Gratitude


To participate in the joy and sorrow of others,
as otherness blends in with you

To measure comfort with all senses and limitless
values of truth

To become what you have lavishly received,
love, un-compromised by time and weariness

To welcome pain and failure as
the ultimate stage of your own drama and deliverance

To be thankful

The dulling of age


Like sea glass, smoked, etched
with years' worth of ocean breaths
before becoming sand grains

The tales penned, memories committed,
experiences assembled
before the white-out of bones

The harvest of falls
amassed goods stolen or plundered,
or lovingly gathered or even let to waste

Is the final cut, the wrinkled membrane
a shell of that unspecified desire
that brought you into being

Autumn light

Waning, indeterminate warmth
responding to darkness
as I never perceived it will
eventually come

Seeing the brilliance
just a moment before it
is snuffed-
an errant fool

How Pathetic, you voyeur!!

Freight

The stairwell, too narrow and contorted
would not let through the new chest of drawers,
a keyhole to a life imagined and held in confinement

Collected and  plush, feathers for her nest
meant for wounds' cover, improbable burden carried for years
in all, downy dreams that turned nightmares

Chest on chest, she felt his slight ribs
and shallow breath beneath- wondered if it would be another
box car to add to the long line

Missed the passenger train and rode
the freight cars, a vagabond journey
needing not a destination

I wanted you so



 I imagine biting that full lip,
hitting your one crooked tooth hard with mine,
sweeping your  rough stubble and deeply carved filcrum
 with my mouth

Tasting your bittersweet smell low on my tongue,
swallowing your tall pride in one gulp
and never shut my eyes,
taking in all the grey water of yours

Salt in the wound of loneliness
is this desire, fermenting slowly
the wisdom of love, when lust
is the only highway to travel on

Sex is far from a perfect way to reproduce. It imposes a huge cost on a species, and that cost is called “males.” If roughly 50 percent of a species is made up of males who are incapable of producing babies, it is at a serious reproductive disadvantage relative to another species made up mostly of females capable of reproducing on their own.

And an animal that reproduces by herself has a big advantage when moving into new territory, because she doesn’t need a partner to be fruitful and multiply. Every single one of her babies will also produce its own offspring. Sexual reproduction “seems like a simple thing, but from an evolutionary perspective, it’s so inefficient,” says Rob Denton, who studies unisexual salamanders at Ohio State University. “It’d be so much easier if everyone were female.”

Brains don’t come pre-wired to act male or female, but are organized by sex chromosomes, hormones, environment, and experience.

The Well Of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath 

the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water

to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink

the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,

the small round coins

thrown by those who wished for something else

David Whyte

What Lurks In The Dark

Sin, envy, contempt, pride
danced around merrymaking

Evil triumphant, wreaking
safety, order and trust

An irregular heartbeat can execute
even with mercy, the best of dreams

Porphyry blood rushes in
like a  river of return no more

Replication is the safeguarding of
Fates' final say

Sodden

Came too late
a relentless rain
rotted the sweet pears,
fallen to a muddy grave
much too soon

Fell for your charms,
too easy
tall-cake and all
in the sweet shop's
untouchable display

Was it the past
 I wished forgone
or the future I hoped for
too rosy-
should have stayed dry after all