seven truths

truth is hard to tell

and commitment is hard to see,

but once you find yourself,

you’ll be who you want to be.

life is hard to live,

and time is hard to stop.

but once you’ve found the edge,

you know how to avoid the drop.

death is hard to know

and grief is even harder,

but if you know the way,

you’ll spend your life smarter.

forgiveness is to beg

and cruelty is a chain,

but if you don’t forget,

a grudge will leave a stain.

compassion isn’t easy

and anger isn’t hard

but if you can’t choose between them

it will leave you scarred.

it’s rather easy to think it harsh

the lives that we all live

but if you can’t see the blessings

then life has nothing to give.

you might be frightened

by how far you have to drop

but if you don’t sink to the bottom,

you’ll never rise to the top. 

LILT

a manifesto of character

I am the flick of the hand
that initiates a card trick-

The lilt of the fingers.

I am not the fingers,

but I am the lilt.

I know who I am

but not who I want to be-

I am sometimes strong,

but sometimes soft,

like melting butter.

I am brave…

I strive to not only

speak boldly,

but act boldly to match.

A single page changed me-

I am a girl who plays war

at the lunch table, 

I am the girl

who bets on the 

stack of cards 

in her hand

because

I believe 

that I’ve got nothing 

to lose

I am a person

who will play harp for

six years

suddenly buy a guitar

drop the harp and play guitar instead…

I know who I am now…

and I want to be her

for the rest of my life.

I want people to respect her

learn from her,

and listen to her,

because she is all I have

and though she isn’t much,

I build on her

and I work with her-

we are the same,

we are different.

I want to restrain her,

she is so wildly free…

I am cautious, I am

often

an unwitting sidekick.

She is like a ride-

twisting,

turning,

jumping,

running across the tracks

click, click, click…

and I am growing into her,

because I was small,

I was quiet,

she is in charge of people

and has the ability to mean business.

She is the adrenaline

pumping through me-

she begins, now, to make my decisions.

She cut my hair,

she pierced my ear.

I am her,

and she is me.

I’m not even sure anymore.

Is she the track,

and I’m the train, loyally falling behind?

or is she the train, 

jumping ahead?

In the end, the tracks control the train

so she

must be

the track.

the light and the dark

the sky

it darkens-

and nothing is left

but twilight.

and the world

becomes shadow,

the only lights in the sky

the bright, eager stars.

and though

the stars

are beautiful-

fabulously, undeniably, beautiful...

the thing that lights them?

it

is still

the darkness.

her head, she thought, had always been full of ideas,

just the way a lightbulb

might be filled with light.

it had always been that way, she thought,

and sometimes a something good might come out, onto the paper.

but it didn’t usually, 

and when it did, 

it was good,

nearly too good. 

they stared and oohed and aahed-

but no, she thought, 

they didn’t really get it,

but then, neither did she, only knew that it was 

something

big and peculiar 

and that it would always be there,

like a memory, or a photograph.

and sometimes it would work,

the thing,

and gears would spin and locks would click-

and when the words stopped coming,

she told them,

she read to them, 

and they would say,

oh, it’s so good!

but then she realized-

didn’t they know she wanted it to be more than good?

couldn’t they tell?

but she also realized

that the words would never stop coming,

so she came to a conclusion-

the words were all she had.

the light bled from the sky in colors-

because that was how the world 

expressed itself.

silhouetted against the twilight-

was a tree,

lone,

watchful,

gnarled,

yet still there,

though totally,

utterly,

alone.

darkness blankets

slowly-

yet fast-

you could not watch it, 

yet it falls thick-

tangible,

seeming hard to miss.

tiny winking lights

scatter the pitch sky

drawing unintentional pictures,

but

unintentional

is the most beautiful kind.

a luminous bloody circle

is suspended from an invisible wire-

hanging in entire contrast

from the black-

from the black, that envelopes and sucks everything away-

the mountains,

the light,

the hand in front of your face,

the warm person next to you.

the world does not again return the land-

until the first paints

color the sky,

pinks and reds and oranges-

and a fabulous array 

of everything in between,

everything to beautiful to put into a single word.

this day is not a cold one,

where it begins with blues and grays and black.

this day is ancient,

the first day

and the last.

and once again,

there is a silhouette against the horizon-

a tree,

lone, 

watchful, 

gnarled,

yet still there,

totally,

utterly,

alone.

When there's nothing left to say

Sometimes
you can hold a person in your arms
you can cry with them
you can do everything you will
you can imagine
you can greive
you can think of the different ways that it would go
if nothing ever happened
you can look into the sky and wonder,
you yell, stomp, talk, scream,
but sometimes you don't need to-
because there's nothing left to say.

The woman that came from the forest
Who lived with the baker and the florist
Even they don't know her name
The woman who came from the forest.

Others say she came from the sea
sheltering in
a wild
golden oak tree
there's more than one,
tales of pride
and glee,
and everyone knows of the woman
from the forest
and the sea