the art of seduction

last night at belly dancing we worked on isolations. the head, the shoulders, the rib cage, the hips, all moving at separate times independent of each other. it is quite a feat if you can master these moves.

our class, some twenty five plus women at the beginning was six (seven if you include my daughter who now joins us), last night. it has dwindled considerably. i wanted to try out some moves so i turned on my mp3 player and belly danced to metallica.

the instructor was pleased to hear this.

after class, i told her,

if people complain about your teaching style, it is because they are wanting a choreographed routine. they want to be told what to do. not what you're doing.

i know.

she said.

you're a theorist.

yes, i am giving them the pieces to put together however they want. belly dancing is like art, it has to come from within, so i was glad to hear you are going to dance to metallica.

exactly,

i said.

i get it. i am grateful for what you're doing. you're giving us the essence of belly dancing. the others just don't get it.

thank you.

she said, and left with a huge smile.

i have to help any bohemian out i can. i hope to find some bohemian way to make a living on my own someday. she's doing it. she'll be opening a pole-dancing/belly dancing studio at the end of the year, and while i likely won't be here to enjoy it, i will help her in the way that i help people best, with editing.

i will do your flyers or any advertising papers you need for your new business, just let me know.

great,

she said.

here again, i am helping the way that i can help. i have thought so much about this, about how one little seeming insignificant person helps another and great things happen (granted those things don't seem to be clicking in my life yet, the great things, but in some ways they are, i'm probably incredibly blessed and just can't see it). but i give all i have, these meager talents to whomever will have them (especially those i love) and hope and pray, when i need a helping hand, there is one outstretched in my general direction.

i have never been let down.

the thing that strikes me about my belly dancing teacher is she is teaching from her heart. not just giving the people what they want. some may chalk this up as failure, but i've been there every week, and i've learned so much about the theory of belly dancing. the art of seduction.

i hope when i teach some day in the distant (or near) future, i have the courage to teach from my heart, even if it is not what the people "want" or think they want. this makes sense to me, but it is not and never has been an effective strategy. very few get it. most will grumble and complain. chalking it up to the "bad" teacher. but they don't see. they just cannot see. will i teach the blind with such courage when i teach? i can only hope so.

my dear friend said i could dance for her and her husband. i think i may just have to take her up on it since i've got to try my hand at it. she doesn't like metallica, but i think she's just never heard metallica the way i hear metallica. combined with the dance, it will be awesome. i can't wait to try it out.

i have some actual bd music, but it doesn't make me want to move like m does. on that note, there is this particular metallica song that has meanings most won't get, but i have to share them:

Nothing Else Matters
from the Black Album
[HETFIELD/ULRICH/HAMMET]

So close no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
And nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters

Never cared for what they do
Never cared for what they know
But I know

So close no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters

Never cared for what they do
Never cared for what they know
But I know

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
And nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters

Never cared for what they say
Never cared for games they play
Never cared for what they do
Never cared for what they know
And I know

So close no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No nothing else matters

the art of pain

so i got my second tattoo. a tribal hawk/phoenix hybrid. it is throbbing right now, i need to go infiltrate my system with ibuprofen.

i've waited so long for this next tat. i can't believe i've finally done it. and in terms of signage, i saw a falcon fly over me as i was driving to the tattoo parlor. out in texas the falcon was a more common sight. here, not so much. but there it was, and i was grateful to see it.

located on my lower back just above my panty line, i hadn't realized it would hurt so much. call me naive. the last one i got didn't hurt at all, i just felt woozy from not breathing enough. this time, i breathed in and out the whole time. focusing on that.

i tried to read walden, but it couldn't rival the pain. so i put it down and let my mind wander. they had the simpsons blaring and that was mindless enough, so i just listened to the chatter and focused on my breathing.

am i supposed to be sweating?

do you feel lightheaded?

bobby asked.

no, just sweating, like i'm actually doing something.

do you need a cup of water?

jimmy asked.

that would be nice.

jimmy brought me the coolest cup of water i've ever drunk. it was perfect. and i calmed down. i don't think bobby stopped scraping my epidermis the entire time. bastard. (he is an excellent painter, and has been doing tats for over ten years, since i didn't know him from adam, i was rather pleased to be his canvas.)

