after some exhale to come (I hold my breath as we drive through the dark tunnel)

is it light or life I’m waiting to return to but we cannot go back that road has dematerialized

respond the delayed sorry

sorry

sorry

delay the sorry response

delay

the

response

delay the sorry

for the response

delay

for the

in a crowded shopping mall or was it while waiting for the metro I lose my mother spinning around looking for her in the crowd past legs and bags and bodies but none of them are hers

and I call out mama, mama! but my voice is lost in the throng and I cannot see high enough. in panic I reach out and take a hand that looks like hers but feels different stronger but soft and kind like hers

and a woman in blue smiles down at me in my frantic child energy, calm yet consoling me saying it’s okay, you’re safe, I’ll help you find your way. and mama joins me then

lost in her panic—she thanks the stranger, takes my hand, and clutches it tight. my little hand dangles from her fist squeezing and I remember the stranger not so unfamiliar how she held me gently and looked kindly into my terrified eyes

if I feel all my feelings and let them course through no bottling or swallowing or avoiding what’s true

if I let it all go and welcome what comes no ruminating or yearning or penting up emotions

if I do all this and heal all the things will the poetry still emerge if I’m not bursting at the seams

maybe less an eruption like a fiery volcano and more a drip of a spring or the ocean’s ebb and flow

the news spreads like wildfire on WhatsApp and social media thread to thread sangha to sangha brother to sister to teacher checking in, asking

are you okay? I just heard… oh how devastating.

I’m sending love over SMS to my dharma friends there in the desert mountains holding each other in the ruins

we’re all okay, thankfully. devastating but so grateful all things considered.

when the zendo burns down and we all reach out to our community offering love, support, prayers trusting in our resilience

as the world is burning down and we’re all okay, thankfully devastated but so grateful all things considered

maybe all we can do is keep reaching out as much as the grief and rage and overwhelm may shut us down, trusting in our resilience saying instead

a slow blink the flick of a tail his wet nose

rough tongue soft on palm outstretched offering all the treats

all of my love and then some more holding my baby nuzzling

swaying in the blooming weeds he curls up under partial shade and I brush him head to tail

along bony spine gently greeting his slow blinks with my own

I love you I’m here with you

I love you too

over and over slower and slower kissing without touching

they stare shocked at the rift that I’m breaking the script but we have gotten to the place where the show must not go on. where I leave work half finished

after grasping my sobs in my hands in the bathroom silently weeping into crumpled brown paper towel, after they say I’m so sorry, take your time

but I have no measure of time for this. how time toys with the dying swatting lazily or pouncing all at once and I wonder when did he stop playing how long has he been in pain

but he’s my little baby why so soon he’s still young why so soon what can we do? so I take myself home biking gasping for air shuddering

between wipeouts of tears crying into the sunset of an otherwise beautiful day crying without crashing vision blurring until I’m home

and all I can do is hold my love holding me holding him falling apart into each other rocked by each wave and we hold our babies and tell the other, the twin void nuzzling into his brother,

trying to love the living as much as the dying every moment in the garden in the sun in our heated bed in taking all the photos in treats and pain medicine and even in my dreams I know

to making music in our bedrooms on dorm couches in stairwells to recording the messy the rough drafts the half assed but we did it anyway

what ever happened to not caring who’s watching or what they’re thinking (well we did, but we pretended we didn’t anyway) or where any of it is going but for the hell of it for the giggles for the chills for the harmony for the thrills in the moment of voices ringing

what ever happened to staying up late talking into the night to secrets and crushes and what we’re wearing to that party oh how I miss getting ready together doing each other’s makeup singing along to ABBA with too little space and too little time

what ever happened to all that rushing ahead on no sleep and extra caffeine eager for the next thing and the next and then you’re older and you see your friends after they’re all dressed and all made up you meet for dinner to catch up endlessly apologizing for not texting back, not calling back, not knowing why it’s so hard to stay in contact

what ever happened to living our lives side by side with our fears and dreams intertwined but I guess we grew up together and even as trees do, we grew apart

what ever happened to feeling like anything was possible even the naive promises like I’ll love you forever— did we get jaded or busy or heartbroken or settled down or dissociated or sober and maybe a little healthier

what ever happened to the last ten years or even fifteen but I think in another decade or two I’ll still be wondering the same: