Triptych

These are the laws of gravity:

things fall;

what is one becomes two,

becomes four, becomes eight.

It snowed through the 80's,

which I saw from a window taller than me,

where I lived and built things,

also taller.

The next time I looked up

it was warm;

the moon was full;

I was under a tree dripping mangoes,

wrapped in new tongues

with words for new things.

Next thing I knew

it was about to rain:

the sky was yellowed like old newspaper.

The air rushed by,

looking for shelter

but I stayed.

When the rain began

I sat there

not wanting,

not waiting;

my colors ran.

Rainbows formed in the puddles.

I sat still,

counting shades of gray

As is

Everywhere you look today
there is duality:
convex filling concave,
balance finely wrought,
suffering and joy
granted purpose and form.

The whole world could be blazing
and you would look
and feel your face a fulcrum:
the midpoint between your heavy heart, weighted,
and the lightness of the vanishing earth,
lifting into the atmosphere
as smoke and smell and ash.

Inversion, diverted

Dusk:

I was walking out the door again,

and you caught me.

We stood there, entwined in the doorway

between the orange evening and our blank kitchen wall,

where the lowering sun threw up our shadows,

that looked for a moment like one.

Until I pulled away,

watching our shadows separate over your shoulder,

and it was hard to say from where the impetus came:

me or my dark sister,

which was reflecting which.

Because truth be told

I could have stayed there,

wrapped up in you forever.

It must have been my shadow

that wanted out.

letting go

This has been coming up for me a lot lately--both in my life and in my friends'... That thing where 2 people who love each other, care about each other, and have shared something together have to walk away from each other. It can be a relationship, a friendship, whatever. And it's so hard. To realize that there's these three components to a relationship, A (me), B (my relationship with you), and C (you). And A and C can be fine and wonderful, but if what exists between them (B) is not healthy, is in some way damaging or hurtful or dishonest or unequal or manipulative, then it has to go away. And it's not a comment on A or C. Just B. Maybe that's a gross oversimplification. But it's the easiest way I can explain it to myself. It's hard to let someone go. Someone who has meant a lot to you, who probably still does. To know that they're still floating around out there, but now you don't get to see them or touch them or talk to them, because those ties just had to be cut. They just had to be, even though your love for them is still there. Sometimes it's the only way to let that love be there again in it's simplest, purest form...to let it just lay there between you without putting all that other crap onto it. All those expectations and manipulations and needs and rules and demands and definitions. I think learning to let go is one of the hardest lessons to learn as you grow up. There's a sorrow that's acquired but also of course wisdom and maybe a greater appreciation for the moment, for the delicate balance of love that teeters and is always different. Loss can be a great big space, a big silence, where we learn our greatest lessons, if we can really be there, quiet with them. But of course then comes Spring, with all that space to fill with rebirth and the fragile NEW. But it feels different when it grows out of ash... But these are the cycles, our rhythms, our wax and wane. It's mathematical--the sine wave, the circle. So I guess I'm taking comfort in that--that even change is just a small section of something larger and immutable. There's something right about it happening in the fall, too. The trees are letting go of their leaves, things are crouching down, getting quieter... And you can pull back and sit in loneliness like a small cave and it's warm and you have your own arms to wrap around your knees and that's nice because you're good company and when you're ready you can look up again and it will be spring.