something about having a needle scrape the top layer of your skin away and rub ink into the spot that is not so much a pin prick pain as a sort of drawn out (ha!), lingering pain.

but it is gorgeous. (my daughter begrudgingly obliged me and shot the photos of my tats just now. thank you daughter!).

i was looking around at all the crap people have drawn on their bodies, some really god awful artwork. these tattoo artists are talented folk. they can draw anything you want them to. but it helps to have some parameters, some guidelines.

i went in to a place called the domain of pain some five years ago. after a fight with my husband (the retalitory tattoo--never a good idea), and sat down with an artist. then i wanted a shark on the nape of my neck. he drew me a shark, but i went in without a picture, i wanted a great white. very distinct. the knucklehead drew me a shark with a whale tail. i'm so glad i didn't get that one. i would have had that angry ignorant tattoo on my body forever. not this chump, not this day i said. and lit on outta there. it has been some five years since i've found the artist and image i want.

everyone i asked out here said one place. modern age tattoo in nanuet. so that is where i went.

i came in with an emblem, which was very intricate. (i tend to do that, make tats from actual objects as opposed to drawn things, very unique. my first was an actual arrowhead i brought in to the shop with me. i think i've since lost the actual piece, but i love my first tat.) while standing there trying to decide what to do, the guy wanted me to get it the size of a salad plate on my back. i balked at this because i was not there for that. i wanted something the size of a silver dollar or sand dollar. not a salad plate.

can we go tribal?

sure.

because he was genuinely trying to make the intricate detail of the design work but it was too tough. in the end (ha!) i am glad we went the way we did. it is more me than the other would have been. i'm less frilly and fussy than that. i needed to go tribal.

since i'd snuck off without telling my husband i was going to get a tat, i had to decide how to play it when i got home. i waited till the man was ready to pass out, and got his help removing the bandage and cleaning it, dressing the wound (or not so much dressing as lubricating).

i love to display the things i love, and i didn't want to have to worry about my tat showing. so i told him. of course he hated it.

do you like it?

i asked as he peeled the bandage off.

no. you know i hate these things.

but he cleaned it gently. he muttered something about it being disgusting and looking tacky (but hey, it's my body, and i love it. my enthusiasm is not diminished by a square).

i'm not a big fan of pain, but i all ready know what my third tat is going to be (and where!).

now i'm contemplating the belly piercing and nose piercing. hmm. wonder how much that hurts.

hold it!

when i started working out, i was going from doing nothing active to a huge change. then my other classes started about six weeks later.

at first, the workout was tough. about a month and a half ago, it started to not phase me. i could whiz through it no sweat (literally), it occurred after i asked the trainer who has known my digits since the first day, if there was something i could do for my abdomen. i have a weak core shall we say.

she got on the floor and started doing all kinds of things. with a giant exercise ball and sit ups, plunges using only the upper arms.

i added twenty five of these situps to my routine, in four combinations, so about a hundred situps total. the plunges are still tough for me. wobbly armed as i am.

there is this abdominal hold she pushes, you get on your forearms and hold the pushup position. the first time i tried it, i weebled and wobbled all over the place. but managed to hold it to twenty five.

i was proud to do that. it was doing these additional exercises after the circuit that i would sweat, no longer during the circuit (these are all in addition to the 25 minute circuit).

so i'm there about a month after she showed me these wonders, so impressed with myself, i get in the abdominal hang position and am nearing twenty five when she starts yelling (loud enough so i can hear her over my music),

hold it, suzanne. think happy thoughts. go to a happy place. don't give in.

so i hold it. to fifty.

i added on some more situps that day, to about thirty i think.

the next time i saw her, she did the same thing (this was just last night).

hold it suzanne. don't give in.

i held it to seventy five. (not without some effort)

the plunge thing is still immensely difficult and my form sucks, so i have not advanced in that arena comparably. but the situps are a no brainer and i'm now at forty each variation, totalling 160 situps.

i've been very tired lately, and i just now made the connection that it could be the revved up workouts. and here i just thought i was going through a bout of laziness or depression. but i haven't felt depressed, just tired.

must be that.

i think that the point of a good trainer is to take you to that next level. i wouldn't be at 75 seconds, if it weren't for debbie (who i think is trying to kill me).

but she is really just trying to help me accomplish my goals. that is what a good trainer does.

