Boy, did she know how to read between the lines! And upside down, and in a mirror, and in the dark. She knew how to read in Braille, in cuneiform, in emojis. She could read between the lines, and hear the unspoken secrets of many people. Not all, thanks be to god.
Goddess. There is only one woman, she heard in her head. There is only ONE WOMAN. One universal truth. Many fractured mirror truths. Everyone was cracked, somewhere.
Filed under acceptance, beauty, compassion, dreams, enlightenment, eternal, faith, fiction, tribute, Uncategorized
You were not built to carry the weight of this world, said God.
And yet. It is upon you; you feel it heavier each day.
Your prayers have been shouted & whispered, in communion
& all alone. There are four thousand languages in this world,
God said. Don’t you think I can speak every one? Never
be afraid to grieve; to cry; to pound the ground; to bang a drum
on a beach somewhere; to dance before the fire of your own soul.
And don’t be afraid to make your own mark, God said.
On the wall of a cave, on some paper, on a server, in a cloud.
Do you need a map? Some create their own — mandalas
with colored sand, swept away after three days.
There are so many ways to pray, and the most important way
is kindness, said God. You, my beautiful daughter, will begin
and end with a simple breath — and you, my well-loved child,
were not built to carry this weight, the weight of the world.
Filed under anthem, beauty, buddhist, christian, courage, death, dream, forgiveness, grief, jewish, love, mysterious, personal responsibility, spiritual, transcendence, zoroastrian
Sometimes we must learn to live with uncertainty, the priestess said. Sometimes we must endure the unendurable. She smiled at me. Come take a walk, she said. Let’s walk over there, under those trees. That pine grove over yonder. Under those quiet pines, on the hush of the needles. Let’s make a basket out of them. Let’s walk to the spongy banks of the creek & watch the salamanders wiggle across the damp. Let’s phone home, and listen to your mama’s voice. Go ahead, let us surprise ourselves by crying.
(Illustration courtesy of Mike Willcox, https://mikewillcox.bigcartel.com/product/the-high-priestess)
Filed under animals, beauty, compassion, courage, earth, faith, Uncategorized
The bride’s laugh vexed the lands,
overlooking the great, bruise-colored
canyon, when she first said to the groom,
No, I don’t think so.
She defied his desires,
for nearly a century. He tried so hard…
it nearly brought death. His, or hers;
it didn’t really matter.
We’ve learned how some of them,
my darlings, are nothing more than creeps.
And rest assured, our game does have an end:
an end which tips the scale. The journey
out of the wilderness, away from the pit,
will find our esters quite changed.
Our journey was (or will be)
long, and very quiet.
Now, our shimmering skin dims to the shadow thief;
time is stealthy, taking soundless, fevered positions.
The anticipation is delicious, under our knees,
truth thrust like a knife (between waxen observers).
Soon, light-dressed love will be in your hair;
and wrestlers, across the colors, will shift through the room.
Desire, realized, is hot silk, slipping quiet and soft.
Dear one, there is no other course found.
You know more laughing is the way —
and less is usually, but not always, more.
Filed under beauty, compassion, courage, death, development, dream, dreams, eternity, passion, poetry, prose poetry, relationships, Uncategorized
Prayer
Oh! It happened with the first naked, helpless chicken in the oven I recognized… Mommy, get it out, let it out, I cried… chickens have their own heaven, my mother lied.
At six, I dressed as Saint Teresa of Avila for Halloween… that year, I felt sinful accepting candy. More than anything, I yearned to bless their dear hands moving with generosity toward my outstretched pillowcase.
Later, I tried bright blue skin, leading my perfumed cows to drink. I wore robe of scarlet and gold, a red galero atop my head. I wore fragrant saffron in my hair, eating nothing except fruit from the ground, sweeping the earth bare before my steps… with a broom I made myself.
I danced in green meadows, wrapped ribbons around a Maypole, reached high for a golden ring. I sank into plushy new grass. Once more, the earth herself said to me, you will be all right, you will always be all right, as I lay upon her — a small, breakable doll. I lay on my mother like that (like that) (like that) (like that) for hours, eyes shut, and felt her words eternal lift off the roof of my skull and cleanse me of my fear and shame like fast-running, silvery water.
Filed under beauty, born again, compassion, dream, eternal, faith, god, hope, human beings, humanity, love, mama, mother, mothers, mysterious, peace, poetry, prose poetry, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence
The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings?
So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god.
For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.
She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue.
Rain
The woman sits up all night, listening to it rain. The woman has often sat up all night waiting for one thing or another to either leave or arrive: bandaged fingers, whooping cough, her own lookalike grandchildren. When she can, she sleeps next to her dying mother in the king-sized bed; she bangs her own shins on the high rails, climbing in. Her arms and hands are able to lift the wasted body of her dying mother with amazing ease.
She watches & waters the great rack of African violets in the living room; grows wheat grass for her mother’s cat. Other times, she sits in a high-backed wooden chair, needlepointing forests in wool, chain-smoking for hours. Her mother will die very soon; then the daughter will put on her navy dress with a large, elaborate organdy collar and fail to draw a deep breath for several days. The woman’s several brothers and their children will fly in from all over the country, and flower offerings will dwarf the grave itself.
