poppies v, we must be freed of ourselves over and over

poppies iv, other aspects

alms

poppies iii, being lost in the poppy's petals is another way of being found

poppies ii, 12 hours

one brave soul awakes

 and searches the breadth of the dream for the beloved

(during the night of mist while i waited for my beloved, i played this music, Ólafur Arnalds' "Faun." i rode slowly along beside the river with my window open taking photos and gasping as this bird glided along with the music, rising and then violently plunging, only to ascend again, clearly as torn open as i was. i wish i had taken video of it but instead you will have to imagine.)

the most simple is the most sacred

cover my ears so that nothing disturbs this
cover my mouth so that i do not make this more complex
hold my mind still between your hands
and let me open

on the tenaciousness of being

poppies i, a natural reckoning

my son cries when my husband and i make love.

no, you don't understand. this sentence is a betrayal. my son doesn't cry, he mourns when he hears us. but does not know what he is mourning. he shakes more formidably than the poppy's shadow, its pitiful neck each year born unbraced.

my son, like each of us, was shed from the skin which housed him, into his own thin skin, with eyes of wonder and terror.

i tell a friend of this sad and tender issue, this obstacle which lurks silently until we cry out and then he cries out, in our loving house.  she makes a mother's tut tut sound with her mouth, there is something decisively wrong with that child.

yes! i want to go to my knees and tell her.  yes, so wrong, so desperately wrong.  i want to bury my face in her legs and cry, don't you feel it?