"There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings." 
-Wendell Berry

Framed By Fall....

I had the recent honor of participating in The Mountain Traditions Project...

About Hope

I know a boy
with a dent in his head...
it must have happened
when his mother got mad.
"Women", he sneers,
even though he's now older...
then timidly places
his hand on my shoulder.

it don't matter what he said, child.
love don't act like that.
rid your mind of those lies, child.
he ain't where it's at.

i got love that purifies.
solidifies.
doesn't victimize.
it don't matter what he said,
child.
love don't act like that.

take back what is yours, child.
don't let him come stealin' round.
love... it ain't no thief, child.
it ain't gonna bring you down.

so get down on your knees, child.
it's time to restore your crown.
they're dancin' round the throne for you.
grace is showerin' down.

i love you so very wild, child...
so don't listen to what he say.
you're about to be adorned, child...
you're a phoenix and you're rising today.

nature art...

be still.... and KNOW.

-God

gentle is what you were... at a time when life and circumstances were very ungentle.
i don't remember you ever uttering a harsh word.

an oasis is what you were.....
an island where i first let it all out, wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the end of your bed.
the filtered sun coming through the bedroom skylight,
casting morning shadows on the patchwork quilt.
you barely having the sleep out of your eyes.
but you listened.
every single word you took in.
and that is what you did every time after.

you had plans but you canceled them.
"nothing is more important", you told me.
if only i still believed that.

you always knew tears were coming before i even did.
you wouldn't let me run away.... or lash out.
you just sat me in your lap and let me cry.
let me vent.
you never uttered a harsh word.
you understood... sometimes even when i didn't.

i wanted to write this to thank you.
that seems so small.
in some ways, you saved my life.
that is, you made me really want to LIVE.
the oppression, anxiety, and anger were never there when you were around.

and now i know.
since Love visited in the flesh...
now....
nothing less.

Home

i'll paint the fences white for you
if you tell me you're coming home.

i'll put candles in the windowsills
to guide you in the gloam.

i'll wear your favorite dress and put a flower in my hair.
i'll warm the stove and light the fire
and sweep the front porch stairs.

i'll bake your favorite cake for you...
if you really are coming home.

i'll put away every fear for you,
if never more you shall roam.

On, in , and around Mondays: Cyclic

anxiety because he didn't show again... and is giving me the silent treatment.
but then peace, as we cross the WV border with bluegrass blaring on the radio... and a life-giving talk with my sister, ensuring that everything is and will be fine.

a memorial service for a spit-fire hillbilly woman who inspired me to fight... who stood up to a giant and fought for her beloved mountains.
but then guilt, when little one asks to leave because it's making him sad.
we walk around a while and then come back. he joins in chanting, "what would judy do? fight harder!" and stomps his feet. "this IS the year mountaintop removal will end!!"

driving in the dark to the lodge... nestled in the west virginia hills.
a much needed reprieve for both of us.
me, downtrodden, because no matter how much glue i apply, it just won't stick.
because i opened my heart up again... and failed.
him, hopes aroused but unmet.... tears over homework assignments that ended up being tears of a deeper nature. tears over something i can't fix.

but in all this cycle of sadness, anxiety, disappointment, we wake to a sunrise over the deep canyon. blue mountain majesty. bringing peace to a mother and son.
nature is crying out over judy..... nature is crying out over broken things...
because even the rocks and hills will cry out.

and then this verse.... "he will quiet you with his love".

if you knew how i watched you while you slept
and how much pressure i felt
pushing against the insides
of my metaphorical heart
then maybe you'd understand

how the same heart
feels
when i crumble on the
kitchen floor
every time you leave me...

even when you are present.

sometimes i dream
that i walk down the gravel lane,
past the moss covered granite...
the angel presiding over the tiny plot
of the little child
for whom i created a life in my childhood imaginings.
the one i talked to
and wove flowers for,
along the ground where she rested.
a reminder that the soil of my youth
had been tended by the toil and tears
of lives without longevity.
the dichotomy of my childhood bliss
forming a contrite heart.

