walk

Aquarius

| Megan
Aquarius Timpanogos. Sun, cattails, and clouds. January 2025.

The First Universe was You
(Maybe one day it will all make sense. This is probably just my hubris talking.)

You were the first person I saw
—visually—as a Universe

I had been feeling it for a while–
this idea of the infinite

In the love I watched women
Give to everything, everyone

Around them, the spiraling arms of
Stars– known, each in their own sphere

I heard it in my head, when you
Explained: I am trying to love myself

In essence, “I contain multitudes,” and I
Chalked that line up to some god from

Our shared past-religion, but it turns
Out it was Walt Whitman

Describing women, of course, he was
Describing himself and thereby all

Humans, alike in our vastness, and then
A friend’s husband died, and I felt

It all over again, this idea that we
Are these very fragile, very short-lived

Phenomena, and yet, somehow infinite,
And don’t forget that must explain

How your trip was my trip, or I took
A part of your trip as my own trip

Like a feather in my mushroom cap
Like a rose in my funerary lapel

Because I am enough was what your
Psyche told you, and I am here to

Infinite down on that memo, that factor:
I am enough. You are enough. Multitudes.

You contain multitudes which is why
Making decisions out of temporary

Information must feel so hard. So,
Take my hand. Grab my spiral arm

Arm in arm. Here we go. Forever
Into the Unknown. Universe.

Glass Greenhouse. Neighborhood. January 2025.

Arms

To have the arms of the Universe flung out before
You. I’ve seen it with my own eyes—one arm rolling
Sushi with her son, another arm filled to the infinite with stars
Held comfortably under her daughter’s climbing shoes.
You are made of Everything—darkness and light– the stuff

Jeweled into the eternity of now, this moment.
Universe, can you hear her? Like listening to nuclear fusion
With a stethoscope—the breath, the pulse, the beat, the
Mother-heart giving life to all existent things, and even things
That may no longer be. But that act, the fusion at the

Core of the Universe—every opal clouded nebula, a nursery
Every blazing Azure star, a new creation, can you imagine if she
Knew she needed to become something new, and altogether
Different entirely. What if she knew that her core was burned
Out, her fuel exhausted and all of the stars, all of the

Beings that rested in her consciousness would once again
Become so much dust, so she died. She gave up her
Old form, her life, her arms spinning off into the horizon
She simply couldn’t go on fusing life together in that way
Explosion/Implosion it wouldn’t matter which way the

Translation took place, but the Matter of it all would always,
Always remain. The actual physical atoms of all she gave, all
She shaped, all she sacrificed, forever encoded in the stuff of
Galaxies, dwarf stars, and solar systems we’ll never lay eyes on
She knew it. Yet, she wept anyway, despite her knowing

Canal. Two ducks. Drainage pipe. January 2025.

Weave

| Megan
Hoar Frost. December 2024. Image, my own.

Chancel

And now I bow
In the nave
I built with my
Own hands
A force of will
Maybe, and of
Hope, and strength
And love, and
Power, and good
Ness and weak
Ness and sacrifice
And longing and
Grief and beginning
I kneel before this
Altar to my dreams
Before I burn
It down, before
The doing and
Undoing pulse
Through my being
And there it is
Again, my knowing
In the unknowing
That this temple
This altar this
Divine expression
Must ignite, must
Burn, must be made
Into ash, and thereby
Made into everything
That comes after–
The garden, the
Synagogue, the holiest
Holy, of all the sacred
Spaces, filled with the
Breath, the Fire of the
Divine Universe intoned
In your throat, in your
Heart, in your center
Melted to make
Way for something New

Wintery walk. Image, my own.

Gift

Sometimes the memories
And myths that were woven
Into your childhood become
Magic again to your arcing
Soul. The songs that break
Forth in trumpets. The
Prayers that end in good
Tidings. The trees all
Dressed in snow and stars
Light against long December
Nights which beg gathering
And joy-filled repasts

Aspen and snow. Image, my own.

Roads Taken

Two roads diverged in a snowy wood
And knowingly, quiet and somber I stood,
looking out on the starry, moonlit way
then took the path that had already been trod

With careful foot-fall through the hoary frost,
after the ribbon of travelers who’d crossed
the fork in the road, the decision place
And rather than test the dark and the cold

I took the chance to walk along
where others had gone, and bend my care
instead to perceiving the moment, the present
The here, the now, the trees and the fences

I shall be telling this in an age
from maiden, to matron, to crone, to sage,
I took the road that many had paved
And made it my journey, anyway

Fern Frost. Photograph: Skip Via, West Valley Naturalists.

Braid

dark and light
strands of fermion
behavior spin
good
evil
if they
exist
tethered
whole
to the same
fate maybe
driving Dirac’s
trick
as truth
every particle
we are made of
even distantly
is woven, connected
to the cosmological
horizon, all tangled up,
simultaneously unspun
strand by strand into
infinity

Half Moon. Image, my own.

Gather

| 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.

Gold

| Megan
Sunset. November. Image, my own.

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

Light Bulb(s). Image, my own.

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

Moon. Image, my own.

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.