Gather

November 28, 2024 | Megan

Observatory. November 2024. Image, my own.

Gather

So here we gather
On this bright and
Dark day in the Fresh
World, to see if there
Is a turkey of love
Between us– siblings,
cousins, lovers, parents,
Friends. And there it
Is– LOVE– carved out
For us in some miracle
Since the creation of the
Cosmos scuttled us
All together on this blue-
Green blessing of a planet
Quantum journey, accidental
Adventure, maybe in another
Life we don’t know one another
We haven’t stood witness
To one another’s joy and
Pain. But here, now
We are the people we
Know and love because
Of particles of song shared
Between us, and mud
Fights on Thanksgivings
Long ago, and stories that
Have connected us all
Bringing us to this
Moment– to Gather to
Settle softly into miraculous
Gratitude. Thank you
I love you. Forgive me, I forgive
You. I love you. All love.

Art Center. November 2024. Image, my own.

Other Ghosts

So now there are other ghosts
The angels of the past have
Come to comfort and protect,
To bring peace and stability
I don’t know how I know, but
Others feel it too, they enter
They awe, I feel the ancestors
In the daily spirals of
My existence, the soil of
My backyard, the song of
The trees and birds in the
Ancient ash. Many others
feel them, too, and tell me
They are near, they are
Present. I know that I am
Not the only one who has
Ever been separated from
My alter, my shelter, my
Building, my dreams torn
For a vision of the future
I could not ascribe
I’m learning each day
That each ancient has
Been sent as a guide
The present and the
Beyond, they’ve become one

Fall-Winter Bridge. November 2024. Image, my own.

One

Of the most powerful
Things happened to me
And I can both be humane
And protect myself against
Smiling scoffs, unkind people
Who would make a mockery of
Pain, I am so glad that I can live
My life wild and free, I was
Given a second chance at
Love, at happiness
You too?
I will never take that for granted,
My joy– that joy will go on to
Fill me, myself, my people
And all the rivers of song

Community Garden. November 2024. Image, my own.

The “Last” Great Thanksgiving

That’s what the menu read
And then they were all gathered
In one place—humans—with the
Most similar genetic makeup of
Any group of sapiens on planet
Earth. Siblings. And it was good

Woods– lovely, light, dark, deep. November 2024. Image, my own.

Nothing Like

November 24, 2024November 24, 2024 | Megan

Jupiter and the Pleiades. November. Northern Hemisphere. Image, my own.

Holocene

When the sky lifts, so lapis and milky blue,
Your ocular senses are overwhelmed
The owl calls out, into and through the pencil-
Sketched branches of the cottonwood, then
Down from the neighbor’s roof, as the golden

Sky continues to lift into day, a flat aquamarine
The stark lines of leafless branches against
The air stand beckoning, the promise and
Possibility of new– growth, change, revivification
Glittering diamonds of momentary snow still

Hold winter’s mystery. We do not know what
We will be when the new buds come, but only
What is– this moment, this tree, this
Possibility of everything, anything
Makes our heads spin and swim

Bounded by our humanness, mortality
Consequence, but dazzled by all that is
In us– the roads we’ve wandered, mountains
We’ve scaled, journeys taken and joyed over
And travailed. So much unknown

It still feels like the owl is a good omen
Round white face, deep open amber eyes, wide
And night-visioned, all the flecks and freckled feather
patterns of each wing spread against dawn and dusk
Gifts that portent deaths and lives to come

No Name Saloon. Park City. Image, my own.

Shoes

When your shoes wear
out
run like hell through
tulip fields
Take off
to the mountains
Climb every geologic
Formation
Just to
Prove
You’re alive
You can
You’re not dead… yet
You still want
To spend that
moment with the crickets
under night’s blackness
only the stars
know you’re there

When your shoes are
worn out
you take your daughter to
the gravel pit
and train
your camera lens
on the North Star
tripod so still
to prove
you know
where you are going
even though you
Don’t
you depress
the shutter
let the sky bleed in
for hours
and all you are left with
is time

No time left
But you have those
Shoes
to remind you
to keep you
on your journey
Home–
Through–
Around–
To–
To that time
When the cosmos
smudged its glory
across the lens of
your camera
Film
Still
the most sure sign
that the stars
will fall in
to center
North
Balance
bringing these stars
to you

Autumn Sunset. November 2024. Image, my own.

Question(s)

For all those who question:
Borders
Boundaries
Countries
Alliances
Allies
Friends
Enemies
Economies
Lovers
Children
Fools
Frauds
Race
Place
Faith

I love you

Winter Dandelion. Acrylic on heavyweight cotton paper. Margo Elizabeth Glass. 2024

Night Guide

When Ursa Major dips so low
In the Northern Hemisphere that
Only her two guiding stars are
Visible in the deep of darkness
Black, the seven sisters start to rise
Pleiades, in silent winter’s night as
Cassiopeia, queen, stands out above
The calm chill also pointing her way to our
Closest cosmic simulacrum Andromeda
The stars are there, uncaring and seemingly
Cold, distant even impossibly far, and yet
Known, seen, perceived though the crickets
Haven’t made a sound, the air, nearly
Incorporeal breaths of rest, sleep,
A thousand dreams take flight

Moon, Venus, Timpanogos. Image, Steve Olpin.