i wake to a vapor of
unsettled nostalgia,
a distant sort of longing that rises and dissipates
almost as tangibly
as the groggy remains of sleep.

sometimes i dream
that every acre of land now has a house.
the farm that raised me no longer the sentinel
of the bottomland
and the field of daffodils
that a kindred of miss rumphius sowed,
maybe imagining pig-tailed girls carrying
bouquets so big,
their hands aching on the walk back
to scatter their harvest in jars and cups
along windowsills and farm tables.

i wake
and the panic flees with the weighty sleep.
the knowing
allows peace
to continue watering the kentucky soil
planted in the fields of my heart.

November's Story....

(in other words....traveling with my band, family time, harvesting, music, and enjoying nature's fall show...)

i wrote a prayer for you on shale.
i wrote it carefully.
then turned it over
and covered it with leaves,
so that the rain
wouldn't wash the message away.
i left it along the trail.

it may still be there.

the tears may wash the prayer
out of my heart.
or they might harden
and solidify
and make a barrier.
and i will forget
that i longed so much
for you to know the things i wrote.

but the earth knows..

and Love knows.

and my hope is that
maybe....
someday...
they will conspire together
to manifest earthen prayers,
buried under leaves.
even if the elements
conspire otherwise....

i have snuffed out this candle,
again and again,
determined to live
without the light it casts.
i don't see the shadows
when it's dark.

eventually
enough stumbling,
groping,
hoping,
reignites it,
long enough
to gather
bearings.
then the leaning over,
exhaling,
exterminating.

brief solace.
i will let you light it now.
when you are ready
for the shadows.

Summer's Bounty...
(or a photo tribute to learning to garden as a townie, in smaller spaces. all the bounty and flowers are from my yard, except the berries, which were found along a nearby trail)

"Nature is, above all, profligate.

Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is,
whose leaves return to the soil.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place?
This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme,
the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital.
Extravagance!
Nature will try anything once."

-annie dillard

(photo: rose of sharon blossoms drifting in a pond)

love note

surrounded by strangers
not acclimated to this air
i am right here
you're over there

ask to borrow my days
they are already lent
i've been on a spree
everything is spent

there is no change
nothing to give back
i poured it all out
from the longing....
and the lack

of air that is familiar.

transient thoughts...

i was feeling heavy on the inside as i walked carefully on the old bricks, dodging the tree roots where they bulged up out of the ground and broke apart the path.
a slight drizzle began, and i slowed down and turned my focus upward for a moment, trying to read the sky.
but then the drizzle turned into a downpour, and i stepped underneath the shelter of a giant, aged oak tree.... a little reprieve.... a deep breath.
as i inhaled, a drop of saltwater began to trickle down my cheek, as if to show unity with the decision of the skies that day.
the funny thing was, that, in perfect synchronization, one huge raindrop made it through the leafy canopy and fell onto me.
i wondered, as it slid onto my forehead, if it picked up the scent of my hair on the way.
it continued to heed the law of gravity, and slowly trickled down my face and mingled with the drop of saltwater that had escaped the confines of that still broken place.
i felt its path as it slid onto my shoulder and then watched it get washed into the cracks of the sidewalk.... my tear, my scent, my skin mixed in with it.
i thought about where it had been in all its journeys... millions of years making its way through the earth and into rivers and air and clouds.
who else had once been in that raindrop?
whose scent and skin cells and tears and dust had it held, only to purify itself across stones? make it all void and start all over again.

then i exhaled and stepped out from under the tree.
i took my shoes off and let my feet sink down into the wet earth and grass.
i stood there and let my skin absorb every drop it could. life was in those drops of rain.
and i loved it all during that ephemeral moment.
i loved the wet dirt, the slimy bricks, the feel of my soaked dress clinging to my skin.
i looked over and saw a little old lady watching me from her porch swing......
and i think i loved her most of all.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-mary oliver