Hello

I am so tired.

This journey has lasted a lot longer

than a few months

or years…

No, this journey

has been going on

most of my life.

For a long time I just thought

I was being awkward,

as most people tend to be

about their image

their appearance

their body in general,

especially those of us

that didn’t fit the societal pattern

of clean and fit presentation

in pressed linen

and summer seersucker,

pretty hair

and figures that behaved

even when they bled.

I had a long and contentious

relationship with my womb.

She and I were at odds

for over forty years

and never reached détente

in a war that shouldn’t have been.

I tried the women’s circles

and embracing my moon

but frankly…

there isn’t enough hippie

in this old nurse

to appreciate the rust and cramps

of spoiled bedclothes,

the standing rush of effluvia.

I was Rachel,

sitting on the camel saddle,

complaining that

the time of women was upon me.

So time and again

time and again

time and again

the time came and went.

Outside the physics of the pudendal volcano

I struggled with my form

too round

too soft

too much

and though I paid it lip service,

secretly I wished for the sylph

instead of the mother.

Now I am at the end

of letting go of my flow.

They have pronounced

my parts dangerous

and taken them away,

strafing the fields behind them

with the shock and awe

of chemicals and waves

that alter me

at a fundamental level.

I am so tired.

No longer am I a maiden

and I was never really a mother

so now I must embrace

the crone

and I am not sure I know how.

I do not know my body

when I look at myself

in the mirror.

Maybe I haven’t been looking

for a long time?

Maybe I should have been looking

more closely.

I see the looseness,

the crepe and the sagging

the extra element of softness in the skin

that pronounces it fragile…

and I am discovering that I am pale

and I am discovering that I am aging

and I am discovering that I have ignored

so many changes in my life,

and now they are sitting at my feet

attentive and unwilling to be set aside

time and again.

The time has come.

They say beauty is skin deep,

and if so, I am not beautiful,

but I am striking

and I am a warrior

with radiation marks on her belly

and surgical scars.

They say you are as young as you feel;

then I am ancient.

I have never been newborn

and will only get older.

I am a timeless warden of human femaleness.

I am given to the receptive generosity

that belies the hard bones

of my infrastructure.

I don’t always know who I am

when I look in the mirror,

but when I look inside myself

I have no doubt.

This is the time for me to be

tired and sometimes lost as I am

something and someone

I never knew

because I did not introduce myself.

Hello.

I am you.

I know you are tired.

So am I.

Let’s rest together.

We have a lot to do.

(c) RCGA 4-5-2023

AI of MysticFool as warrior woman.

Bad Veins

Today I apologized for having bad veins
but what I meant to say was

Slow down

Please slow down

You are making me anxious
and that isn’t helping any of us

I don’t want to be here
and maybe you don’t either
sweet little fresh faced girls
in cotton scrubs
prattling over me
the invisible hurdle
in your tightly scheduled day

I have been you
many times I have been you

Look at me

Right in my eyes

Take a deep breath
and slow down

We’re going to get through this
I promise

(c) RCGA 2022

Echoes

In a couple of days you would have been 40. The brass plaque is cold when I say hello, colder even than that empty side of the bed.

The Mystic Fool

I had a dream last night
while I was huddled
beneath my blankets
my back to the empty side
of the bed
that you lifted the covers
and slipped in beside me
knees behind knees
hand on my belly

your warm breath
against my ear
carried the words
I love you
down into
the empty cavern
of my heart
a familiar and coveted echo
I still hear
in resounding rounds
this foggy gloaming

though your body
is gone
and that side of the bed
is cold
in the morning light

(c) RCGA 2014

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Colorblind

God isn’t “colorblind”.
We were created with marvellous variety
and an artist’s joy.
Beautiful, unique, precious beings
all made from the same materials.
Can’t you tell?
There is no preference
in the Master’s handiwork.
All are made with love.
All reflect the majesty of origin,
and the humble source of our structure.
We are all clay,
molded to the preference
of a natural wisdom.
When we look at each other
we should not be blind, either.
We should be dazzled,
humbled,
impressed.

