photo credit: Kari Musil 

Island Life

Separated from the mainland

         Surrounded by a great sea

Nature has made an enigma of me

An aberration in space

         A time tempered metaphor

Like Galapagos Island where life is spontaneous

Unique life forms evolve undisguised and vulnerable

To the rage of a stormy sea

         To predators alien to me

Mine is an ecosystem balanced as yin to yang

 Ancient as the planet - fragile as tomorrow

I am the Sphinx in the middle of a sea

The Phoenix nest in a Galapagos tree

On this island lizards crawl in larva

         Flowers flourish in beds of volcanic ash

My beaches are graveyards of promise

A rich compost of absurdity

         Petrified until fertile

I am a critical land mass on the map of humanity

An un-comprehended psalm uttered by wind

Naked to rays of Sun

         Unsheltered from chilly rain

I am a manifestation of life crushed to earth

                  Rising

_______________________________

 

Fear Of Fire

My mother's truth was absolute
Mine waits for opportunities
To change composition
I stood next to her 
While the devil whispered in my ear
I didn’t know
How love found channels

Made ways
From before I swam out
Of mama’s belly bubble
I knew my calling was fire
I was born to burn
To live lonely
To see light
To touch wind

To slice when I run

I lick like flames  

Knowing we need heat
But fear fire

Believing in pressure  

Trusting friction

There is no new without passion

Armed with songs

Psalms from servants
And prayers from sacred warriors
I fight complacency with serendipity
Languages from circles continue

Broken
Climbing horizons

Challenging barriers
I am reincarnated from struggling peoples
Whose sweat left trails of orange

In the scarlet dirt of Dixie

In mama’s kitchen there was a plaque
That read love like bread

Should be made daily
In mama’s son is determination
Where there is no love  

I will leave some

I lay in the bosom of my beloved

Miles away from my mother's kitchen
In a bedroom thick with our aromas
I invited my beloved to crack a window open
So we could flavor the foggy morning
With our revolutionary scent