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.

Air

October 17, 2024October 18, 2024 | Megan

Stairs to the Coast. Oregon. Image, my own.

October Bowery

when fall begins to crystalize, like any change,
the first real storm front moves in,
the leaves which scudded about yesterday
are frozen to the sidewalk, gathering in
browning-yellow scrolls, little edicts of
what is to come, they thaw and scatter
again across streams and gullies where
the thin water still wants to feed the living
thing before being silenced in ice, or
leave monochrome sepias on pavement,
the Hunter’s moon, high and bright illumines
the grass, reedy wisps along the midnight walk,
the dusty path where the air cools, snappy,
crisp, that breath of winter’s coming, flora seized
red in its death, clinging to branch and vine,
each day more dried and dead, ruffled and flurried
by immediate breezes, sounding like Japanese
paper fanfared by a round and excited toddler,
portents of the next season soon to fall
in golden droplets of summer’s dreams
the ocher aspen leaves, in sheets and
flakes of fiery autumn light dazzling and
freshly disconnected from their source right
before they meet the dust and decompose

Sun, Sky, Beach, Life. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Strength

Growing is a season of its own, one of loving kindness rooted in faith
one of far-seeing vastness, while standing in sacred spaces. For whatever waves,
winds, and ways that will ever-continue to toss and take their course, stand
in your gifts and rest in fullness, plentitude. Delight in bounty and abundance.
Move from ire to the rich roundness of the good in all living things–
circles of true compassion and empathy which connect all creation– human,
animal, plant, living, all animate with atoms as the entire universe speaks the
soundness of its existence, the tenor of being, the voice of living and the lived

Ocean, Tide, Tree, Coast. Oregon. Image, my own.

Point

when i am in my
brain and heart i realize this
is the goddamn point

Conscious Living

What is it to be alive?
In the rich, abundant world
A sterling jay’s deeply
Decked sapphire feathers
crested head
nestled in the magnolia bush
outside my window
the air as thick as dew,
yet moving as if on an
unheard music suspended
by the wind’s unseen breath

and ocean spume, spurl, churn
TO be part of Earth’s respiration
tide, current, wave, flow, coast
where Earth’s breath meets
land-sand, rock, tree, stone
every piece of physical
particulate of the confirmation
of all alive and breathing
beings, being moved
smoothed, rocked, waved, rolled
over and over in the sea’s bosom

Stones and Seal Carcass. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Ocean

I used to think I wasn’t an ocean
person. But these rocky, cliffy,
craggy knobs of sea-shorn trees,
smooth stones and crusty conglomerates
crab shells, jelly-fish skeletons, strips of
kelp carcass, and clings of driftwood
really wrap me into the rhythm of
the tide

Magic. Foam, mist, spume, churl, splutter. Oregon, Coast. Image, my own.

Know

I know what I am
doing, I don’t know any
thing other than that

I don’t know what I’m
doing, I don’t know any
thing other than that

Rock, Tide, Rush. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.

Peaches

September 16, 2024September 16, 2024 | Megan

Benediction

Candlelight wavers in the silent brush of the ceiling fan
Night air sinks into currents of cool water brought up
From the little creek, the smell of river paired with even
More oxygen lifts and falls on a fleeting breeze, fresh and sweet

Whatever music and magic there is to be had in
The universe is happening right here inside my home
At my table, it happens in moments like these, in every
Pocket of the world tonight– right here, right now, breath easy

Big Dipper. Again and Forever. September 2024. Image, my own.

Horǎ

In dream, the night is thick
with cricket symphony
the grass stalks golden,
long and chilled in the
meadow, above the sentinel
oak the stars prick blackness
like reverse needle-work
intricate dance, flowing and fire,
thousands of light-years away
yet seemingly so near

The tent is simple and
the lashings have been tested
in a storm that whipped through
an hour ago, howling
at the white flaps of canvas,
smattering rain onto the party
but the air now returns to dark stillness.
Lanterns, re-lit, quiver
and sway in simple
atmospheric breaths

I hug my sister close,
smile at a friend across
the way, eyes connecting
and story-telling for just
an instant and then
I am physically
swept away, time suspends
its relentless snick, and
in that instant we spiral
as one

Limbs outstretched, grasping
and firm as we reach
for one another, smiles,
countenances as wide and
open and awed as galactic
arms around and around
We swirl in an ancient pattern
of love, mirrored in the heavens
templated by earth
and actioned by humans

Under the open-sky,
beneath the tent, midst
the lanterns, our heat
rising in healing, and
celebration, and joy,
an eschewance of hatred,
a ceremony of
transcendence and light
through the ages

Plexus no. 34. Gabriel Dawe. Amon Carter Museum, Austin, TX.

Peach

Oh. My. God. Let the sweet
nectar drip over your lips
and down your chin

Why contain this
experience, the velvet
skin, the wet flesh

The fruit of summer
realized, the sweetness
and pleasure, stunning

“We have to beware of the extent to which liberal individualism has actually been an assault on community… when the genuine staff of life is our interdependency, is our capacity to feel both with and for ourselves and other people.” –bell hooks

Interdependency

Oldest: “Mom, mom! You’ve got to come look at this moon!”