i like to think i help the poets in my life this way, by challenging them. though sometimes, i push too hard. ask too much. i am not sure i can even do some of the things i ask them to do. but i do try. i do not ask from a poetically stagnant position. which is the point, i guess.

if my trainer was a couch potato, i would not listen.

if i were a one poem a year poet, no one should listen to me when i ask for anything. but i fancy myself one who knows the rigors of poetry and can push others to reach their goals, even when it feels or looks like i'm only just pushing just to push.

poetry intensive at the end of the month. three days of banging out poetry with local poets and the matriarch. it doesn't get much better than that. i hope to be well rested and ready for the poetic feats of strength that will be required of me. that is an entirely other level of training.

hiding in clear view

sometimes when i am most confused i come here to hide. words surround me and i am not so afraid. but it doesn't make sense to hide in plain sight. i have no elven cloak, the things i wish seem distant, farther from me now than ever.

yesterday i deleted a poem i was writing, i don't do that, because i believe everything is worth something. but i want to come to a new place in my work. make a new sound. yet all that i hear is bellows of agony. still. sometimes i find laughter, but last night i couldn't shake the darkness and wanted to let myself fall in to it.

so i sat on the precipice edge and dangled my feet.

there's a line from a gallway kinnel poem that speaks to me, it reads:

i, who so often used to wish to float free
of earth, now with all my being want to stay,

when do we come to that place, how does it happen, when the precipice is not our desire, but avoiding it?

before, i felt driven to throw myself in. destined.

not so anymore, now, i'm just sitting beside this gaping hole that would devour me if i let it. and last night, i wasn't sure if i'd let it. i am tired of fighting. tired of forcing my legs to keep extending, shifting the weight of my body to the other leg. in tai chi it is called filling and emptying the glass.

i'm tired of filling and emptying the glass.

but not moving forward holds no hope. the idea of waiting has become wearisome to me as well. and i'm not sure what to do.

so here i am. hiding in clear view. wondering what will come and when.

to my chair then, in the corner. a place familiar where i can sort some of this out.

carnivorous vegitarian.

this one came to me yesterday. i've been dabbling with vegetarianism, as much as i dabble with anything. and while i'm not fully committed, i'm not opposed, either. i ride the fence in many ways.

my girl got hold of a humane society magazine on horses (sigh). she loves them. and begins relaying the story of how in kaufman, tx, there is some horse slaughtering going on.

what do they use the horses for?

other countries that eat horse meat.

oh, so what is the difference between that and killing cows?

(she is now emotionally invested in the idea of horses as objects of love and relating).

well, the horses they kill are supposed to be infirm. (she has excellent diction but that is my word, i can't remember her exact verbiage.)

but,

she continues,

the horses are not sick.

well that is probably a good thing (thinking of the eaters not the eaten). that is probably true of most everything they slaughter.

but with horses it's different.

how? i bet the cow doesn't think it's different.

she looks a bit wearied by this banter. she meant to convey the content of the article she read (but i mean to have her see there are many sides to every argument).

you think of all sides of an argument, don't you?

i try. think about it, if it's wrong to kill horses, it's wrong to kill chickens, eat their eggs, to kill cows.

but horses are different?

how?

because they are useful to man. we can ride them.

so only useful animals deserve to live? that's selfish, but not unlike the way many people think.

i'm not sure i excelled in getting her to consider the other side. i have no stake (or steak) in her becoming a vegetarian. if she wants to eat meat, so be it. i'll even cook it for her. i have a bite myself now and again. i am simply opposed to the idea of her buying into ideas without considering the other side (or sides as the case may be).

there are so many ways to look at a thing. i have to remind myself that my perspective is not necessarily right. it is just mine. i pray for the glimpse of an issue from another view.

yet at the same time, i hate politics. i hate hearing an argument from someone who is trying to convince me of something.

i'd rather have a discussion about something, contemplate it. i guess this is what i'm trying to show my kiddo. one does not have to become a card carrying member of any organization just because they happen to be spouting something she has a newfound interest in.

sometimes, the better part of wisdom is reserving our persuasion. not allowing our persuasive gifts to be used by either side. but being, ever and always, a voice of objectivity. and listening to objective voices. or trying. even when it is hard.

