Death

I have seen my death and it is water.  It has spent a
lifetime coaxing me into its company so I will not
be afraid when it comes for me that final time. Or
maybe I am the one who seeks the water knowing
I will need to eventually make my peace with it.

When I was very young I fell head first into a tub
of water. Mother pulled me out, panicked, unsure
how long I'd been under. I only felt its warmth, and
heard it whisper to me. "I will come back for you."

I once had an accident on the water, hitting it so hard
I almost passed out.  When I was pulled from the lake,
bright red blood ran rivers down my wet legs.  And the
water whispered to me, "I am yours and you are mine."

There are times when I have sought out water, waves of
warmth and relaxation soaking deep into my muscles.
I can feel knots untwisting like tentacles letting go of
prey.  The water whispered, "You love me, don't you?"

I have sat, my belly nine months swollen as water pulsed
across it, washing away the waves of pain, down the 
drain, letting me float away to a different time and place.
The water whispered to me, "Come with me this time."

There are times water has invaded my body, going to
places it has no right to be, so we struggle against each
other as my lungs fill.  I cough against the fluids; water
simply reminds me, "This is how I will come for you."

Pieces of My Heart

I am so hungry my hands shake. My stomach is knotted as I drive.
I am angry I have no food with me, angry at the drivers in my way.

I lift one hand from the steering wheel to see how badly it shakes
from my hunger. Then I wonder why I do this to myself.  As if I
need a reminder of growing up when there was not enough money
for groceries and my mother sat at her desk crying, wondering how
she would pay the monthly bills.  A reminder of having to eat the
awful school lunches because my dad was unemployed and we
got them for free.  We choked down the canned green beans and
mystery meats because we were hungry. We also got teased. We
were the only ones at our table to eat lunch on a tray.  People knew.

And now people comment how fast I eat which makes me feel
ashamed.  They do not know when I was growing up sometimes
there was not a lot of food on the table.  We had small portions
and if there were seconds they were only for the first ones done. 
Even when I have enough, I forget to slow down when I eat. 
But I do not comment on what folks are eating or how they are
eating it,  other than to say it looks good.  You just never know.

More important than the food in my belly are seven hungers
that haunt me, call to me like sirens.  I search among sacred
rocks, waters and trees in hope feeding the fires that burn in
both body and soul.  Walking among the jagged rocks, I cup

my hands in spring-fed waters, raise them up to a sun that
filters through ancient trees.  I watch droplets run down my
arms, creating streams on my skin, rivers on my body.  I

gather stars, daring not to drop them as I search for my heart.

I. Color

I hunger for color in the winds of autumn, in the music of
a spreading morning and in the touch of a pine tree silent
with snow.  I hunger for color in your warmest kisses,
In the breath of lilacs, in the sound of unguarded laughter.

II. Journey

I hunger for the road, this one beneath my feet and the
one beyond my sight.  To be moving, going,

III. Remembrance

I hunger for those who came before me, their story that
is my story.  That in knowing them, I will know myself.

IV. Touch

 

I hunger for the warmth of your body against mine, of my

baby's fingers entwined with mine, your hugs hello and goodbye.

V. Creation

 

I hunger for the words to spill, the colors to drip, the notes to fall.

VI. Belonging

 

I hunger for my sense of place, these places that call me home.

VII. Word

I hunger for the poetry of the soul, the stories within.

Gutted

I have been gutted

This child no longer
In my womb, heart
Beating with mine

I have been gutted

My lungs heave,
Your words burn
Angry in my chest

This rock, heavy in

My stomach, leaves
Me unable to cry
I have been gutted

Connecting

I can hold the expanse of night in my arms
When I stand in the cloak of the moon

My heart can connect with yours across
Two thousand miles or more uncharted

With the barest of breezes I am gone
Swallowed by stars of another world

Walking in Words

I can only tell my own story
With its joys and frustrations
Its surprises and cliffhangers
Its dreams and heartbreaks

I can only see through my lens
Know the words I heard
Or wanted to hear
Or didn’t

