Author: Emily

He
(in the kitchen
while I word,
soup and bread)
mind my broken gait,
add no weight.

He
(we and me)
bend and walk
into wood,
onto prairie,
downto river.
Together alone
(together, alone).

He
(me, we) —
sing silent
reciprocity of receptivity,
gentle,
irresistible persuasion
toward Right Action.

And always the opened cage —
the migratory
and minute rhythms
of a life on the earth.

Train’s sibilance,
he from fog —
somewhere,
somewhen —
we (he, me),
open-hearted,
healed,
whole.

The deepest cut cannot heal.
Nightshadow, reflecting pool,
I fall in.
(wrongminded, hardhearted, blind —
senseless, indeed.)

Maybe who really looks finds.
(endless ditch, wrecks, skeletons, longlost.)

And no wonder, godfaith,
and no wonder selfdestruct —
the commonest mistakes,
aren’t they?
(are they?)

The diverging trails grown dark,
a thirdway appears.
(we hope.)

In longing for the middle,
pathless path,
we imagine stable.
We imagine steady.
(it was never thus.)

And there is a something —
between standing still and stepping
sloweyed, movement imperceptible.
(in whatever direction.)

Again to knee —
(oh You gods and guides —
oh You angels and ancestors) —
help me find and pull the thorn.

Help us find our footing
amidst the ruin.

The wind comes.
Be still,

no matter how much
the contained
wants to spill —
a black and boiling smoke.

Withhold all movement,
and feel what fuels it —
our sorrowful, severed nature.

And the fruit may be bitter, but We cannot taste it.
And the air may be toxic, but We cannot smell it.
And the alarm may be constant, but We cannot hear it.
And the star may be fading, but We cannot see it.
And whatever is Present, We cannot touch it.
And wherever we are in space, We cannot sense it.

We are sleeping with the bats, now —
Plato’s cave.

What we might have become no longer is,
and who cares, anyway?…

And who cares, anyway?
So it harm none, do what thou wilt.
Tempered, temperate —
be still to see it:
shadow, broken bone,
and the healing beyond it,
or the forever falling further.
Meaninglessness either way.

But still…

Be still.
The cold wind comes.

The sky cools, contracts —
so we push seeds into a fallow field,
and trust the ante and post meridiem,
the wax and wane,
the division of clock and calendar
and how it all adheres to solar rule.

(How would we live
without these shadows?)

All through the darkness underground,
unseen nurturance of the always-within,
always-beyond —
not higher,
nor holier —
but simply the atomic dance,
the interplay and shift
of no-thingness,
of every-thingness —

core of Being.
Gods, protect their hearts,
go deep,
restore what is needed.

Yesterday I doubted —
the signals all obscured.
I forget how to interpret —
to read or speak the words.
One bruise, and I get sicker.

All of the gods say turn it around,
but I hear them distantly,
behind the alarms and sirens.
There’s no way out, after all.

And the human counsel…
(“It’s the fucking patriarchy, darling,
and the terror of the earthly meltdown.”)

As above, so below.
As without, so within.

But the healing has to start somewhere.

So,
in the absence of a helping human hand,
we wear out our knees,
all we’ve left, pleas
for an intervening godly plan.

I fell for these inventions —
not only my own —
and rapt in pride,
trapped myself.
And on they came,
these heaviest chains of blame,
judgement and repulsion —
ensuing shame.

I take it all on —
oh, the faultline,
my fault.
And no wonder,
gravity’s skew,
the broken, sunken boat.

Whence discernment?
Most of these pages are not mine,
but the contributions of thieves.

Burn it.
Bury it.
Relish defiance,
and throw it to the ground
(like that book in the dream).

The matter of the remainder
is the simplest thing:
Hone it.
Sculpt it.
Worship its empty pages,
its unpainted canvas.

Whittle it back down to worthy.

What is it, anyway?
Poke it with a stick
and run away.
It’s gonna chase you up the stairs,
depress your acceleration
and leave you broke on your back.

How long now have you been holding your breath?

Oh no —
let it go,
but gently,
but kindly —
keep moving the magic and lighten up.

“I feel the earth move…”

It knocked me on my heels
when I’d already been un-balanced —
dashed and damned expectation,
and the wrong math of two into one,
and so —
from every direction,
foreseen and unexpected —
Pain.

Now the steady tectonic shifts
in my accumulated sediments
have reached a crux —
fuse, build —
slowly, slowly —
the mountains’ top,
or quake, break —
the deepening fissure of ache.

Here let the land repose —
bless it —
and discover the value of fallow.
Let them have a home —
fox, jay,
goldenrod, walnut —
up against the fence where the creeper goes.
Bring water.
Bring what you must purge.
Anoint yourself and this ground.
Let go, return it to earth,
And bless it! —
all you gods —
show us how to be made whole.