Slippage

I am always forgetting
something
I forget appointments, keys
what I went upstairs for, then
come down and get distracted yet again
I forget what I was doing when
I heard Martin Luther King
was murdered
I forget all from that day except
the dark hole
hope ripped in my heart
when it fled.

I lose track of time
I can't think sometimes for the chatter
of the news anchors
ministers of dis-information
I forget to look at the sky
I forget to drink
from the well of gratitude
I lose the touch of cool salt water
on my breasts under moonlight
I lose the threads
the fabric
wears thin, connections in the brain
unravel
I lose the sound
of my father's voice
and the solitary song of the whippoorwill
singing me through
a sleepless night

What happened to the world
while I turned inward?
How so much come to divide
"us" and "them"?

Finally, I remember
I dreamed a world
with no terror, no hunger,
no wounded children
greed transmuted to abundance,
rage to forgiveness
love bubbling up,
healing the torn edges

Finally I remember
the name
and it is Grace

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Unbreakable Connections

they exist
invisibly
below the breath
spider strands of light
bridging chasms of time
and distance

bonds forged in heat:
tracks etched in the brain
perfect fit
of neurotransmitters
into certain receptor sites,
unbreakable connections

impervious to the weather of change,
they exist in the space
between synapses
the pause between heartbeats
strands of light
in the weave

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Altars

I am remembering altars everywhere
flat shale of a creek bed
spread out to receive falling water,
sun through purple glass
on my kitchen window sill

I remember moss patches
in the Delaware woods like miniature
pine forests under the oak
and the great steps of granite
supporting the railroad bridge
blocks of stone
still sunwarm
when I sat meditating
on summer evenings
before I knew what meditation was
before I could claim it as prayer

I am remembering prayer bundles
bright cloth tied in the spindly alder trees
at the foot of Devil's Tower
the labyrinth at Stillpoint
where prayer connects my feet
to the spiral path

Earth herself is my altar
where I can feel
God's pulse beating,
hear in my in own heart
faint echoes of the divine

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Slippage Unbreakable Connections Altars