Resurrection

Yes, today is a roll away your stone day
Flex all your muscles, push away that seal
Come on out where the morning's waiting patient
We were made for lilies
Shimmering seas of candles
We were made to live
Now
And I know, know like you know
How those shadows grow long
You forget the meadows
Your fingers ache for hands that don't appear
Orbiting each other like we do
We forget to look long
To touch softly
Lean in closer and closer
Words like love and forever seem hollow now and then
When it doesn't appear that they come true after all
Fairytales become a mockingbird
And all those empty places grow deep and hopeless
A canyon that just keeps plummeting into the core
But today is a roll away your stone day
When it seems like everything that could go wrong, did
Guess again!
Surprise!
Life is back
Strolling through Damascus
Playing jokes on all of it's friends
That place that seemed to hold only an ending
Is cleared out
Death's robes folded up neatly and put away
And those who guarded it are stunned in the sunlight
He's back
Scarred in a way He wasn't before
Like we have known so well
All of us have been, falling into that bottomless veil
Clutching at air
Too scared to pray
Fall turns to flight
He's back
And all of us have been there
Hit the wall so hard it knocked the breath from us
But then...
Dusted it off
Climbed over
Looks like the grass is green on the other side after all
Still holding all that new rain
Heather and sparrows
You and me picnicking on the lawn
Today is a roll away your stone day
Tears can last for the night, as they say
But this is the morning now
Everything you thought was lost
Has always been, will always be
Yours
Someday when we go down to the water
Me and Him, skipping stones
Fingers entwined
No footprints for the ocean to steal away
I might ask Him why He did it, just to hear Him tell the story
I already know the answer
Love, as small of a word as it is
Is big enough
To go to Hell and back inside of
And come out laughing
A thousand times more powerful than you were before
More truly alive than you ever would have been,
Had not you descended so far and so fast
Love bears all things, believes all things
Sends whatever dark there is left
Evaporating like mist when the daybreak reaches it
And if you have love
If you are love
You can travel anywhere
Safe as a song
You can go and come back
And every time you come back
Lighter and lighter and lighter
Becomes the stone
You roll away

Come Away Little Lamb

I was born on a morning
Too early for the sunshine
All the candles trembled
For their little tearful light
God, how it almost extinguished!
What a violent, scorching flame of a girl
Turned to ash by her own blaze
I couldn't have arrived in the daylight
Burning, burning
For the touch, for the breath, for the torch to hold me
A man named Matthew
Used to call me Lamb
So meek as to lay myself on the altar
All of the temple on fire
And yet, I have lion enough to lie close to my newborn heart
Neither of us quarreling
Fangs withdrawn
Skittish soul sleepy with peace
I was afraid my dearest
When you spoke of a taper immolating from both ends
I was worried for the center
And what happens when it's reached
So I would rather flick the match, careless
Step in as all the trees burn
So as to make way for the phoenix
And the green shoots
New forest
I was born on a morning
Too early for sunshine
And I learned quickly to ignite the star
From deep within
Or be lost to the deep, blue night
To be both the fox and the rose
Or hide in the immortal shadows,
For which I have never cared
I was born in the morning
Never felt whole in the evening
Let the sun come up, and up and up
Let me be the dawn
Little daughter of the daybreak
Forever

Cuidado

I don't know what it is to be a child
Tucked into the soft covers, tired mind kissed quiet
Favorite books piled high into my favorite arms
Wrapped safe in love hands, lifted high up into the air
Pulled close blissful with laughter
I don't know what it is to be made my favorite foods
Or held
Don't know what it is to look in eyes filled with pride and joy
Don't know what it is to be Daddy's girl
Or Mommy's little angel
I know what it is to run, and run, and run
Breath burning in my throat
Tree branches scraping salted cheekbones
Screams branded deep into my memory
I know what it is to hide under the covers at night
Suffocating but safe
To wake up already afraid
Plotting the getaway
Which door would get me free the fastest?
I don't know what it is to hold hands while we cross the street
Don't remember ever being picked up
Or falling asleep between two peaceful beloveds
For whom I am a prayer answered
I don't know what it is to be honest
The truth is only punished, so I will be a liar
Hiding has a chance of not being found out
I don't know what it is to stand close
Without smoldering, without tears
Without broken windows underfoot
I don't know what it means to be friends
Except for that I fill you until you're happy and I'm empty
And it takes forever
Don't know what it means to be beloved
Except for that I keep your mouth smiling
Or get sent away
I don't know how to do this
All of this
All of these fragile connections
Plagued with doubts
Too much, too close, pressing on sore wounds
All I know is to run, and run, and run
Avoid the eyes
Tell the untruths white
Bury myself in headphones, and Earth and sorrow
And when you find me, smile and nod, smile and nod
So teach me something different
Be father and brother, husband and playmate
Unlock all the gates
Start me over again
Read me bedtime stories
Brush my hair
Hold my hand, but gently
Don't pull
Pile me into the sheets and the covers
Love me, but don't hold on tight with purple knuckles
I swear that somewhere in me
I know how to stay
I'll sit in your lap
I'll look in your eyes
I'll know

