Sonnet VII Recipe for Drinking Coffee and Finding Ease

In the Space Between

  

They defy our grasp,

stretching the boundaries so thin between what they are and what they aren’t 

- able and incompetent, brilliant and bewildered, needy and transcendent- 

that they create absence 

rather than essence. 

 

They suck the air out of the room.  

They impress and disappoint, comfort and excoriate,

with only a gesture 

or a word, 

often in the same moment.

We adore them, we hate them, we imbue them with our own sense of self –

 interpreting their otherness through the lens 

of our own vulnerability.

They can be their own undoing.

Or ours.

Who are they?  

We know them when we see them. 

They’re under our skin.  

-Consistently inconsistent, unfathomably difficult, teetering between brilliance and defiance, differently motivated. 

Sweetly confused. 

Flayed with sensitivity. 

They can be defiant, depressed, disorganized, determined. 

Breath-takingly kind, deftly aware.  

Whatever they are, 

it’s never what we expect at the moment.  

Misunderstood.  

In the space between, 

in the space of a sigh, 

they will 

upend, 

realign, 

reconfigure,

reimagine

and resurface 

our world.

What then?

Sonnet III Chasing the Sun

We carry sun within us, beam by beam.

We hum and puff with liquid wheezing light -

We kindle flames afire in borrowed gleam,

Reflected glow on loan from cloudless sky.

We shelter dark within us, sigh by sigh-

Protective urge to keep our worry close.

We cloak ourselves in dimly shadowed night,

And hide inside delicious dull repose. 

We cradle warmth within us, spark by spark.  

And stoke our dreams in rosy tinted rays.

We conjure heat from embers ashy dark

And flee between the turning nights and days.

We straddle dusk and dawn in frantic haste,

And douse the sun and drink the dark, a waste!

 

Sonnet IV Nostalgia

 

A fragile sweetness lingers slow and deep

And teases toes and tongue and blood between 

With hints of yeast and milk that warms our sleep,

The tastes that sing our restless dreams serene.

Forgotten scents arise in wistful waves

To flood our veins and cream our bones with balm.

We swoon beneath maternal soft embrace -

Indulge the bliss of deep remembered calm.

Released, revived, refreshed, we breathe anew

And trail our nascent hopes and dreams behind.

In want, we savor sips of childhood brew

And drink with aching thirst that sucks us blind.

And yet, as aching needs emerge, we know 

Remembered ease digests forgotten woe.

Remembering Mom at Sunday Worship Coffee Hour

 

A-flutter amidst the Sunday sippers,

She twitters and twits, her eyes a-gleam.

With trembling pats and bashful titters,

She gathers cheer on hummingbird wings.

She alights between the cups and chatters,

Her head a-tilt, her faith and love ablaze,

To perch, alert, embracing laughter

Erasing tears in wispy breaths of grace.

Her wings have folded, her soul distilled

Yet memory shimmers as wet eyes glimmer 

Beside the crumbs and drips and spills

Within these sacred walls, her spirit lingers

 - A pause, a pulse, a moment’s grace to fill.-

If I Could Muster Faith Enough

Spin and drift and catch the wind

against a flat unbroken sky.

Sweep clean the attic of your mind;

-  Refresh the glimmer in your eye

Stay aloft among the crows

That crease the wind and shatter calm.

Ride the sky and listen close 

And open your throat to joyous song. 

Then fling your arms to reach the stars

And dance amid their ancient light

Invite their glow into your heart,

And gather forth your inner might.

If I could muster faith enough

To trust in god with simple grace

I’d free my soul to soar aloft

And greet the angels face to face

But I believe in sun and rain,

And trust in birds and buzzing bees.

I pray before the restless wind 

And raise my praise up to the trees. 

Our John Lennon

 

Wretched and sweet, sardonic,

-Sublime-

Our veins thrummed to his moods,

we danced to his mind.

Tall and sweet-lipped, moody,

-so pale-

We measured his swagger

with our every exhale.

We rocked to raw angst,

Staggered to cruel riffs,

We giggled and blushed, so girlish,

- such bliss-

He syncopated our joy,

Wailed loud our pain,

Our fears made electric-

He hummed through our veins.

Our personal guru,

A primal scream so wise -

-we believed

We could break

from the weight of his sighs.

Mourning Tea

 I’d like to drink roses for my mourning tea

And scent my days with velvet memory

of things insubstantial, forgotten and old

- of dust, of earth,

 and mysteries untold.

I’d conjure within these primal mists 

streams of spectral prescience

where flesh, and breath, 

and dormant mind

transcend the early

 bonds of time

And I, above my fragrant cup,

would linger, entranced, while I sup;

For through the steam,

I’d almost see

 your smiling face,

across from me.

Why Tutus are Pink

 

Walking Meditation

 

The gilded leaves glitter the ground

and set my mind afire.

With gossamer flame, they’re fairy-gowned,

stitched with filigree wire.

Saturated light teases and taunts

Its spectral hue glimmers and haunts

I reach and breathe and ache and moan

Such fleeting beauty sears the bone.

But feathered hope with ruffled breast

May roost in secret lair

With tuneful song, not once repressed,

And wings to catch the air.

So though my yearning heart does break,

And I must breathe the red-hot ache,

I find my peace in fragrant leaf

And soothe my soul of soaring grief.

Joy is

Joy is

that wild fox on youtube

gamboling

with a fluffy toy

in a front yard

on freshly mown grass.

She prances and pounces,

flinging body and fluff

heavenward

in buoyant leaps

heedless of

acquisitive eyes and watchful feet.

Willingly, it seems,

Sharing

her gift of

brief abandon.

Sonnet VI Let Grief Lie Fallow

 

Let grief lie fallow, snug beneath burnt leaves,

Unseen, untapped, unfelt except in dreams

That leak and seep into the life we weave  

And blear our eyes with smoke of things unseen.

Or -  nurture grief and feed it like a weed -

And root it deep and free its fronds to spread

And curl between all future thought and need

To tangle hope in twisted knots of dread

Unleash grief upon all who venture near

So drool and slobber pool around their toes.

To mire them deep in helpless endless tears  

And sucker up their deepest fears and woes.

Befriend your grief, tame it to your needs

And welcome joy of aching sweet release.

Sonnet II Coffee How Do I Love Thee?

 

I sing a song of coffee laced with jive,

A lyric conjured fresh from beans and need.   

Stirred up by honeyed dash of gleeful guile

And brewed in mugs with fragrant, dreamy greed.

Baristas’ blends - robust, complex, divine -

Beguile with shine and spice, enticing thirst.

And I, bewitched by heady haze - sublime,

Imbibe with fervent mind engaged, submersed

In liquid lust for java jolt of joy.

To leap awake with tongue alive, suffused 

With mocha-fueled barrage of happy noise.

I croon- provoke, emote, invoke, infuse - 

Unleashed, I gush espresso-scented praise -

Unfiltered buzz in caffeine -laden daze.