Kalpa

Kalpa                                                 Kalpa
A world ends                                     A world begins
Kalpa                                                 Kalpa
Not a sound                                       Renewal
Not a sight                                         Rebirth
No thing                                            Rebirthing
Kalpa                                                 Kalpa
An age passes                                    A singing across the stars
A youth passes                                  A boiling in the verse
Youth passes                                      A crying that isn't shameful
Passed                                                Filled
Past.                                                   Full
Kalpa                                                 Kalpa
Light falls                                          Suns rise
Night sleeps                                       Dews drop
Blight leaves                                      Stars shoot
Fight gives                                         Souls twine
Sight dims                                          Lights shine
Kalpa                                                 Kalpa
This is the way the world ends          I celebrate myself and sing myself
This is the way the world ends          I celebrate myself and sing myself
Bang                                                  Song
Whimper                                           Singing
Kalpa                                                 Kalpa

A Soul

A soul is like a tree:
Untethered and it falls,
Unbowed and it swells
Undaunted and it grows
Unblessed and it sews no seeds
Unconquered and it never dies
Unhelped and it never grows
Unwholesome and it cannot stand
Unappreciated and it withers
Unkempt and it has no community
Unsheltered and it has no family
Unbroken and it climbs too high
Unburnt and it flourishes
Unkissed and it cannot sing
Unhugged and it cannot hope
Unloved and it cannot be.
A soul is like a tree.

Lost Child

I rest myself
Upon the shelf

So many seasons.
So many reasons.

Awaiting help
From someone else.

I see so clearly
And hold so dearly:

An empty box,
Clear sides.
One side:
A little boy is staring.
Another side:
A little mother glaring.
Another side:
A big bad father swearing.
Last side:
A little girl is daring.
Inside:
The lost child scaring
Inside the lost child:
Caring.

The Winter Storm

A ruddy risk,
A ruddy life,
A better life.
The worser soul,
The worser sole,
The well-worn shoe,
The well-worn path.
A thousand miles,
A thousand eyes,
Belittling me,
Belittling me.

With far-flung cries
And forlorn tears
Cascading down
Like waterfalls
Like drops of rain.

Against the winter storm
Undying, fight.
Unfurl your furrows
Dig deep inside
And drive through the drifts
Unmask your heart
Set it against the plow
And push almighty.
You'll find it hurts
Unbearably
But that is the way
The only way
The only Way.

Witch's Hut-A Prelude

Stove tops firing Kettles filled with Love are sated.
Witch's Eyes on me, I stiffen--petrified to stone--a Gorgon.
Bodies twining--willow Tree and sapling mated
Sharing merry times with merry-making Organs.
Falling leaves and fallen Sun are falling now
Twilit branches knotting one another
Summer Cottage growing pregnant, growing heavy now;
Rubbing here and rubbing there;
Waxing greater, waxing brighter underneath the boughs;
Rubbing, rubbing everywhere.
Twisting, twining, merging into one branch, one Heart
Never, ever, never, ever falling hard apart.

Sea-Green Child

A wasting wind
encircles tides of blue.
The sea -
a river running wide and wild,
Outreaching sandy shores
of fine, fine glass.
And there I stand.

I am a sea-green child,

A breaching in my breast
is calling me to rest.

But never rest
Upon their chest
Breast to breast
Heart to heart
For even as I stay
Face to face
or seated in my lover's eye
I am away
on distant shores
in far away lands
and far away sands.

I am a sea-green child,

My skin -
the sand
basking in the sun.
My eyes -
the coral
ever reaching, ever seeking
My breath -
a zephyr
carrying sins and medicines away
My moods -
 the weather
sometimes happy, sometimes halcyon
My fever -
the clouds,
covering my mirth, covering my birthright
my wrath -
the storm,
wracking ships and sacking hips

I am a sea-green child,

a child
A child of the air and foam and light
A child of the dark and deep and wet
Hot as July, cold as December
Running wild from spray to ember
Boiling away, churning away pretenders
Even as the offenders surrender their splendors
What is given is what is taken
No more
No less
What you give I receive with thanks,
But, never seen again is not uncaring
If you look
Beneath the surface
In the dark
There
There are your gifts
The ships,
The princes,
The gold,
The jewels,
The love letters,
The bottles,
The cutlery,
The finery,
The bones,
The brushes,
The glasses,
The memories,
The stories,
Lying on the ocean floor,
Preserved,
Cared for,
Loved.
You do not love the sea
Because you do not understand her.
But, I am a sea-green child.

I am a sea-green child
awaiting a Moses.

Dandies Ashore, Princesses on the Ship

The ocean in my blood sings everlasting,
Of seas and ships, princesses going abreast
Upon the crow's nest, ever first, and e'er outlasting
The waggish lads in castles contrasting
The ladies on their rising tide o'ercasting
Their prim and primy mates unfastening
Their breeches flapping wide ashore,
Who none would take for mates of theirs
Being foolish rogues and nothing more:
Abetting their petting amongst kiss and dares
Breathing their dandies whilst women implore
The mainsail open even as they bare
Their dalliances to the wind and tide
Enacting secret rites of spit and swear
Climaxing in desires to shoot and stride.
None hold the princesses still
For they fight where none may follow
No suitor may hope until
The ladies return from their lover's hollow
In a far away land of ocean green
Where dandies never are allowed to preen.