You are my kin

You may not know it yet
And the differences between your eyes and mine
What you’ve seen and what I’ve seen
What we both see
May serve to widen the space between us
Deepen the gap where sorrow falls bottomless
Like a void between worlds
No end to the starlit darkness
Where grief swells in waves

But if you close your eyes
And I close mine
I see a world between and reach for your hand
To send the image in pulses of heat and light
We are both skin, softness holding together earth and air
I can feel the resonance, a frequency between our bones
And I know
This bridge our fingertips make
Is the deepest kindness we’ll ever know

Fleeting temples of the holy
What a beautiful idea
That we could infuse the smallest moment
With untethered love
What I can offer a stranger
With ease and simplicity
So much harder to do in close proximity
Where familiarity is a disservice to kindness
Can I bridge the walls I've built
The ones I've stood up as protection
Built on my own fear
And instead…

I cannot avoid Her
That fierce love, that Wild Woman
She turns up everywhere I go
Reminding me what needs cutting
What needs releasing
What needs its final resting place
Here in the dark rich soil
Where all things begin
Take shape and grow
She stalks me, prompting
Pulling at each clenched finger
Stilling clinging too tightly
To these earth seeds
Earth d…

Thorns 
Wrapped around my heart
Why are you here?
What do you intend
With this harsh protection?
This rock solid door
Soft on the inside
Yet untouchable 

My hands are bleeding
Trying to cut away 
Prune what no longer serves
Willing tenderness
Forcing more joy, more light
Through open shafts
Dodging and weaving
The green vines with red spears
Holding a …

My prayers rise sometimes
Like cold gray smoke
Almost colorless, opaque
The same words said over and over

Let them be well
Make this alright
Let them live
Let them not be angry

My prayers dance at night
Up across a moonless sky
Leaping like starlight
Full of hope and wonder

Let me be Love
Let me be Light
Make me Whole
Make me -- 

Sometimes my prayer…

I say to her
This little girl on the inside of me

You are Love
You are Light
You are forever held
You never walk alone

I say it again and again and again
To my daughters and anyone who will listen 

You are Love

Made from the heart of the Divine
Even now becoming the fullest expression 
Of that golden seed within…

In the presence of Beauty,
I am transformed
It does not come into existence 
By the act of my naming it

To know its name
Is an intimacy earned
A privilege granted
Not always easily 

To be covered in the sweet caress 
Of aqua waves
To be filled with the aroma
Of white-petaled jasmine

To be overcome in the moonlight
By the playful tug of the wind
To be…