Youngest: “Mom, let’s dance to this song right here in the kitchen.”

Oldest: “i love you” “u r srsly weird”

Youngest: “don’t die”

Oldest: “goom, can you send me five gold dubloons for wendy’s?”

Youngest: “Hey, do you know where my hazmat suit is”

Peaches. Claude Monet. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

Ocean

September 10, 2024September 10, 2024 | Megan

Noordwijk, Netherlands; North Sea Shore. January 2023. Image, my own.

Regret

I stood in the tide of
the North Sea
and I should have dived in.
I should have stripped
off my clothes
like an overgrown baby
and screamed and
squawked into the surf

I should have shrugged
off my care for my
friend’s husband. I’m
sure he would have
politely turned around
if I’d asked.
then I’d have had to
contend with the flotsam

on the beach, but that
wouldn’t have mattered,
half shells, stones, sponges
even the cuts on my
feet would have been
worth it if I’d boldly
yawped into the bubbling
spume, a signal

to the universe that I knew,
I saw what was coming
next (which is a lie)
but in that moment,
to prove to myself I was
animate, to confirm I
could do anything, to
beat my chest at the

edge of the world,
to be alive,
especially if I had
known everything that
would begin– days
later– the layers of dreams
I’d have to divest,
the altar I’d have to burn

in sacrilege, the pain that
would engulf me, the end
This is important because
now I know that my
jaunt into the North Sea
would look pale,
naked, unfeathered in
comparison to reality

and it really wouldn’t
have changed anything.
the tide would have
rolled, salt-gray, rhythmic,
unforgiving, over me
as the lanterns burned
brightly in the beach house
but it’s one thing I may
always regret

Flotsam of the North Sea. Noordwijk, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Ghost

You never think
That someone will pass through you
Like the ghost of who they once were
Like the spirit of a person you once knew

You never think
That it could hurt so badly to unravel
Like every color of who they were was in you
Like each thread that stitched you all together was undone

You never knew
What death while someone is alive feels like
What saying goodbye without saying anything means
What one body of pain can experience

Until you knew

Tide. North Sea, Noordwijk, Netherlands. Imgae, my own.

Comfort

sink into the folds
of an oversized chaise
tuck your body between
the seat cushion
and english arm
rest your head on the
soft folds of the chenille
bolster, squish and
knead yourself into
the billows of down fill
rest all of yourself in
there to see if you’ll
be safe from the storm

Directions. Noordwijk, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Celebrate

listen, don’t you forget
that even days of sorrow
can be days of celebration
that’s the paradox
we were born for this

My House at Night. Noordwijk, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Spoon

if you bring your thighs
right under the nook
of my knees
and the bulk of your
body right into the
curve of my hips
and your chest flush
with my back and
wrap yourself around
me all night, I
may remember what
love, and safety, and
sighing in peace
really feels like
I’ll be home again
quiet, delicious, hazy jazz
you’ll quell my longing

Jazz Café Alto. Amsterdam, Netherlands. Image, my own.

Relentless

sometimes this existence can
feel so heavy
so weighted and wearisome
so relentless

Light

August 7, 2024August 19, 2024 | Megan

Love

No one tells you that love and risk are synonymous.

This is a hard truth to bear in this world, I’ve found.

But people also don’t tell you that love comes in so many beautiful forms that perhaps the human tongue has never named or caressed or articulated them all– anima, amor, amatio, cupido, diligentia, ludus, eros, agape, pragma, philautia, zelo Love

Love forms the deepest connective tissues and threads of our psyche and souls– the circle that embraces us all, and this love is vast, sweeping, sublime, teeth– it is the sinew of the divine that runs through all living things. You Me.

It’s the why behind how washing the dishes and a sensual lie-in, lay in, lay on can be erotic. Simple.

That is the wonder of love. The musings that both bring us to our knees in gratitude as well as sorrow, pleasure as well as pain, transcendence and immanence. What shall we choose? Love allows us to stand at the edge of the universe of our knowing and unknowing.

Love

Set List from an Epic Music Fest, Ranch Rock III, 2024

Connaissances

Today my old life died
and my new life spawned

I had a tiny lump
in my throat

My stomach turned
a bit, and I

took a long, deep breath
through the pain

then I realized that I was
hungry for breakfast,

stomach grumbling, I went out
and ate and egg

Artist
You are the artist
of your soul, winsome and west
her and just so me

Ikigai

When you know things
When you understand and
Begin
to Evolve
and sure, you’ll
be erroneous again,
don’t forget that
there will always be
People
who will try to tell you
Otherwise
The sky is falling
for them, for sure
rather, Recognize that You
Know
that the sun is rising
You are not nothing
that you do
Exist
they are misinformed
Just as all the ideas
that have ever been flat
lines, no heartbeat