Into Mazey

We were finger-painting contours
Speaking in our oldest language
The one that bears no words- too rude
The one that whispers and asks
Receiving only the answer it discovers on it's own
So my voice was lost
There was no way to reveal it
The marks ugly, interfering
Your caress traced over scars left deep in hidden flesh
Paleontologist
How do I tell you
I want to lie in the Earth forever, and never be brought to light
You are the last grand adventurer
Searching for the cause of death in the bareness of my being
Don't look at what the wounds left for you
You can't find my soul on my skin
In the crook of my neck
The waxing full of my mouth
Don't do what others have done
Destroy me with what looks like love
I'm too easily tempted by that lure
Every fisherman on the Adriatic
Had only to loop their heart on a line and dangle it over the sea
To watch the last, weeping siren come to have a look
And take the bait
Though I remember the burn of the hook
The tug that dragged me from the depths
I don't breathe air
Don't give yours to me
It was only gentility that ever ignited my veins
The innocence of your eyes, sea green like home
I have never blamed any man
I know what I do
To reject an affection...
I would rather die starving for oxygen
Immolating in the salt from hands and naiveté
Than empty
And alone
But I've waited long on the rocks for the one
Who would simply come swimming with me
Who would ask for nothing
But one sun-drenched kiss
And a dawn in the blue where the sun rises from within the waves
With me
I can give you nothing
If I'm a possession
But my heart is too mangled and needy
To beg you not to gather me to you
I've only prayed that somehow you would guess
Not to hold with the fingers and the arms
But with the electricity
Streaming between us in music waves
Touch me with the hand
And there are only broken pathways
That as you run their course
Bring more saltwater
I remember when they've been run once before
And the pain that flooded every sense even as I surrendered without a fight
So touch me with the softness of your soul
Come into the deep water
Forget yourself in the ocean
Drown in my love

A Girl and Her Camera

For a young Lulu like me, the time whips past me nowadays. The days are just so short, only 24 hours to play, have snacks, visit exciting places, go to work, pray, struggle and succeed. I can never find enough time, and the moment I feel that I have a hold on all of the things I treasure, they slip out of my fingers and vanish for a spell.
That's why, my wonderful friends, I am absolutely in love with the magical invention called a camera.
Everything about it stirs my chubby heart. I love the little click it makes, the massive lenses that I change to capture the birds from 200 meters away or to sneak into the tiny world of a flower or bumblebee. I wish I could explain how much joy and inspiration and change this one simple tool has brought into my humble world. There are many splendid ways of capturing the imagination, and every one of us is an incredible artist each in our own ways as we explore the meaning of our lives and the mystery of the spirit surrounding us.
I love paints, I love sketching pencils. I go crazy with writing, pouring myself out in words comes so naturally and just feels so right. Always with a pen or typing, I can speak myself clearly without the stumbling and shyness that sometimes sneaks up on me when I engage with the people I care about day to day.
But there is nothing, nothing like a camera for me. Nothing like pressing that blessed little button and stopping all of time forever, to revisit whenever I want to.
It drives me crazy. Do you know that silly feeling when you absolutely itch in your soul to do what your heart loves best? It's very bad of me, cause I used to tease a wonderful friend for his inclination to carry his movie camera with him everywhere, no matter what we were doing; oh but now I understand so deeply. When you find the thing that expresses so profoundly everything that you feel and love and savor, it comes to your mind whenever another beautiful moment arises. I feel a deep need to capture.
I also have a very poor memory, and if I don't have something written down or photographed that I can return to, sometimes my memories lie sleeping in my mind for ages and I forget them completely.
But I want to be a time-traveler, able to return to when I was fourteen and twenty and what I did a few weeks ago. I hope so much that my great Love has something like a camera in His Kingdom, some way to freeze the moments of eternity and return to them whenever I wish.
Photographs have broken and freed my heart. In a glance, I can return to people I miss dearly and feel that somehow, I'm still with them. I have a very beautiful photo of my grandmother and my sweet Cilla hugging on a flowery porch at my aunt's house in the country, and every time I see it, it makes me feel as if we aren't separated for now. Somehow from within the depths of the photograph, they visit with me.
Photos can even be dangerous for me. I get lost in nostalgia sometimes, and have had to hide photos from myself (but I always keep them) so that I wouldn't stumble across them and get hit with a wave of reverie that would take me away from the happiness in my present moments.
Photos became my diary a few years ago; a journal for myself when I found my hands empty and I was unsure of how to see myself anymore. I didn't know who I was or what I was meant for; I felt like life's biggo-est failure and I was greatly unhappy with who I was. I had a very small camera, a simple little purple one that didn't work very well and washed everything out colorwise, but I loved it and every now and then when I felt lost, I'd hold it out at arms length and try to catch a glimpse of the lovable, vibrant and enthusiastic girl I hoped was resting somewhere inside of me.
And it worked!
With every photo, somehow I felt that I knew myself better. I hadn't been very happy whenever someone wanted to take my peekture before. There's lots of photos of me when I was a little Lulu either scowling or making a very goofy face cause cameras made me uncomfortable. But I always loved when the photos arrived, in shiny square prints. I'd look through them again and again and again. I was crazy about pictures of us.
When I joined the community called Flickr, I didn't use it as a portfolio, I just got lost in the massive sea of other peoples lives. The photos were so exquisite and glorious, of people I would never meet and places I might never see. I could travel the world and see millions of stories without moving an inch. That's when I started to get excited about sharing my stories too. My wonderful Poppies friend Bethie traded me her DSLR for my easier to use point and shoot, and unwittingly began me on the funnest journey I've ever been on.
It took me ages to figure out how to use the big, scary camera with so many different functions, and even more ages to understand things like lighting, lenses, aperture, ISO and all of those very confusing things. But I couldn't stay away from my little camera so I just kept playing with it and eventually over a long time, became familiar with the things that had once seemed way over my head.
I learned how to edit my photos naturally too, using natural lighting and accentuating details so that the photo was always true to what I had shot, but was more pronounced.
The whole world inspires me. The snow, the flowers, the people. It's all so detailed and loved. Photography has been the song of myself I've been looking for, for so long. This life is so important, and I want to treasure it forever. That little shutter has shown me who I am, and that was all I needed to go out into the world without being afraid or ashamed.
Oh sweet little camera, thank you so much! Thank you for being my journal, for teaching me to try new things, to explore, to hike, to roam, to let loose my emotions and dreams and share them, thank you for letting me see myself in a new light and for giving me a means to hold on tightly to this life that I cherish, and the lives of all the beautiful people around me. This is such a special blessing...I'm overwhelmingly thrilled to be trotting off to school soon to learn more and more and more! I'm going to just freak out in those labs, I just know it hehe :D
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Well my loves, I would write something much better and super cool, but there's a little Rebellious Canon blinking at me from nearby and about 3 or 4 inches at least of newfallen snow, so I will have to tell you mas things later! I love youuuuuuu <3

