Living the Dream

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
No Comments »

If she were her grandmother, she would come
crashing through the thicket,
cursing, stick raised, to rout us from our hiding place.

If she were her mother, she would grab the nearest stone
to crush the head of a snake, or chase off crows
that gnaw at her headache, or stick it in
the gopher hole so she could block his entry.

If she were her sister, she’d slowly file her claws
on hard sod, smiling at the canary’s chirp
in a branch close enough to swing at; a slow hiss
growing in her belly, she would slink, yes, slink,
one well-placed paw after another until she was ready
to become a bundle of rage, stretching to slash
a memory on someone who had tempted her too.

But, she is not any of these.  Her stick; her pencil.
Her stone; the rock at the family firepit.
She will pull paper to her and scrape words
across its pale skin, squeeze the phrases
into tight mouthed tirades, and throw it all
into a memory bin that will be put out in the trash
and finally burned on the pyre.

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
No Comments »

Look, the leaves are gone and the wind blows freely
around the world, teasing stars and moon and goddesses
with their whispers of skittery souls and open wings
ready to be lifted.  Floating on a current of crude poems,
I dreamed the dearest dirge for you

but upon an open-mouthed spiral, they downed themselves
on a crippled carnation left over from some sorrow.
It was there she found me, caught and trying to haul
something almost lifeless from a low hung branch;
a bent word, a furrowed brow, a flockless surrender
that could have stayed awkward in sky’s limp pooling of ink,
waiting for a lawnmower, no, a dirt mover, to change things.

Tumbling out of a rainbow, she came, over a thatched
horizon, beneath a beat-down need to turn a terse emotion
into a tender poem, and lifted my hand to hold a hers.

She knew how love slips through cracks in the upturned palm.
She knew, also, how light can be seen through the fingers
no matter how clenched they are.  Our coordinates are the same;
the leafless tree, the wordless poet, the skyless soul
and she, the wind, waiting to ruffle us from our hopelessness.

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
No Comments »

I could have gone blind on sunshine,
had there not been a few shadows
to keep me humble.  Glare would eventually
force me to cover my eyes,  burned, seared,
crying out that light can hurt the heart
when it is constant.  I have been grateful
and not having to swelter
sunfully because someone depended on me too. 

I could have been pressed down, on rock
hard places, never to rise, because I was so comfortable
in shade and stones are sometimes
the next hardest thing I know. 

When I was up waving, my bright
smile like a beacon, there was always someone
who wanted what I had, would pick me before my prime
and I would end up looking wilted
which was more noticeable in the glare.
and it was lonely there, weighted with responsibility.

When I was in the shadows, it was inevitably easier,
at times.  I could grovel in murkiness
and not have  to wave any banners or bear
 any burdens other than my own.  It was a heavy
quiet, lonely in other ways.  But no one expected
any more from me then.

But, I should discuss the rain.  Rain that falls
in full sunlight, they say are angel tears of happiness
and perhaps sorrow, in its mysterious was;
that knowing that it can not be sustained
for so as morning rises, night must fall.
There is an aching in any joy for that.

When dark days gather into sop of sudden showers,
even flowers know to bend their heads
and see it through. It is such a wonder,
to me, that the buds in process of their mourning
know when to rise together like a yellow chorus.

You are a blossom in my garden, my friend.
We know the season and the cycles well. 
We are both sunned and shadowed Hope
to each other.  Our arms, like leaves,
hold each other in swelter or shadow
just beneath the dazzle of ease
and the bend when we are beleaguered
by a deluge of dark horizons.
 

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
No Comments »

Oh Death, you are a wanton,
with no respect for kind and kin

let go of my sister’s hem

she is needed here to kiss children,
to braid her sister’s hair, to brush
a brother’s sweat off his brow

take your dark and tempting heavy
scent from air she breathes,
she has flowers to smell
that do not go with any funeral parlor

there are roses she must cause to bloom
dark night she has stars to pin to
she has her bath to draw
to sooth her need for water

not to drown your hum or harrowing
aching voice whispering that she is now
somehow related to you

let go of her hair that is tangled
through head tossing in her sleep
and balks beneath her combing

of thoughts, caught like burdock
belief that she should look disheveled

You are a jealous woman, you want
what she has; her hope that rides hard
to keep safe from such as you

be gone, and with you take your minions;
those nasty near-death wishes
that seep into her bones

What love has, you can not have,
until she offers you her bouquet
of release that she has saved
until the last moment to hand over
to you who will cause shattering
of petals that were meant to stay near her heart

She will no longer believe in you
once she sees spring bring new blossoms.

Tags: Harboring A Hope, Poems by Shewolf
No Comments »