April 8th poem: [If not] For my Mother

[If not] For My Mother

If it weren’t for my mother
Where and what would I be
Who would have taught me
How to stand strong fight back
How to think freely.

What kind of wimp would I be
Without her example
Without her ferocious story
She walked across a country
For my sisters and me

What kind of citizen
What kind of activist would I be
If she hadn’t taught me
To challenge everyone
To question everything?

I wouldn’t be
Painting paintings
Writing poetry/ would not love science
Wouldn’t have all these degrees
Wouldn’t eat organic
Recycle
Drive an old (gas-saving) car
Rock thrift sore fashion
Wouldn’t recognize animals
As people
Trees as family
Wouldn’t notice beauty
In everything

If not for my mother
It scares me to think
How I might have turned out
Who I would have become
If not for my mother.

April 7th poem (posted late)

April 7th poem [the goddess]

A Goddess walked into
The coffee exchange today
While I was busy
Reading idiot midterms

Did she come to save us
Could she start with me?

She had the kind of
Beauty that blinds
And renders dumb
Those who behold her

Thus was I afflicted.

April 6th poem (posting late)

A birch tree bleeds out my window
Ragged Cut dismembered
For the crime of displaying
An unsightly disease

April 5th poem (posting late)

April 5th poem

I am writing a book about it
But I don't like to talk about it
Isn't that silly?

How long have you been meditating?
Oh I don’t know
Who keeps track of such things…

We talk of vortices and spiritual centers
Places and people and times
None of it matters

Who have we become
In this moment?
What, if anything, does this human offer the world?

Spiritual practice is just practice
What, oh what, is my Soul manifesting
Today?