After the burial, the woman will pack all sorts of mementoes into her mother’s old cedar “hope” chest: yearbooks, diaries, photographs, diplomas, invitations, programs, baby booties, baby spoons, baby cups, even a rather grisly alligator purse, complete with the head, legs, tail & feet and sharp black claws. When she has nightmares, more often now, she sits up all night, her fluffy gray tabby queen on her lap like a hot-water bottle. The cat’s purring leads the woman away from the perilous mountain passes & rocky cliffsides inside her head and back to level ground, so she can help her mother die properly. That is what proper love looks like, she thinks.
When you drink, your voice thickens sweet &
lethal as syrup. I know that sweetness —
once I let it go all through me, I let it stay & stay.
I don’t know if we will cry together, like sisters,
my nose pressed against your neck, but for now
we can drink together from the same bottle &
descend as one into our true blue depths, united
by our sadness, our terrible failure to be loved
enough. I will not flinch from your bloodstained
towels, your green veins, your broken arms.
I understand why you weep for the dead —
though you never loved them. Still,
the yearning to save rises in you as bread rises,
doubling your volume, your capacity for pain.
.
Where Does It Begin?
(originally published in The Charlotte Poetry Review)
Possibly with well-steeped tea,
gooseberry jam on raisin bread,
lots and lots of idle chatter;
later, he could try daily walks
through the woods — though she
has resolved she is finished with
nature — still he persists
in pointing out the log in the creek
holding five mossy-backed turtles;
if all else fails he could try
brushing her hair in the rough manner
of a mother, offhand, impatient fussing
to decipher knots. He could place her
in a room filled with the images
of budding spring trees, on a wide,
comfortable sofa, her stockinged feet
perched lightly upon the armrest
as she reads. The sight
of the frail new leaves will work
upon her, surely? Better yet,
he could fill a bowl with fruit,
three kinds of berries,
layering green upon yellow
upon blue upon red, teasing her
with a few squares of chocolate,
protesting all the while
that he always says the opposite
of what he means. Who lived my life
until this day? she will say. I could
ask myself the same question, he will
say by way of answer, placing his hands
lightly, lightly upon her shoulders
The Song of Women of Jaded Time
(for François Villon)
Talk to me this instant, or don’t ever bother
talking to me again. You think your sorrow
is like a flower, you beautiful, pitiful Italian;
but you are not a paragon, not crying like this.
Underneath my foot you shall find perfection.
You are like an echo of my own will, you shall
learn to speak of my brutality all the time,
and love it. Under this river or in your hands
I shall drown — how beautiful is too much human pain.
May you sing your own black heart forever!
Listen to what I say, but don’t hear it with your ears.
Listen with your heart, you are like a blooming flower,
you wild, beautiful fool. Your injured foot is far more
beautiful than my own. Don’t repeat me, speak only
of my brutality all the time. Under the water I will drown,
or under your hands. How beautiful is too much fever,
or human pain? May you sing your black song forever!
Or, perhaps you are like the wise, able Heloise,
and my blessed foot will kick you hardest
when you are already down. Like her dim-witted
Abelard — for love, he ceased breathing. Love,
I think you resemble the king that commands
none but the harridan. First, jettison your silly bag
of river water. Long may you sing your black heart!
You are wise, and blessed, as are all ill-fated lovers.
For love, we cease living — we all resemble royalty
in this way. I command the bitch who is my deepest
self: first throw away everything you hold dear.
May you sing with your thick blackness in my life.
The queen of white is coming to lie — she chants
regally in a serene voice. I was born of Bertha
with her grand feet, she of Beatrice, Alice,
harem dancers all, colored in the main for beauty rather than wisdom.
And we come, too, from Joanna, the beautiful Swiss girl.
The English back then were belligerent, though mainly
in Rouen. Or do I see in your sad eyes, your oldest
unforgotten queen? May you sing of your black, tight
heart until the words choke you with regret, with forgiveness.
I was once a queen, of all I surveyed.
I sang with a stilted voice. My mother,
my grandmother, my great-grandmother
were all such foolish harem dancers,
too lovely to look at and let live.
And the beautiful maid who cleaned
my rooms… I was always bitchiest
to her just before the dawn. O, your
sharp eyes went through me like a sword.
May you sing your own praises until nightfall!
O Prince, do not ask to love me except for cruelty,
do not wonder where those other ladies are, this year —
what a sad refrain your unshaven face reminds me of.
I used to know someone, he was a lot like you.
May you sing lullabies to your faithless black heart!
O my lord, do not ask me to come to you out of
kindness — do not ask where I have lived until now.
What an ancient sorrow you have reopened!
May you sing this pain into the book of all eternity.
Filed under acceptance, anthem, anthropology, beauty, birth, black, blood, civil rights, compassion, courage, death, dream, dreams, earth, enlightenment, eternal, eternity, evolution, faith, forgiveness, friendship, good, grief, health, heart, hope, human beings, humanity, justice, karma, kindness, law, legal system, life, logic, loss, love, manifesto, maturity, mysterious, passion, peace, personal responsibility, poetry, politics, regret, relationships, science, sex, sexism, soul, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, transcendence, transitions, tribute, truth, universe, wish, world, youth
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 