honey and sting

The World Doesn't End

 

The world doesn't end.
The world doesn't end, but everything changes.
The Mayan callender runs out of marks,
thousands of years before the invention of post-its.
Polar bears slide into too-warm waters,
and real estate takes a nose-dive into the unreal.
Menopause hits, and nothing is predictable -- not intensity,
not blood, not desire.
Personal demise conflates to apocalypse,
as if the world cannot survive the loss of this
one mind.
Everything trembles, and dreams tumble
to a thundering dawn.
 
What kind of life is this?  The prison of biology,
ego as map of everything real?
Inside me, an animal scratches and roars,
clawing its way to the surface in a torrent of tears.
My throat raw, I wonder what I am lamenting.
I watch as the beast tries to shake me loose,
then draws me back again.
 
I don't know how to know
the heart of the larger connection.
To breathe the way it all flows, somehow
to the mystery of the sea.
 
Softly, I follow my breath
into a gentle rhythm.
As long as I have breath....

 

Carefully, I stroke my skin,
smoothing the dry places
with lavender and milk.
 
This moment, here,
I can compass, I can touch.
Until the next

breath...


2.  written tonight

The World Doesn't End

The world doesn't end,
but everything changes
It's gets harder and harder
to pretend
that awful things aren't just heading our way;
they're here.
Tornadoes a mile wide,
drought, fire, and flood,
and a complete failure of heart
in the body politic.
Forget ceremonies of innocence;
forget the widening gyre.
We're heading straight for the pyre,
singing into our iphones
with every step.

And yet....
Each day, something dawns,
un-moored beauty, unmarred by
history or expectation,
vibrating into life
within the moist span of breathing.
It's hard not to despair, but for once,
a short attention span is salvific:
there's only so long I can grieve
before the flower on the basil
doses my skin with fragrance
that will follow me through the day.
Lightning kisses the earth under the cloud
over the mountain hunkering down
like a turtle under its burden.
Each day comes with blessings and clues,
not of an answer, but finally,
the right question:

how do we live with grace
in the time we're given
to be alive?