Pocahontas

Savage!
The woods whispered it
All the elms alight
I called down the water
Sent my breath into the goldenrod
So that when your hand brushed it
Once upon the evening field
You'd put fingers to my lips
If I speak a word now
It will vanish
So I'll leave pieces of soul
For you to find
On the riverbank
Swathed in the trail of starlight
I found you when all the world was dust and empty
The last oasis to bless your Pisces
I would drown in you, if I could
Great swells of ocean, you and me
The same
I would never cry for shore or for aid
Only lay in the depths of your arms forever
Don't hoist the sails when you float past
Look up for a glimpse of me in the hemlock
Swaying, your weeping ghost
Drunk from your love and your leaving
How can you fill a thing and then empty it?
Swell my soul with the North Wind and the Indian Summer of your eyes
Only to take my very life
Lungs heaving for you and finding nothing
Only the absence of my every longing
Come back, come back
I and the trees have been waiting so long for you
Praying your name
Falling to the earth again and again
Thunderclouds bursting free overhead
Does the rain go to you like I ask it to?
Does it land on your eyelids and shoulders
With the memory of me?
Savage!
I whispered it, broken and breaking
Come back, come back
To the meadow where I've been waiting
So long, so long
Asking the clouds if they've seen you
My beautiful saint
Come back

Good Morning

Oh this, must be a good morning
All the last cotton wisps of fog visiting with the ivy
Politely finding whatever spaces Nature hasn't yet filled herself
This must be a good morning
Though I slept too late in the down and white
Danced too early into the morning
And collapsed here, a fledgling in a big soft nest
Sleepy from shaking off all the old
And coating the new in smiles and hand-holds and balloons
Then there was that fog, too delicious to ignore
Even as the sun began to think about rising
And my knees threatened to begin falling
So out I went!
The world is too powerful a thing to miss
Going out into it is the dearest prayer I know
So I investigated the seated clouds
And then satisfied, could rest my head
Now it's here, this good morning
Sweater snuggled into the day
All that's been so far is happy peeks outside of the window
Fingers clicking over the sunny keys
Telling you the story of my grand morning
In which I did nothing
But had everything, jolly and well in my lap
I like to snooze and wonder about things
How this shall be and what a fairy tale could mean
If it breathed and stirred and walked the Earth with me
I like even better to wake and wander
Crunch over the frosted lawn in small boots
A sparkling lens jaunty on my shoulder blade
All of this makes a good, good morning
The first one of a year that's never been before
The moments sneaking enchanted into the room
Playing with all the contents of my old life
Leaving me different when I woke up
But content like a lamb
I am pastured in the good mornings
When I rise with the sun or wake when the bluebirds are having lunch
All this quiet greeting
My fondest hours
Soon it'll be afternoon and I'll go here and there
There'll be opinions to consider
Time to manage
But for now, I think I shall simply be here with the morning
Grin big to just myself in the sea of quilts and Noah's Ark
Wish all the world a brave new morning!