photo credit: AEI 

Walk Loosely To The Light

Biography and biology unfold and we

Find us bound in habit

Tied to identity

Herstory

Their story

Acculturated

Assimilated    

What turns us inside

What makes us crazy

Makes us remember

Forget

Walk loosely

A tall elegant griot advised

Let it hang

Push meaning

Fire is needed more than light

So orange lilies scream at the sun

For redemption or

Ghosts

Or something magnanimous 

Screaming to the further  

An outer sphere

To sky for a bigger life

For freedom

Wisdom enough to hallow searching  

That’s duende

A flower is a lovesome thing

When it screams

We struggle to paraphrase clichés

Into something more authentic to our story

By reaching for unfamiliar sense

We scat forgetting words

We’re afraid to say

Blue skies and long days

In our urban forest

Are fleeting in the heartland

Summer starts of a sudden

And as salty sweat dries

In air conditioned illusion

We shiver wanting change

Gardening for fresh realities that

Will nourish us enough through another

Nine months of retreat into darkness and cold

Minnesnowta greens quickly and lush

Because vegetation knows mortality

Between Decoration Day and Labor Day

Bookends of appropriated political movements

And barbeque celebrations

Short intense summer starts at solstice

And is gone by the Autumnal Equinox

Urban farmers and gardeners know

Their window of opportunity depends

On disappearance of last snow and

Return of first frost so they prognosticate

And poise ready to react to chance