And....

And.....

It is within your motion, where your
beauty lies. Static does not suit you.
Your frenzied dance opens my heart.
My wind is borne blind on the other side of you.

And I feel.

I call your name with birdsong voice.
Your back remains mine with your
wolfing hips moving skyward.
My trees are held breathless in your landscape.

And I know.

You settle deep within my marrowed skin.
A joining of purest connection
in grazing circles of florid repose,
my stars run sunlit through your madrigal hair.

And I love.

Joni
3/13/07

Art Credit: Tree Deva by Mia Friedrich

Winter's Ice

One Last Word

Within her heart is snow fall.
Inch by inch covering the scorched place
where the dream took light, blazed and died
its sputtering ashen death.

Silence befalls this place.
Only the cold hiss of ice crystals
landing en masse like cruise ship
tourists overtaking the shore.

Surely they’ve never been here before.
They peruse the shops looking for perfect gifts.
The conch shell he’d brought from Florida?
The beret from Paris? The poetry?

No, they are agitated in their cold
obnoxious way. They want service.
They want a cold drink by the pool.
They wonder why they came here at all.

Still they settle into their icy silence
awaiting the only other sound they will ever make.
The crunch of a new traveler’s footsteps into her heart.
Hoping to conjure the arctic explorer’s of tomorrow

to say one last word.

Joni
11/13/05

A Touchstone

The Last Place I Felt Your Smile

I visit it again. The stage of your renown
and the poetry pushes against the leaden
edges of my heart. This is the place of my father.
A holy relic of a youth I barely remember.
A building abandoned long ago, like the
pristine child’s love I held you in.

I remember basking in the glow of your
accomplishments here. A bit part, with no lines,
but great satisfaction that I was yours.
My words came later, but only shouted in
response to the vine that gripped us in the hush
and shame of fallen warriors and heroes.

I didn’t make the choices that led from this place,
but I grew within them like a cold estranged wife.
Now I’ve made my own place in a new world.
And as I stand in the last place I felt your smile, I
weep that I lost our love when I was so very young,
and I realize that everyday I've missed the man you were.

Joni
1/8/07

Nothing But This

For Laurence

You leave us here.
We all knew you were
going. Your absence
is no surprise.
Yet it is.

Somewhere between
mind and heart is a
veil of self-deceit, a
lie of self mastery. This
day, as yesterday,
in unending march.

We should celebrate
your freedom from a
broken body. Yet
we will mourn the
loss of your light.
A light that made
ours a bit brighter.

See all the beauty
you never knew you
were. Swim within
the shine of the
Universe. Revel in
the love that we send
between our tears.

For now you know
what was always
yours.

Joni
12/7/06

My Only Religion



At the Altar of One

I will worship at the altar of all that you are
with the reckless abandon of a woman's
soul eclipsed and enlightened by yours.
My light, dimmed without your light,
Your light, shadowed without my light.
In swirling Oneness, we are beauty defined.
I am yours, beloved.
I am yours.

Joni
11/14/06

Fade to Green

Ten Thousand Shades of Green

Ten thousand shades of green
ooze forth in shimmering stillness
cooling my overheated eyes,
while Buddha’s children
sell chocolates and ask
to be photographed.
The con made sweeter
by the presence of God.

Concrete Blonde fills the
potholes we dodge with
careening trucks and
comforts moved by bicycle
to reach your sea.

Darkness enthralls your
river’s mouth where
ghosts whisper of the
wounds you lick in silence
and broken men wait by
the shore for redemption.

Rooftop luxuries rise
from the ashes of soldiers
gone mad, like sundae cherries
and women inviting from
the center of their ripeness.

In the end it’s your voice
of kindness that surrenders
my soul to all that you are and
has me forsaking all colors,
hues both light and dark, for
ten thousand shades of green.

Joni
11/4/06

The Most Beautiful Art

The most beautiful art, it seems to me, comes from pain. I certainly do my best writing when I am unhappy. I know this is true for many. I wonder why it is harder to write from joy? I've never been able to do it well. Everything I write from joy sounds trite and cheesy. Some might say everything I write sounds trite and cheesy, but I think they'd be wrong about that. LOL

Of course Ode to Joy is in direct opposition to what I wrote above. Maybe it is just the people like myself - rather inexperienced artists - find pain easier to express artistically. In the end, all I know is what works for me.



Release

I sit on stone beside the river.
Leaves of Willow and Birch surround.
A death shroud most fitting.

Anguish crashes against stone
like the river’s din.
Relentless, neither yielding

I come for healing, unsure if even this place
is strong enough for the task. I examine the
shards of a shattered life, seeking a lesson.

Here, the familial love withdrawn in shades of racism.
There, the job precariously balanced due to your position.
Another, my wild nature tamed by your children, half grown.
I sacrificed all of importance and laid myself bleeding and empty
in supplication at your feet to acquire a gem far more precious:
Us.

The rush of the river drowns the sounds of a life crushed
to hear your whispers. The relentless sound as the glass
settles into its heap beside me. Echoed mercilessly through
the dead telephone line, the last I heard from you.

My breath gone, my tears gone, the clamor of water’s rush fills me anew.
Freedom comes in realization: none of the past can be reclaimed.
I let the river sweep the glass downstream I want no part of it.
Instead I gather clay.
My life starts here.

Joni
November 4, 2004