Sun Kissed Days

Sun Kissed Days

Sunday, October 28, 2018

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.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

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. 

Sunday, September 9, 2018

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.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

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.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

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.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

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. 

Thursday, May 10, 2018

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.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

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.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

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.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

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.

Sunday, April 15, 2018

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.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

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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Thursday, April 5, 2018

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.


Sunday, April 1, 2018

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.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

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.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

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.