I want to know your story
I want us to walk in each others' words
But your story is no longer mine
As much as I want it to be

My story is my own
And yours is yours

A Mark on my Heart

these things have left
a Mark on my Heart
like watercolors
on a wet page

intoxicating lilacs
fragrant pines
pungent fallen leaves
infusing my senses

surgical pain that does
not fade over time is
laced with heartaches
both real and raw

but laughter blurs
everyone together
my mother, my daughters
the Marks on my Heart

The Mists

Trees disappear into mist
The road winds into fog
I fall, off-kilter, into both
Not knowing where I will land

Dream-like allure
Can only beckon so far

I grab for your hand
Bare branches that break
Snapping off like icicles
Cold, rigid, brittle

Where is the color?
Quests for palettes of satisfaction
   
Every time I find my way
To the sun, the color,
I'm mesmerized by the mists
And let them draw me back in

Northerners

We are a strange people
We in the north
Sitting on overturned buckets
To stare through holes in the ice
Wearing shorts in December
Along with parkas and scarves
Because fishing and shorts
Are for summer and we are
Defiant in the face of winter.
We in the north.

Brats grilled in January
Taste as good
As tailgating is fun
Regardless of windchill
Both worn like badges of honor

Bring on the snow!
We blow it, shovel it,
And shovel again when the plow goes by.
We clear our sidewalks,
Our driveways, and roofs.
If there is not enough snow
We make our own.
We play in it.
And celebrate it with festivals. 
Give us ice, we carve it.
We are northerners.

The Glass Cutter

January, cold and bleak, the shore again imprisoned,
The lake, the house, the memory, the dream I once envisioned.
Neither animals nor I ever heard the metal snap,
Crimson blood on pristine snow, fooled by my father’s trap.

There were schools, Father said, down in Thunder Bay.
If he didn’t bring me, they could take me anyway.
I am métis, from the North, I am neither here nor there.
I didn’t understand their laws, and I didn’t really care.

He ignored my mother’s pleading cries,
Made it clear there was no compromise.
Family had become a burden, his was a trapper’s life instead.
He harnessed up the dogs, filling me with dread.

Father took me to the boarding school and told me to obey.
They would teach me to be white, to read and write and pray.
Cardinals appear to us when a loved one passes o’er,
I saw the Cardinal that day in all his red-robed splendor.

I learned his Catechism, I learned to read and write,
And what the Cardinal prefers when he calls for me at night.
I was scared and broken.  I hid the fear and bleeding.

I looked for solace in the moon, as my ache began receding.

Star shine danced upon the snow and it beckoned me with light,
The flakes like fractured bits of glass called me forth into the night.
Winter into spring, then with summer on the way
I said a word to no one, I just walked away one day.

Many nights the sky was graced by northern lights displays,
A Superior reflection all the way to Grand Marais.
Electric hues that lit the sky, arching pinks and greens
Like a whispering collection of colored figurines.

I came to stay in Grand Marais, a quiet little place,
For in that pine-draped sleepy town, I found my saving grace.
A man of silence, skill and sight, a man whose name was Kirk,
A glass cutter by trade, he explained to me his work.

Church window panes, he said, as he cut and cracked the glass,
As he soldered the lead, to make it worthy of High Mass.
He fused the light together, he captured colors of the sun.
He created brilliance, love, and beauty, for the Father and the Son.

Colored hues inside me bled, like a prism in my veins,
Planted where a flame had fed, then purified by rain.
There must have been a reason our lives had intertwined,
For when colors come together, white light starts to shine.

Through Kirk I came to see small shards of redemption.
Patterned after love and hope, and nurtured with attention.
Like a cathedral calls us home, Kirk had shone a light,
And my dark and withered soul found colors in the night.

           

White Blanket

Snowflakes fall like gentle tears
A blanket that muffles my grief
A soft, comforting snow
White, like your whiskers were

This is a time for comfort food
Like the soups you used to make
To warm and nourish

I sit, wrapped in quilts
A mug of soup warming my hands
As my grief settles under a healing snow