Grandmother holds me

Grandmother holds me
her bosom boulders
her chin hairs
mighty pines

even covered in snow
she blankets me with warmth
strokes my forehead
with soft wind

lets my tears fall
Into her meadowed lap
sometimes soft
sometimes sobs

watering the great
alpine garden
of this sacred land
where wisdom keepers

have made their medicine
for millennia
sitting in their grandmother’s
lap and magic

sol mates

The sun kissed you
before I could
stole your lips
from the trails they

were meant to blaze
on my skin
to follow the
freckled pathways only you

know how to navigate
constellations on collarbones
ready for a
pair of explorers to

pave a new pathway
of bliss, setting
off explosions with
every torrid touch across
my sun-kissed skin

return

 when my heart

feels too big to hold

i return to the land

let my tears

water the ground

wind stroking my hair

in Mama's lap

birds calling me to

be still

be here

Gaia holds my 

anger and grief

she feels it too

all mothers do

Electric company

 When the power goes off 

in the mountains

we snuggled close, letting the

electricity of bodies light up 

the room brighter 

than any fire ever could 

—

April PAD day 11 - powered 

tickled

 There are not 

enough fingers or toes to 

count how much 

you tickle me

—

April PAD day 12 - counting poem 

Heart of glass

 When they tell you 

to make art of your pain

they don’t tell you

that you’re going to feel it

so deeply that it

rewrites your insides 

like doodles

on scraps of paper

that harden into glass and scrape

your insides raw red

that each of those glass shards 

are pieces of a 

shattered heart 

that you can’t quite

remember the shape of

that your fingers will bleed on 

each hard edge wiggled 

into place 

in this miserable mosaic 

that breathes with the artist’s breath 

just barely 

— 

April PAD day 8 - “they never tell you” poem

Blank slate

I took your words as 

promises, as plans, 

but they were just possibilities 

—

April PAD Day 6 - a blank poem 

Captivated

Catching up with you is 

like catching butterflies

elusive and brief but beautiful 

__

April PAD day 4 - “catch up” poem 

If my life is like a tree

have I let myself 

be rooted in the 

shade of others? 

Have I turned my leaves 

toward any shiny object 

mistaking it for sun? 

Do the twists and turns 

of my journey 

gnarl like an oak 

or splay to the sides 

like a cedar 

solid trunk and 

feathery fronds

facing the sky

entrancing strangers 

with the fragrant tales 

of a life that has

weathered sun 

and storms 

bark rough 

patterned like henna 

with a story all 

it’s own

—

April PAD day 3 - a smell poem 

Rooted

when autumn arrives

and leaves begin 

to fall i 

remember that i 

am the tree

not the golden 

leaf spinning gloriously 

to the ground