I imagine you
Skipping across the cosmos
Comet tail glittering in your wake,
Free and laughing with amazement,
Curiosity pulling you
Into the next adventure
The ordinary now far behind you.
So boldly you stepped away
The air left the room,
The light and sense
Leaving with you,
Searching the stars and
Seeing how far Beyond
Might stretch.
Unfolding like a wing, or seed,
Or newborn,
Spirit bounding fleetly
Coursing with energy no longer contained.

An honorable thief,
Stealing life from odds against,
Fighting hard to have arrived, here,
At this point in time,
Somehow still cracking
Backward jokes
Daring someone to try again.

Will I know when the time is?
Will I sense it coming like a storm front
Approaching?
All majestic clouds
And thunder.
Lightening reaching for offerings in the earth
Discharging relief for the joy of
Rebalancing pressures.
The stretch of spark
Made glass the roots of a cloud.
The moment electric then gone
A flicker of light and flame and ozone
A blink and a sigh
Stillness risen
To wonder again.

People hear my name
And suddenly think
They get to have some piece of me.
Whatever the conversation,
It changes to what they can know of me.
Ask why don’t I match their expectations.
How dare I challenge their assumptions
About me.
Is that your real name?
Does it mean something special?
Funny you don’t look it.
I apologize for being pale and colonized,
Assure them that my ancestors still fight
Within me.
I explain I’d have long hair if I could,
As I used to.
That my parents had black hair and dark eyes.
That I am the only family member who is bald.
Rummage for some feathers and bells,
Beat my drum and sing
Explaining visions and rites of passage,
Beliefs that sustained you, and joke about
Government documentation of what is deemed a sovereign nation and therefore legitimate.
(Watch you go to ridiculous lengths to kill off the food source, the language, the family,
Take the land,
Outlaw your religion…then ask you to
Comply. Register. Move. Otherwise you officially don’t exist.)
Explain that each nation makes its own rules, matrilineal and patrilineal clan systems,
And membership is often limited to only one, and how blood quanta strip each successive generation a few more numbers.
How the established policy assures eventual extinction.
Meanwhile blood still pumps its truths,
Recognized, documented, or simply lived.
How many ran and hid? Blended in and lied?
Did what they could to survive,
Choosing to keep children near
Rather than community.
Learning the white subterfuge,
Like wearing an animal hide.
So much simply doesn’t exist if you don’t speak of it.

I called for help and you came.
Told me my story.
A deep tale of walking two worlds at once,
Seeing in the gaps,
Snowflake on your forehead
Marking your vision.
The power of a name unfolding
With time. Relatives concerned you were going to be seen, uncovering
What had been so furiously obscured,
As if generations of poverty
And running hadn’t already
Shown its truth in your failing heart.
Passing in pink for so long, I like to think it was my white ancestors that disowned me twice, and only gave back what I chose to take.

Back at dying, and seeking strength again ,
it might be time to search again.
Wander into the woods
To get lost and find something
To look for one’s meaning.
As if dead owls weren’t portent enough.
Prayer fans held on honor beats,
Then back to hunting, tracking,
searching the horizon.

Are we talking about
Skin color? Ethnicity?
Culture?
Strands of DNA,
Blood percentages,
Country of origin,
Language spoken,
Explaining a name or a look,
The content of one’s beliefs,
How your family acts,
Or who they are?

Are you asking or assuming
For my benefit or yours?
Mere curiosity?
What story does that information tell
You about Me?

Shouldn’t it be about
Asking our ancestors
For their life lessons
And good blessings,
Celebrating them creating us,
Acknowledge they survived what was faced,
Then wanting to share that wisdom
With other people we love?
Isn’t that the true meaning?

Reaching through our collective years
Of moving through space and time,
Sifting through information
Inventing further,
All of our ancestors
Burnishing that Life
As beautiful as can be.
Carrying all of their hopes,
Mistakes and fortunes,
Good and bad.
Honoring what we’ve each
Brought to our collective futures.

