Pittsburgh

Today I am reposting The Color Of My Blood which I wrote for the victims of Pulse nightclub. Today I feel it is fitting after another senseless act of violence. My thoughts are with the people of Pittsburgh. The victims woke up Saturday morning and all they wanted was to practice their faith, to observe the sabbath. I have no words.

The shape of my eyes,

the sound of my voice,

the shade of my skin,

my sexuality.

The color of my blood

the same 

as yours.

If you saw the light in my eyes,

if you saw my mother's tears,

if you felt her fears,

grief engraved on her skin.

Would you have yanked me

like a weed from the
garden of life,
Would you have shattered
me in pieces
 leaving me
to bleed out in the dark.
Ideologies differ,
dreams unalike,
my diversity
makes me
unique,
beautiful,
majestic,
a beacon in the fiber
of humanity.
The shape of my eyes,
the sound of my voice,
the shade of my skin,
my sexuality.
The color of my blood
same as yours.

This Is All we Have

The divine exists in the details,

in the mornings,

in the tangerine sunrise.

If we lay our lips to it

we could taste life for a moment.

We could succumb to the truth,

that today is all we have.

The certainty that tomorrow

we will mourn today.

Today with all its

grace,

fear,

challenges,

humility,

and shame.

We must grasp it fiercely,

feel it in our marrow,

hold the vision of it in 

the mantle of our minds.

This,

here and now,

is what we have.

It is not lost on me.

Watch my bright eyes,

wild with anticipation.

See the nectar roll off my chin,

listen to me roar loudly,

and know that

I am aware

that this is all we have to hold on to. 

Israel

Her rivers flow through my veins.

Her mountains majestic in my dreams.

Her honey drips on my lips.

Her arms are outstretched to me.

Her orange groves awaken

a yearning I had forgotten.

Her heartbeat pounding through

my day.

Her breath on my face

whispering lullabies of a land

possessed by splendor.

Her life spreading on my skin

like wild fire.

I trace my fingers through 

her borders.

I kneel before her with anticipation

and trepidation,

consumed by her beauty and grace,

feeble with love,

whole again.

His Landscape

His fingers play with

my jingle-jangle bracelets.

Wood beads from India,

Chinese coins my friends and I wear,

an eye encased in gold to ward

off evil spirits,

Buddha with a turquoise bead 

and a ladybug. 

He touches them gently

feeling each one,

knowing them the way 

he knows my lullabies.

The way he knows my voice,

when we dream about the moon and the stars.

When I move away he stretches

to find me in his sleep,

to find the curve of my waist,

where I held his father long ago.

I listen to his breath,

his presence fills my soul.

I dream big dreams for him.

I build memories,

they echo the laughter we share.

A landscape he can remember

and carry in his heart,

the way I carry him in my being.

Fishing Is Life

The stars followed you.

The sun kissed your lips.

The wind embraced you,

and the tides listened to you weep.

You lived the mysteries of life

with sacred awe,

to the drops of happiness and sorrow.

The words are constricted

in my heart.

We laughed and

we wept

by your bedside,

as you floated 

through two worlds.

We reminisced of days

with life.

The life that wakes you up

and shakes you up

as you feel it in your marrow.

Days of endless ocean,

sea life,

love and pain.

Days when your lion heart

was wild with wonder,

fierce with quest.

You loved,

you lived,

your chalice always full,

your roar loud,

your brave heart gentle.

Monday June 11 my father in law passed away. He was a man that lived his life fully and a man that was loved by many. I loved him and I will miss him dearly. I pray that he finds the peace that he wished for.

Between Us

Lines,

borders,

strings

between us 

left me alone.

Aching,

burning,

my broken spirit seared.

My pain shifted,

my resolve questioned,

my being a landscape

of emptiness. 

Disappointment

does not whisper,

it roars,

it burns the skin and the soul.

Love possesses

the beauty that transcends defeat.

The bitter taste

lingers on my lips

by questioning

all I had believed in. 

Without You

Your absence is loud.
It echos through my being,
it tears through my heart.
Ten years,
I have walked thousands of days
and nights without you
by my side.
How?
How have I navigated the storms
life presented?
How did I hold onto small things that
you would have seen large,
the way only you could see,
and feel my soul
through the sweet and sour.
Days,
months,
years.
You missed the constellations
in my boys eyes,
the miracle of my grandson
with your middle name
and your smile.
I don't know how
that grief morphs through
months and years.
Then,
in a moment,
a sound,
a smell,
evokes memories of home.
I see you in my poetry,
in my brilliant boys,
in kindness within me.
A kindness I learned from you.
Your legacy is alive.
Your legacy as big as
you will always be to me.

Roar

As long as I have truth,

I'll walk in your shadow

with my palms open.

