begin

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.

Full Moon, February 23, 2024. Ryan Moat.

With a new moon and the beautiful transition to autumn upon us, some poems for your week, month, moment. XX, Megan

September

draughts of cool morning air
carried on dry-sighing leaves
respirate, whispering: rest, stay,
plan, see, manifest, begin, in every
breath the order and
organization of Earth
are upon us as gardens bear
fruit, hay is left to cure,
baled in sun waning
warmly in late afternoon
fields of golden bristle,
summer to fall, denouement
to eight months of moons
new and full and new again
transitions cyclical, circling
in the darkening sky
just after the last gasp
of cerise light crests over the
western mountains at sunset
wind chimes low and resonant
toning oooooh-aaaaah, bracing
rush and sweep of air transmits
that ocher timbre of September

Wasatch Mountains, September 2024. Image, my own.

Temple
for Danny and Kat, with love, M

Come into the temple
of my love for
I am sure about
its beauty and its
strength

Come into the temple
of my love for strength
can also mean softness,
stillness, peaceful respite,
home

I’ve learned that lives
change so quickly, so
surely, that surety is
difficult to process, to
prepare

But one thing I am
sure of is that as
the sun sets and the
stars rise, I will love
you

Through the night,
and as the sun rises
on the next morn, in
communion with the coming
day

In shelter of our shared
humanity, loyalty,
commitment, love, and
serenity we weather
storms

Of life together,
centered as we enter
into the temple
of our
love

V Yourself:
Violet and Verstue

vivacious
viridity
verve
visceral
vital
vulnerable
voluptās
virtu
verity
volant
vociferous
vehement
violaceous
varsal

Hay Bales and Timpanogos. August 2024. Image, my own.

Let There Be Joy

Let there be joy all
around you

Humming, thrumming
in the air above

Your body, the conduit
from the outside in

That electricity
of savoring the

Small, the ephemeral
first bite of a

Ripe peach the
stream as it licks

And leaps over
each stone, all things

Unabashed and still
known like the

Sun as it dapples
clouds and leaves

Each beam a special
reminder that life and

Love are meant for
you the first kiss

Of a new love fresh
on your lips