And how far do we count family?
Surely somewhere in my past
I was evolved from microscopic lifeform
Living in cosmic primordial ooze
Hit by lightening to
Grow legs and think,
Build with thumbs
And make fire
Form ideas amongst each other
And converse as community.
What do I call those ancestors?
I don’t have to speak their language
To know they are here with me
Having brought me to today.
Maybe you were there too
In some way back then,
And does that change
the question or my answer,
When you want to know my name?

Anything becoming from me
Or my elements…
Aren’t they
Then my offspring,
My children?
Even ideas shared,
Then carried by another,
Evolving…they are all my children
By some kind of birth,
Just as I carry grown offspring
Of others,
Tending the children of parent’s thoughts.

All that reality,
The is, and ever was, and will be,
All my relations
Want to know
What the question is
You think you are asking so simply?

I look across the canyon, the valley, the river,
The field, the forest, wherever
A beautiful view from where I stand.
I could have taken another path:
Stood where I am looking now,
Seen where I am now standing,

Every time I see you is the last time
At least as far as I know
But then years pass
And I feel foolish.
Still better to have
Grabbed the opportunity to savor.
Though Flowers can be beautiful
Even if no one ever sees or smells them.

One of these days it will be the last time
Maybe we’ll even know
Maybe we’ll finally say those things
We always meant to say
Or thought we said
Or thought we had said enough.
Or maybe we will live long enough to regret
We did not,
Thinking we will the next time.

I’m snowshoeing amongst the smells of pine. The fresh powder shushing as I make a path following the way I know. Save for my footsteps, the only sound is of wet snows leaving their blanket piles, shedding off branches, making soft noises collapsed on the ground. Occasionally I come across others enjoying the small sounds in the stillness, and we stop. Meeting wide-eyed, steam coming from each of our breath we stare hoping the other won’t notice. We stand still, blending into the trees around us, trying to breathe shallow and quiet. We stay like this for some moments, assessing, then go about our business on separate paths, keeping one eye wary less it warrant bounding away.

I imagine the concept of blanket,
In my dogs’ minds.
Endlessly warm and comfortable,
Familiar and cozy.
The natural designation of
Where to rest.
Best if tucked into a soft corner
Or in a sunlit spot.
They pile against one another,
A lap or other warm spot.
A space free to hoard and revel,
If you get a chance
To have so much.
The best seat, though it may need
To be arranged thoughtfully,
For optimal use.
Sometimes there’s a fury of activity
To get it just right,
Perfectly burrowed, or wrapped,
Or tamped down into a nest,
Even if it means you may have to disrupt
The comfort of another.
A cursory exchange of growls,
All eager to resume
The soft quiet of it.

For them, there is this magical thing that happens, usually with the help of hands,
Where the blanket (pure pleasure)
Becomes whatever shape you want,
Expands to the perfect volume or size,
Always more to unfold,
Always more enfolding
Enveloping in ease and relief,
Shadow, warmth, protection,
Shelter and peace.

Open the taps
The water will go where it wants
It exists because it flows
But don’t we all.

Fill what space you’re given
Feel your edges
Know your boundaries
And honor what is not yours

Remember to ebb and flow
Be gentle in your erosion
Seep into the ground deeply
And sustain what is around you

Know your core forged density,
Know that you are limitless too,
Wide in the complex universe.
Be humbled by “your” tiny part
In greatness.
Awe at the vastness and detail
Solemnly cherish all connections
Respecting the nature and wonder
Of what is and
What might yet be.

Imagine burning so bright,
You didn’t need to flag,
You were known,
knew who you were,
And where you stood
Without one.

Imagine prayers said out loud
To anyone who listened,
Prayers as well wishes,
With whatever God connects for you
Whatever inspires awe or wonder,
Challenge or curiosity.

What if every word, step and action
Was made out of thought given
With purpose and love,
Asking for the best road for everyone.
What wounds would you tend to then?

Seek to heal. Heal to seek healthily.
Embody that which you hold sacred.