veils

there are a couple poems swirling around in my noodle. one about belly dancing. for a great many reasons, none of which i'll mention if you don't know, i am not enjoying this dance with the, um, fervor of my early days. the lustre has gone out of it for me. but i persevere, searching for the meaning in it for myself.

i'm so willing to do things for others. to be about pleasing. (though it may not seem that way from the outside, if you are in my heart and inner circle, i'm all about pleasing. it is my achilles' heel, if you will).

belly dancing is all about sexy, sensual, fertility, community. for a great many reasons, i feel all of those somehow disjointed in my life and i'm not exactly sure how to do this dance with all the fervor i once had because it feels like i'm faking it (which of course i am).

one of the great tricks of cults is to capture actions or emotions. if you get one the other will follow. so i trick myself into health by acting healthy. then, i'm certain health will follow, or that my emotions will seek healthy if i'm actively acting healthy. this is my hope.

there are so many destructive perils, there always has been, but i'm not focusing on those. but i find, like the dead muskrat we passed today, of whom my daughter said,

he met fate on the road

i don't want to meet fate on the road sampling the things that tempt me. i want my pasture to be a safe place, a haven, if you will. not a roadside death defying buffet. but i do enjoy seeing those muskrats, perky little fellows. until they wander too close to the road, that is.

we went to see the swans today. the gentle curve of their elegant necks, an auburn cap on their white head, so slight it is unnoticable to the naked eye. we broke out the binoculars and pulled off the road to ooh and ahh at the glorious couple who seem to have a giant nest and a few assorted eggs here and there (we're not sure what that is about).

maybe beautiful creatures can also be distracted mothers. i'd like to think that is the way it is sometimes. it would assuage my guilt (though i must confess the distracted don't feel guilt, they are too distracted).

it is well. we drape our veils over us tonight for belly dancing. beginning on the floor. the horrors of floorwork i'll spare you. let's just say, i better wear more than a bikini top tonight.

what do you expect flipping and spinning around like that?

anyway, perhaps my poem will come, perhaps it won't. but i'll keep myself open to it. it is just beyond me, i can see it just beyond my grasp. like that bottle at the grocery too high on a shelf for me to reach, when i try, only pushing it farther away. i must wait the tall helpful stranger or get creative.

a tall helpful stranger doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.

peace.

songs.

a couple three songs that have been hitting the chords in me recently:

sade, i never thought i'd see the day


You shed a shadow on my life
Shed a shadow on a love
Took the shelter out of my life
Took the shelter of a lie
I couldn't see it in your restless eyes
The truth I was hiding
The truth you could not disguise

But I never thought I'd see the day
I knew I'd need a miracle to make you stay
I knew
I needed
A miracle
And I never thought I'd see the day

You put a shadow on a love
Took a shelter of a lie
Took the shelter out of my life

I wish you could shelter me
Shelter me now
I need a miracle
And I never thought I'd see the day


...

lisa stansfield, all around the world


I don't know where my baby is
But I'll find him, somewhere, somehow
I've got to let him know how much I care
I'll never give up looking for my baby

Chorus:
Been around the world, and I, I, I,
I can't find my baby
I don't know when, I don't know why,
Why he's gone away
And I don't know where he can be, my baby,
But I'm gonna find him.

We had a quarrel, and I let myself go,
I said so many things, things he didn't know
And I was oh, oh so bad
And I don't think he's coming back
He gave the reasons, the reasons he should go
And he said things, he hadn't said before
And he was oh, oh so mad
And I don't think he's coming back, coming back

I did too much lying, wasted too much time,
Now I'm here and crying, I, I, I,

Chorus

Oooooooh
So open-hearted, he never did me wrong
I was the one, the weakest one of all
And now I'm oh, oh so sad
And I don't think he's coming back, coming back

I did too much lying, wasted too much time,
Now I'm here and crying, I, I, I,

Chorus x2

I'm gonna find him
Find my baby

I did too much lying, wasted too much time,
Now I'm here and crying, I, I, I,

Chorus

Been around the world
Looking for my baby
Been around the world
And I'm gonna find him

...


dave matthews, grey street

Oh look at how she listens
She says nothing of what she thinks
She just goes stumbling through her memories
Staring out on to Grey Street

She thinks, ’Hey,
How did I come to this’
I dream myself a thousand times around the world,
But I can’t get out of this place’

