My Twenty-Fifth Disequilibrium

She was made of stardust as a child.

There were birds who spoke and she,

like her father before her and his mother before him,

could listen.

She felt deeply spiritual and cried often in heaps of blankets

at the bottom of her bed.

On a pedestal, she once was compared to Jesus.

She was laughed at because of it

and humiliation wore her cheeks to a bruised rose.

Wars of religion, felt only from stories,

still glided upon memories as though felt, rather,

by experience.

But she was blessed and given extraordinary love

her head supported by cherishing hands.

Now no longer in the palms of her family,
she pushes away the clutches and squirms
to trust a new self

malleable, but not as soft.

Confusion always taunted her with indecision.

I am soul, flesh and full of feeling.

These tears that fall are real
and so too are my passions, Sweet One.

Fall gently upon this autumnal stone that is,

at the moment-- and, I think,
at this moment only-- my heart.

Crack my skull and guide me in

removing pieces of my brain that blind me.

I do see truth in the fire's flickering light

and the light that reflects off both our faces

as we look eternally at one another.

I cry again.

This is love.

The salt is grateful.

Life may be simpler.

I am sometimes too hard on myself,

pulling at my own head.

I am still so inexperienced.

My father,

who I know is wise,

used to hear with me the birds on the sill.

He was the one who told us

Life is a mountain and it gets harder, but elevation makes it easier.

I am discovering now, and forever until death,

what it is and what it will become.

My father became dismissive as he climbed higher.

Twilight hill, our empty house.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.

Matthew 5:14. 

I often look beyond present to a time I cannot yet understand.

In moments, losing sight of
what is beautiful, effortless

what is morphing around me.

I think this is human.

My love,

he was created to be strong.

His oak desk where I often write

is gashed with markings of old aggression

and old love and old thoughts drifting.

"Some are just from sitting," he would say

and I would say, "I don't know what sitting is."

Our wirings are distinct.

Our fuse, exquisite.

I will to be sweet and able.

I will to respect the life ahead of me.

I will to wake in each hour.

The organ plays.

e. chayes