Gold

November 19, 2024November 22, 2024 | Megan

Beethoven Era

Can you imagine?
Deafness where once was joyous
Sound
Blindness where once filtrations of color-filled light
Ricocheted
Can you imagine?
Losing everything?
If you are human, the guess is, yes
But why must pain catalyze all our understanding? Is it
Truly our only teacher? Isn’t the promise of
Death
Enough to cause us to cling to love, to
Life, to now, maybe not. So maybe we go deaf, blind,
Senseless
Into that good night, into the dark, waiting for
The dawn with breath so small we barely live, sore
Respiration
Reaction, all part of this existence when what we
Thought we wanted most is gone, dematerialized where
Reality is echoed and
Chambered
Oh heart, please, live, please drink the night and day as
A cup of bitter sweetness, lasting but a blink
A piano hammer in the abyss, hammer to string, string
bing, bing, ba-bing, go, boogie,
Be

Gold Nike Shoes. Oakland Museum of California. Image, my own.

Andante

It will never do to keep running
Into yourself if you can’t look up,
Ponder the path of the stars in
The night sky, gaze with longing
And new eyes, on the moon with
Rapture, take in the horizon each
Day and walk into a new lifetime

Honey

Honey, laughter and green curry are all the #soulfood
I need the joy of bright kaffir lime leaves charged into garlic
and simmered over vegetables, a meal to carry us
through the ages, a gale of fascist hail and bull shit, the
storm of the century is upon us, and all we can do is cook,
sing, and watch the moon as it rises high in the night,
silent observer of her earthly neighbors what a perplexity
what a tragedy, only for a moment, all mixed with joy and
delight, how will we last, how will we survive the fight
join it, gear up, only history knows on this very first calm
snowy night. We hunker in, we knit, we resist like life
depends on it because it does, resistance can be small
nearly silent until the way is clear and that same moon
swims overhead as the path is lit in the quiet dark

Orb

In reality
In the body
Black and gray
White and blue
softest aura
Hazing purple
Bold broad
Moon the
Clouds opaled
All around
Stars and sky
Dappled through
and Through
Lord, Bless
Gratitude for
Ohs and glitters
Heavens and Earth
The glory of it
All that lone
Full Moon

Gold. Leaves. Fall. Trees. Image, my own.

November

November 5, 2024November 12, 2024 | Megan

Every

every Color
all part of all
unity upon Unity
breath After breath
sun Rising sun
moon setting mooN
high in the Wide
Blue bowl of the Sky
star birthing star
miracle joins miracle
death Brings death
life gives Life
bathed In
every Color

Timpanogos, through the window. November 2024. Image, my own.

In Memoriam: November

While the geese continue to fly south
Crying, cawing in the early white billows
And pillars of sky, the snow comes in
Little promises, licking the ground like a prayer
The branches in the woods become
More bare by day, raw and line-worked
Wiring out against the frozen landscape
In stands and thickets tromped and tread
By silent, fervent feet, over and over again
Now the waiting for winter to truly take
Hold, for snow to come and bind up
Scattered grasses, still the scratching leaves.
A memory of Novembers, a palace of dying,
Nostalgia of hearths and firesides of
Rooting, resting and acceptance

Palace

tides, ever shifting
ever flowing, ocean
wave upon wave
turning over universes
places of refuge

Midway Mercantile. November 2024. Image, my own.

She Burns

No one seems to like it, they
claim her strength is admirable
that it’s a protection to her
and to them, she’s not sure
she burns, like a kiln stoked
into an inferno, she burns like
molten earth just exited from
a magma chamber, bright she burns,
a dragon girl who never wanted
to hurt anyone, seventeen
hundred degree flames hiss at
who she is near, causing a
tremble, a stir, she burns because
she knows that women, for
centuries, have had to grow
small, small and insignificant,
accessory and accompaniment,
to receive life, she can’t ever
let on that she wants learning,
love, expression, voice, power
no those gifts are reserved for
others. She burns like the forge
meant to melt metal, meant to
make paper towel racks and
weapons, she can choose wedding
colors and a matching fascinator
she can choose rugs, mugs, décor,
clothing. She can choose the height
of her heels and the blaze of
her eyes as long as she stays
thin, “nice,” and modest
she complies, and writes it in a poem
where will she go with this fire?

Refuge

From the moment everything broke we wished for a place of peace and refuge. Another person is never a home, only your own skin and bones can hold you. Another person is never a place except for you are your own place inside your sinews and blood streams and heartbeats. A house can be so much more than a home—a refuge, a covering, a landing, a carrying, a place, a palace. But it would be nothing without you and the warm, bright, dark burdened and unburdening beautiful people who surround you—in sorrow and joy, in tears and laughter, in silence and singing. What is a place? A person is always a place– a place for the heart, body, and mind to attend—a place of love and horror, a place of welcome and displacement, a place of empathy and disgust, a place to be thoughtfully alive, in, inside. The heart of the house is the person who beats inside, who braves the storm to return, who lies down on the floor to pray and bless the space because it is all that holds back the outside, all that protects from life.