There’s loneliness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now
It feels like cold blue ice in her heart
When all the colors mix together - to grey
And it breaks her heart

How she wishes it was different
She prays to God most every night
And though she's quite sure he doesn’t listen
There’s a tiny hope in her, he might

She says, ’I pray
But they fall on deaf ears,
Am I supposed to take it on myself’
To get out of this place’

There’s an emptiness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
But all the colors mix together - to grey
And it breaks her heart

There’s a stranger speaks outside her door
Says take what you can from your dreams
Make them as real as anything
It’d take the work out of the courage

But she says, ’Please
There’s a crazy man that’s creeping outside my door,
I live on the corner of Grey Street and the end of the world’

There’s an emptiness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now
It’s more like cold blue ice in her heart
She feels like kicking out all the windows
And setting fire to this life
She could change everything about her using colors bold and bright
But all the colors mix together - to grey
And it breaks her heart
It breaks her heart
To grey

...

dave matthews, some devil

One last kiss one only
Then I'll let you go
Hard for you
I've fallen
But you can't break my fall
I'm broken don't break me
When I hit the ground

Some devil some angel
Has got me to the bones
You said always and forever
Now I believe you baby
You said always and forever
Is such a long and lonely time

Too drunk and still drinking
It's just the way I feel
It's alright
Is what you told me
Cause what we had was so beautiful
Feel heavy like floating
At the bottom of the sea

You said always and forever
Now I believe you baby
You said always and forever
Is such a long and lonely time

Some devil is stuck inside of me
I cannot set it free
I wish, I wish I was dead and you breathing
Just so that you could know
Some angel is stuck inside of me
But I cannot set you free

You said always and forever
Now I believe you baby
You said always and forever
Such a long and lonely time

Stuck inside of me


...

dave matthews, stay or leave

Maybe different but remember
Winters warm where you and i
Kissing whiskey by the fire
With the snow outside
And when the summer comes
In the river
Swims at midnight
Shiver cold
Touch the bottom
Starry night
With muddy toes

Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you should
It was good as good goes
Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you did

Wake up naked drinking coffee
Making plans to change the world
While the world is changing us
It was good good love
You used to laugh under the covers
Maybe not so often now
But the way I used to laugh with you
Was loud and hard

Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you should
It was good as good goes
Stay or leave
I want you not to go
But you did

So what to do
With the rest of the day's afternoon hey
Isn't it strange how we change
Everything we did
Did I do all that i should

That I coulda done

Remember we used to dance
And everyone wanted to be
You and me
I want to be too
What day is this
Besides the day you left me
What day is this
Besides the day you went

So what to do
With the rest of the day's afternoon hey
Well isn't it strange how we change
Everything we did
Did I do all that I could

Remember we used to dance
And everyone wanted to be you and me
I want to be too
What day is this
Besides the day you went babe
What day is this

new beginnings

i'd like to think today is a new beginning. that today will be different. i wanted to sleep in today, and i did. i wanted to do tai chi this morning in the garden, i didn't. i didn't want to go to church today, but did.

i'd like to shuck this doubt from my life. to blossom and thrive. i don't know that i can leave off the questions. i don't know that i can stop asking them even when they drive the answerers away. or those who i thought could bear the questions. i can't stop asking.

so today, i resolve to ask again. unafraid. and speak the truth as i hear it, see it. believe it to be.

i am certain we all are unique and our uniqueness is what contributes to the beauty of this world. that your answers are not necessarily mine and my questions are not necessarily yours. but in some places they overlap.

i'm willing to live with uncertainty and doubt. willing to believe in dreams and hope for the future, though it is all a mystery to me.

i'm willing to drag myself back to church each sunday believing God is not dead. and there is an actual body there, that if i participate it may actually start respirating and give me life as well. who knows. maybe we are too disjointed and the body's gone blue and i need to find some new place to search for what i seek. maybe.

there is a bunny waiting for me, and fresh air, blossoms swirling in the breeze. i will go out, as is now my custom and do tai chi under the dogwood tree. looking up into the blossoms.

i will not fear the silence i so coveted when i came here, but now unnerves me at times. i just completed a deprivation and before it began wrote, i'm afraid to be alone.

then alone i must be, is what i resolve. with myself until i can abide the company and come to understand what troubles me most. i may never know, but i will never stop asking the questions.

