Things I googled yesterday, then defined for myself.

What is rain?

The weight of things we’ve tried to cast away. Returning in soft showers and tough beatings.
It’s okay to cry, it’s how we root, stay green, reach for the sun.

What is lightning?
Anger, it can’t last.

What is thunder?
The sound of my love, expanding.

Sunflakes

(What It’s Like to Let a Part of Yourself Die)

Bits of your sun 
Flake off 
See-saw, slow-motion
Disappearing into dark space
Far beyond the eyes’ roll

And you were so scared
To lift each hand from that
One spot, as if
You’d find a wound there
That someone else might see
Not
This hot spot underneath,
Wanting to radiate

Voice Lessons

I’ve taken to talking to myself out loud.
It didn’t used to be this way. The self-talk.
It didn’t used to be so vocal. Very heady, always.
But this voice...is new. Fills space.

I notice this self-talk
in the oddest of moments.
Like, odd, as in
ordinary moments.
That’s when it really kicks in.
Cooking.
Setting down the mail.
Making a right on red.
Who am I talking to?
Am I a twofer now?
I LOVE a good twofer.
Me, imaginary friend?
Me, and the void?
Me
and voice?
Voice, partner, friend,
traveling as sound to
spaces I alone can’t reach?
Perhaps...

“Good gawd, y’all, I’M GOIN’ TO SLEEP!”
This was the latest outburst.
9:45 last night, announced at
full volume, to a room of no one.

And then I woke up.
Knowing full well, this is only practice
for something less ordinary.

James T & Me

(Pages)

The weight of books
I discovered, is
So much lighter
When love rolls fast and
Easy off the tongue.
Love still asks for time
You know?  And I know now
To unapologetically
Take
My sweet time
With books

The feel of a
Warm and gentle hand, run
Up and down the spine
“Relaaax,” he said, with
A soothing hush
“You’re with someone 
who loves you.”

When we were new, I slept
With books in my bed,
These gifts, words sprung 
From heart-wells, kissed
With ink, delivered by hand, 
Now in stacks on
My bedside table, I did not
Rush to read them, they
Still love me, and I
Love them, too

And so I’ll remember 
him, always, by books he
Gave me, books he
Doesn’t know he’s given
Me yet—the ones that 
Will find me, books
I’ll take my time with

Snow I & II

I

How many ways are there
To look at snow
Feel about snow
Move through snow?

Because I’ve lived long
Enough, I know there
Are many ways
One could pick “stuck”
But this morning,
Let’s go with “cold”

To say a thing is
Cold, and cold alone
Means you haven’t
Tried to know it better

Made heat in a puffy
Snowsuit, rolling packing 
building, sliding your
Body inside of the
Mouth of a snow fort 
Where sound let you be
Alone with your thoughts 
For a second even
The planets above
Stayed out

II

(People are no different than snow, you know...)
Snow will always be snow, but

How it comes to us will be different
How we receive it will be different
How we come together
Will be different
Day by day
Year by year
Minute by minute
Second by second
Blow by blow
By one little snowflake
The one on your fingertip,
How you look at it
M
E
L
T
I
N
G
A tear for you.