I will feed your soul

with raw seeds

and crumbled dreams 

of my bruised ego.

I will flood the chambers of

your heart

with light.

Learning will happen in spaces

of defeat and rage,

in a fine line of silence and roaring,

tuning the sounds of life and

digesting the

lessons that set us free.

Collision

Underneath this great life,

an earthquake is brewing,

a shifting of the plates

under our feet.

I sense it,

I can almost touch it.

How did we get here?

The collision

is sudden,

unannounced.

Words spill,

littering the highway of life.

We remember how it began,

unaware of how it ends.

Choice

Tend to your garden,

cultivate it,

or scorch it down with gasoline.

Heal the blisters on 

your tongue,

revive the beauty rooted 

in love.

Stand in the dark

or claw your way 

toward the light.

It's your choice

to live

or die.

Shadows

Stories are written in the margins

of life,

on broken wings,

on calloused fingers.

Love breathes oxygen there.

Life exists

where black and white

transform into hues of grey.
Where dreams are tasted
but not lived.

Truth is questioned,

loyalty is tested,

shadows grow wings

abandoning the darkness behind.

Notes

Electronic post-it notes

in books I read

on my electronic devices.

I leave them buried,

like mines in a field,

waiting for another day

to tackle the written words,

string them into poems,

place them on the walls of my house,

and send them as dandelion seeds

into the universe.

Seeds to sprout courage for others

from my failures,

wisdom from my pain,

hope in my second chances.

Grief, seen by the soul rising 

to meet the searing pain.

Emotions, overflowing,

rushing,

knocking me off my feet,

drowning in my sorrow,

transforming

through time,

allowing it to melt 

and change,

morph

and grow,

into a beautiful memory.

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The Day She Never forgot

On April 4th, 1944, a few hundred American bombers took off from Foggia, in Italy, to survey the Romanian air space and bomb targets of economic importance. This was a US attempt to aid its Soviet ally in the struggle against the coalition led by Nazi Germany of which Romania was part of at the time. However, the American raid also targeted Bucharest, where they were attempting to destroy the main railway station switches. This resulted in a few thousand innocent civilians getting killed, mostly refugees from northern Moldavia.~I found an article about this day.  This is an excerpt from it. A memorable day that is a part of my family’s history. My mother, my uncle and my grandparents survived this day. The house they lived in was destroyed. They were in the house moments before the bomb turned their home to rubble. I always think of this day as a blessed day when they were chosen to survive and overcome. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them. I know my mother never forget.

Spring

My hungry heart

whimpers like a dog

that wants to stay out of the rain.

My hungry heart

awakens 

to the shades of green in the grass

and the blue of the sky,

breathtakingly limitless.

The senses sharper

with the birth of spring.

The smell of life new.

Empty holes, filled with

 beauty and sorrow,

with blessings and loss,

overtake the moment.

Untouched

but seen.

Seen

and felt 

underneath our skin.

March For Our Lives

Let truth enter the light of day,

as the sun rises so will our voices.

Let truth stir our souls,

swim through our marrow,

rise through our chants.

"Am I next?"

asks a little one

holding a sign,

his wispy curls cover his face.

We march,

we chant,

our voices boisterous,

demanding change.

The streets transformed

into a sea of humanity.

This moment rings with

the truth of stolen innocence,

of fear and fury,

of memories of those 

taken too soon.

Thoughts and prayers

no longer welcome.

"Enough is enough,"

we plea.

Silence replaced by conversation.

Demands urged to be met by action.

This moment

awakens a fire

within our souls.

The tide has changed,

we stand 

shoulder to shoulder.

The noble fight begins in unity.

One voice,

one vision,

one dream.

A New Day

The moon illuminated the night,

ripe with glory,

brimming with truth.

I watched with longing as

I crawled away from dark places.

My stories shattered,

the melancholy soaking through

my bones.

My voice audible,

my hips wider,

my spirit soaring,

years of rage and silence,

despair and celebration.

The trees listened to my cries,

they whispered to me

their tales of sorrow and triumph. 

Lessons learned from failure,

redemption answered by forgiveness.

The surroundings faded into a blur

immersed in what is present.

I rejoice in the sound of his breath

laying next to me,

swept away in sweet slumber.

He seeps hope into the storms of my soul.

I have been absent from this blog, from the community that I love. Life has been hectic and full. There were moments of struggle and moments of bittersweet glory. My grandson was ill and in the hospital with a dangerous infection. He recovered. Those days were long and fueled by hope and faith.  I normally post for Christmas, New Year and my son's birthdays. It all passed by.  Daniel had his seventeenth birthday and Joshua had his thirty second birthday. My grandson is turning one this coming week. I am full of gratitude for my boys. I want to wish all of you a happy and healthy New Year. Hopefully this year will be full of light and peace for all of you. See you around.