today is a new day, ripe with promise. and i for one, am not going to waste it.

see me (scary!)

probably the most unflattering picture ever, but here i am reading at the poetry center in paterson, new jersey. sigh. (too bad it's not a useable shot!)

read me

yeah, so i was interviewed recently. here's the article.

peace!

is just a

i'm struggling with believing right now. the way i live is metaphoric. i am trying to get my feet on the ground and touch the earth so i can make some progress in my life. but it seems, i am too dreamy, too full of imagination and ideas to make concrete business decisions and be a hardass.

i'm told a hawk is just a hawk. it is of no special consequence. and while part of me says,

yes, that is true. or that may be true for you.

another part of me says,

lies, horrible lies, don't believe them.

nothing is just what it seems. there is always more. always more.

this is ever so true in poetry. we say what we say but we say so much more. we say worlds of things that often go undiscovered because people are so busy contemplating the word they miss the metaphor. i guess, my problem is, i contemplate the metaphor and miss the word.

but i don't know how to be other than i am. the girl i was before is dead and gone. i am who i am today. a believer in dreams, a hoper in things like camelot. though i know all stories do not play to such fine ends, i understand that we touch some of the divine even in the most mundane tasks. for this belief, i fight.

i'm not sure how to break away from this belief in the unbelievable. how to say, here and no further. drawing lines and hedging myself in. i have too long wanted the butterflies to waft into unhedged gardens and the creatures of the forest to find their way to me. this is not possible if i'm locked inside walls of disbelief.

at least i don't believe it is.

i'm burying many dreams lately. but finding the most surprising shoots, things long still and seeming dead. hopes i'd given up on. but here they come. rising, reminding me to keep believing. dreams do come.

there is this line i heard in a movie, it says,

we never get what we really want. we get to see it. but it is never ours.

(how true this feels to me now. but i can't believe this, embrace this. i must believe we can attain what we need. there's a difference, to be sure between needs and wants.)

i guess the getting is what nullifies the want, and before we realize it, the thing is discarded on the floor of our life, we're off wanting the next thing.

i'm trying to want what i have. to focus on the present and be grateful for now. i don't know how to do this except to believe the things i see are more than i see. the dreams i dream are more that just passing fancy. they are and they can speak if i will listen.

the hawk is never just a hawk, now is he?

my purpose

i feel like steve martin in the jerk, i've found my purpose.

it's strange to be so completely lost in life, yet profoundly struck by the muse and able to jot it down. to make a poem. to speak to people's lives from a place barely understood.

i think that is the hardest part of it all, writing from this place of uncertainty and admitted ignorance. feeling my life, living my life, knowing my life will come forth in words arranged on a page that many will never see. most will never see.

but for those who see, those who understand, i am grateful.

it is such an odd thing, this, jotting down my life in so many fragments. making sense of it in small epiphanies along the way.

i think all poems are that, epiphanies. whether they lament the facts or celebrate them. we cannot construct a tower of words without keen awareness.

that i live in such a way i am able to be acutely aware of the scratching on the trellis above me, and the emergence of a fat squirrel my girl has been feeding. nibbling on a hunk of something i only later realize is a part of a loaf of bread i left out (my girl had taken said loaf to feed the geese yesterday and rather than lug the thing back upstairs only to lug it back downstairs today, i tucked it, safely, or so i thought, away in a blue bucket on a chair on the patio). the little bugger sought it out and made off with the goods. can't say that i blame him. it was rainy and cold this morning.

so i returned back downstairs with a fist full of peanuts. this, our pet squirrel ripening around the middle, paused, with a slice of bread in its mitts, and watched me put the nuts down. after scampering up the trellis to watch from above, i came back inside.

later, my husband was leaving, peanuts in pocket, and the squirrel was residing in a dogwood, peanut half devoured in his mouth. he scampered off through the pine and on to the church roof. we got too close, or moved too fast, or something. unnerved him. can't say i blame him. start trusting humans and it all goes south.

somehow this little rodent will find his way into my work. (perhaps he just has) and i will understand then, what i cannot call to words now.

you see, poetry is a doorway to understanding. these blogs used to function that way for me, but there is a lot i cannot say now, and find more hindrance than freedom here. but sometime, i will return and speak freely. or allude to truth freely, as once i did.

i do not understand, but i trust.
that is my motto these days.