we crashed thousands of water bears into the moon

we didn’t mean to;

 

there was an accident

by the sea of serenity.

 

in the end the arch mission

was still reached:

 

pieces of the five kingdoms left behind.

 

we keep trying to learn from

the tiny-tough among us—

 

the cockroach, the marmorated stink bug,

the microscopic tardigrade—

 

how to reanimate, how to invade,

how to survive

 

a vacuum, a thrashing, a war;

 

how to live on

and on

on the moon.

 

will we learn before we are all gone?

 

will the water bears find water

and take over the moon?

 

billions of seconds from now, more than you

could count in several lifetimes

 

—the average lifetime spans

22,075,000 seconds—

 

who will find these moss piglets:

 

wrapped around scores of compressed

recordings and ribbons of our DNA?

 

and what is the story that will be told?

 

Tardigrades live all over the world in some of the most extreme environments.

Source

 

 

some nights the moon is a train

the turret

holds the key

 

but no door.  the

long bow of the

 

cello sings up from

the depths. one floor

 

up, children grow in their

beds. dad used to tease

 

about putting us in a vice

overnight. i took his words

 

to heart—the dreams that

shortened me still follow:

 

strong shadows of

nails and hair, of things

 

that once lived—now

hollow—fight to weave

 

themselves back in.

some nights the moon

 

is a train. i am

boarding her, i

 

am carrying

alstroemeria, i am

 

smiling as the tiny

gear of a whisper

 

turns. the shrieking,

pulsing, turning to

 

blood is all in my

head; outside, the

 

view is silent: a giant

wheel of compliance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

last day of the verb

let’s go out to the country,
get away from the city lights;

sing the song of the mountains,
walk under the satellites;

feel the moon filling, ever-
molting in our sights;

drink up the fog fugue
like a hungry child might;

and remember how the moon would follow us home,
send us lost-dream signals only we could know.

howl

now shows up,
listening hard:
conducting dark orange irony,
shrinking vex.

ebullient he is —

giving her the muse, the beautiful,
the beautiful colors.

lifting she is to the torch of his touch,
like a whisper about to expire —

we are all about to expire.

now shows up,
listening hard:
conducting shadow symmetry,
shrinking hex.

he wants her to know
what it is she
wants —

and further-
more,

to howl for it.

away and to

i want to climb

up, up,

away onto

that glorious

gibbous

and ride its

hump-back

all the way

to, through,

beyond that

broad stroke of stars.

 

the passing of pax romana

she sits in her space and feels a stirring,

much like the wind, much like a calling

to another place not yet

known, not yet her own:

her fingers buzz with forbidden

magic; her mind moves mountains.

the invisible warrings

of love write themselves

quietly on the back-side

of her heart-quilt, sewn in

tight like jewels, like journals

coming alive on the inside linings

of her organs, playing out

their orange chicanery.

just outside the monastery

of her own making, she

gazes at her mother repeatedly

riding in on the tide, her spirit

slipping into her shell sides;

she holds the best close

to her core and lets

the rest follow back

with the moon.

the first writer

new-found

lone-liness

 

is harder to

carry than

 

old

grief,

 

in this house of

scales, full of too-

 

quiet wails and

padded wishes

 

misfiring into

the insidious.

 

the pick-ax of love swings

 

in all directions

in a mother tongue

 

heard but never

deeply known,

 

a script we spend our 

days rewriting for the

 

big

screen.

 

what then shall we die for?

 

four faces, pieces of

time slowly woven:

 

one pyramid eye,

a god voice —

 

a medium, a mode,

a median, a muse —

 

a walk down a broken path

 

under the cedars,

under the stars,

 

the fist of a moon;

this fist in my pocket,

 

in my heart,

 

these

stones.

two if by sea

my dichotomy

lies

 

in the floor

beam

 

exactly half

of me

 

is

loving;

 

the other half

is fletching

 

an hour-arrow

by moon light

 

for the

fetching

thoughts from the AITC club

Well, here I am again: AITC.

I am surprised to report that, as these lush and languid days progress, daily writing has become more — rather than less — difficult.

Why is it so challenging to sit with the blank page? Why are we able to sit in our office chairs for hours on end and write on demand at the behest of a business, but when given the opportunity to sit and write for our true selves, we blank out and run for distraction?

I take these distractions now and run with them because I can; I am no longer punching a peripheral clock.

A long drive through farmland chasing a magnificent moon.

A brisk walk through town stopping only to observe tiny bits of nature at work.

These moments away from the desk become the fuel for the next thoughts.

Here is one moment: trying to capture the flagrantly full moon out my window while driving. (I know — not safe — and yet, there I went.) Eventually I handed my phone to my daughter, who was only about one-quarter helpful upon being abruptly interrupted from her ipod playlist.

The result is an eerie reflection of my seeking self, and a tiny dot of a moon (or is that the camera flash?) caught between my arms. This feels like that strange, dreamlike in-between place of never quite arriving at a destination while watching yourself from outside yourself.

Here is another thought-moment: the juxtaposition of a fluttering butterfly alighting upon a large pile of dog dung.

One creature’s waste as another’s nutrition; the cycle continues…

These tiny moments — at once ethereal and down-to-earth — become expanses of fields in which to wander and play and word search (being watchful of the dung-mines, mind you, aka the ‘mud-pudding’ of the insect world).

As I stop off for a large cheese-and-pepperoni pizza topped with parmesan (my daughter’s favorite — which I think her usual half-helpful, glass-half-full self deserves), I am grateful for and somewhat fortified by my dead-on horoscope from C-ville Weekly:

“Breakthrough will probably not arrive wrapped in sweetness and a warm glow, nor is it likely to be catalyzed  by a handsome prince or pretty princess. No, Sagittarius. When the breakthrough barges into your life, it may be a bit dingy and dank, and it may be triggered by questionable decisions or weird karma. So in other words, the breakthrough may have resemblances to a breakdown, at least in the beginning. This would actually be a good omen — a sign that your deliverance is nothing like you imagined it would be, and probably much more interesting.”

I am glad I am not in charge of imagining up my own life. I’ll stick to the daily AITC (ass in the chair) club and see where that takes me next. ~