RCGA 2019

Passe Pour Blanc

What does it mean

to be a color

to be defined

not only by your percentages

and lineage

not only by your culture

or who’s your mama

 

but by the tone of your face

the lack of contrast on your hands

 

Who makes the judges of these things

who gets to pick and choose us

and conversely how do we

decide if we will play along

 

No matter  how much cream

you put in the coffee

there’s still a hint of the bean

 

that

one

drop

rule

 

Except…

and I’m reaching here

reaching for the projected identity

imposed upon each one of us

depending on our looks

yet predicated on our blood

 

What game is this

what five-finger fillet

are we playing at

 

from generation to generation

 

holding up paper bags

to each other’s faces

to our own

(c) RCGA 2018

#lifegoals

I watched a butterfly today,

her dip and float,

her flutter by,

those stained-glass wings

held up by autumn breeze

both widely spread as sails,

lit by the gentle beams of sun

dappling the afternoon flora.

So empowered by release from gravity!

In flight, though brief a life,

made stately in the graceful flit

from bobbing flower head to dangling blossom

round about the garden.

I sat, grounded in single shape

a-wonder at the transformation,

at the transport on display,

where once a being who knew nothing

but creeping and climbing

dreamed of the sky,

and wove that dream into a time capsule

that freed her to the blue.

Photo by Katie Burandt on Pexels.com

RCGA © 2018

Sometimes an Angel

Sometimes an angel

is not what you think

 

Sometimes you are asked

to stretch your perceptions

around a little miracle

or intervention

and you think it will tear

you think it will rip you

from the inside out

to expand like that

because you imagine

reality is the only thing

that makes any sense

 

but it isn’t

 

and you can stretch

a whole lot farther

than the boundaries

of what you’ve been told

 

Sometimes an angel

is a stray cat

or a clearance item

or a dollar on the sidewalk

or a flower on that same sidewalk

emerging from a crack

 

Sometimes an angel

is the person who pays your ticket

in the drive-thru line

or the one that makes you be late

so that you miss an accident

or whoever noticed you forgot your lunch on Friday

and put it in the freezer

 

Angels are generally anonymous

but sometimes they are also

happenings rather than beings

sometimes they make you stretch

and it’s the good kind of stretch

that teaches you

how flexible you are

how much room you have inside

you’re much bigger on the inside

than you appear

 

Sometimes an angel

is not what you think

and the wings you feel brushing you

lifting you

embracing you

are part of your inside

stretching out into the world

 

(c) RCGA 9-9-18

 

Player

How meta is the term for men

who think that conjugation

is a game to play, a score, a win,

no sense of the relation.

But I prefer to think instead

they are pianos in their heads

their stories circular, full of holes,

the same sour notes played

in their rolls;

and in anachronistic style

they strut, and preen, and leer their smiles,

a wooden stand-up, wound and played

by the very system that gets them laid.

(c) RCGA 2018

Riesling and Raisinets

The sound of bombs is thunder;

and as a storm front passes

I am medicating my nerves

with chocolate-covered raisins

and wine,

to distract myself from the thrumming rain

on the rooftop,

and the steady pinging of tweets

susurrating Syria.

The cats, of course, are ignorant,

and blissful, in that state,

spotlight eyes blinking slowly,

so that I imagine, for now,

in my grape and cacao cloud,

that they represent the public mind,

concerned only for their dinner

and a dark spot to nap,

somnambulant, belly-full of false advertising,

unaware of any dogs at all

outside their immediate purr-view,

much less ones that are wagged

by their own tails.

(c) RCGA, 2018

Tornado Warning

I have been out of pocket for a while; the writing Muse has been hibernating, I’ve had the flu twice and a few other assorted winter maladies. I am brainsore, even as the end of Lent approaches, and Alleluia is dusted off from its forty days in retirement. Spring emerges early here, hectic and wet, and a geriatric cat came to live with the familiar and I following the passing of her person. Somehow I keep breathing, and talking to ghosts, staring into the centers of flowers and exorcising demons by exercising my wrists with paintbrushes. My steam-powered heart keeps thumping, and the bellows of my lungs heave with regularity. I assume this means I am still alive, whatever the reports have been to the contrary.

Last night there was a strange dog

in the neighborhood,

and frightened by the midnight train,

or thunder,

he bayed relentlessly against the thud and boom,

then fell silent at the sound

of the emergency god’s paternal voice

proclaiming all was well.

This morning,

heavy-headed,

I wondered at his smothered frenzy,

at how easily quiescent the most feral falls

listening to father.

In the daylight those that huddled down

pretended nothing happened;

a crow displayed glistening wings to the sun

high in a budding treetop,

and dropped a broken strand of plastic beads

onto the muddy sidewalk.

 

RCGA 2018