Living the Dream

In the secret language of flowers,

tongue of masculinity resides

in perfect expression

of what catches the feminine eye.

Sufi draped and stalled wait

for sunshine to regenerate

words for peace

after palmy leaves

release their bundle into light

to rust in sealed-lip consecration

of prayers in regal costume.

Oh, that is the way of the world:

When hope is tender, taut and true

freshly released from coddle

we are splendid in our desires

to be beautifully unbent,

only to be whipped and warped

by acidic breath of those

who wish us ill

in greed and envy

for perfection

that is polluted

by sad, surrendered wishes

whispered from a dying bloom.

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
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Hurt little children, sitting in half-circle,
gripping crayons like they were magic
wands.  I watch different ways hands hold objects:

She moves colors like she was orchestrating
a symphony of serenity.  She is managing
to escape into another world
for these few hours.
Sometimes it is enough to see
a hand lose its fist in a flurry of
wide loops and bulky blossoms
she can only see and not grasp.

He, tearing at paper with obsessively sharpened
pencil, does not use color.  His hand stabs
at unwritten things.  If I can not hold his palm,
facing upwards and pen my name and number
on his wrist, where there are old scars ~  and new slashes ~
I will lose him ~the world will no his anger
for as long as heart can handle this ripped picture
and then we will have to forget ~feign feelings
that we were not included in his dark deeds.
He has my number scribed for his next ache
to stroke flesh with anything sharp.  It may stall him
and perhaps his arms will drop in submission
as he leaves his hard home to find a pay phone.

My hands, hot with healing, find ways
to brush away those alternate spasms
of dark little hands that have potential to part sky.
I have held charcoal in my own fingers;
drew little bodies with big hands
and people commented on how dark my pictures were,
how intense, how odd that I choose deep hues.
My hands know how hard it is to try to print
what words can not begin to describe.
Come, children, let us draw deep black roses
and tack them all over the community
so they will see, they will know, they will want
to give us new colors to fingerpaint with. 

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
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Lift up rose from hard-pressed ground
so it might warm a heart acquiesced to frown
at such bitter bend and brow-beat blow
that only winter’s whipping can bestow ~

raise up curled lip of ocean’s blues
that corrugates flat color with such hues
so eye is dragged and drawn to see
a stirring makes for gasping beauty ~

tempt a glance, on slivered sheaves
dancing through high filigree leaves
so heart is brought from sand to sky
to watch for Creator as he passes by ~

oh drag me from bent and burrowed place
to spring to life by sight of nature’s face
pleading with us that all does not end
and life is a harsh but loving friend ~

and though we are pushed with pitiful prod,
we are told, “Get up! “ to witness God
teach us when time is right to rise
in new beginnings’ healing prize.

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
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A root trusts enough to send up a tender shoot
with no questions to the sun, nor does it ask
for promises.  Perhaps the unfurling
from hard soil is enough.

A stream does not ask for permission
to traverse wide plains or crash
through stone canyons, or request
the first tender kiss of mouth
before it crashes into the body of the lake.

A desert does not resist the sift and sigh
of wind that moves it boundaries
in to areas of oases for, perhaps,  
it has had enough dry days.

A man did not give assent for descent
into a life that makes false pretenses
about how lovely it is here, and heaven
is not about sitting on silver-lined clouds
nor being dipped in water before
you could barely breathe, nor that last word
on your last breath might not be heard.

A woman did not ask for breasts that bloomed,
nor did she spilt the sky open with a fist
in a hurry to have a belly full of brooding
that will spy greener grass on futherest hills
that might not have a path
that will urge and lead a return.

It simply is as it is.  Some things are too holy
to hold court over.  A root can die
within the safety of gravel.  Water can pool
to become a stagnant crawling bog.  Dunes
can pile themselves higher and get hotter,
and drier, in its heights.  Man will live or did
with trust issues clenched in his boney hands.
A woman can die milkless and alone
in a basement suite, with a cat and a dog
and a wombful of wishes.

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
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Upon the pages of your heart
is the truth of it, my friend;

the unfolding and understanding
that forgiveness is often tripped up
by the skip rope we have jumped

a woman is her own mother,
her daughter, her sister, her own goddess
and all roads lead back to us

here in the web of shadowed branches
we weave the loose strands of yarn
until there is a tapestry

we wrap the shawl we have made
over our shoulders like an embrace;
each loop we have knotted, an ending
and yet a beginning

one word at a time, one absolution
after another, we have become our own
comfort and care

rest well, beneath the cover of kinship,
beneath care of friendship,
and there, brew a thousand phrases
that tell of your journey,
weaver of words

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
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