my hands are on automatic, pressing down on clay for three hours
then pinching plastic through wire for another three …creating and creating.
Coiling around the hurt & hiding it in a mount of clay  "the kiln will burn it” I say to myself

I lit a candle so that in this corner, when it might be easy to despair for the world, there may still be light. That much I can do.

Do not disappear again

above us all the stars remain luminous
bellied laughs, and curtain smiles that open to the gleaming sun
shining between your two front teeth

Do not disappear again

above us all there lines tied to kites
like on the day I went to a old place in south of Seoul
next to Hwaseong fortress
there the kids flew kites and I tied a small white paper along with others as a prayer

Do not disappear again

Above us all there should be a mirror reflecting our own beauty, old pictures taken years before make us sigh
we didn’t know we were so lovely so tender and filled with life. Why not take a photograph, today or all days when we still are radiant. Why not realize that our worldly anchor of change and age do not subtract the charm our new age.

Do not disappear, again  take another picture with me

We are still beautiful, tender, and filled with life.

I soften into life
while I sit over a large cushion
reaching my left hand deep into my chest
pulling  out the heavy ball of yarn that has been sitting there
I gaze upon on it, at first I want to recoil in sorrow, but I keep holding it and decide I must start to knit
knit it into something like sweater that can be of use when the next winter comes
that can be gifted to someone else
that can expand into kindness

that is what I want to do with this
that is what I want to do with my life

I know that I don’t know
and that whatever I am is big enough to hold all brokeness and large enough to absorb all sorrow
it is all encompassing
living in the rocks and in the leaves swaying on the branches of the trees

I know that I do not need to know

I see brilliance
wrapped around
their eyes

labyrinths that end
in the same place
which in truth
are gardens teeming with
all that spouts

I see them arrive light footed
and light hearted to this gentle abode
having circled and found their way
into our home

En tu luz madrugadora se caba
La oscuridad y en el abrir
De tus ojos se despierta la conciencia

Every poem I read today
made me weep
spoken word and hip hop coalesced
brought the concrete streets and grit
and pure relentless of yesterday
pushing it through my lacrimal sac

Lady if you were somethings else
do you think your eyes would gleam any brighter
Lady anchored to this time
do you know you are not the boat but the water it sails on
Lady if you had not knocked on the door
do you reckon the hurt of being turned away would be less
Lady your womb can bring life as does your thoughts
Do you realize how glorious and humanely your are

Lady if you were somethings else
do you think your eyes would gleam any brighter
Lady anchored to this time
do you know you are not the boat but the water it sails on
Lady if you had not knocked on the door
do you reckon the hurt of being turned away would be less
Lady who was not born a lady you are the masterful craftswomyn of the person you become
Do you think your being handed the pen before the others is something to hide
Lady with a womb or wombless you can bring life
Do you feel it deep in your bones
Lady do you realize how glorious and humanely your are

ella llena mis heridas de flores
y cada gota de agua de su trapo blanco es un lago de alivio

One sparrow chipped up a storm
from a light post
adjacent to the worn bus stop’s bench
to the patch of grassy forest behind it
then proceeded with its city pilgrimage flight from light post to the grass three more time on the fourth descent,  I
was surprised it landed next to me chirping, I couldn’t not help but say hello and smile

My heart rests languid and full of sorrow
I could never read his mind

and he never shared his thoughts
and I circled like a bird over and over
over and over

dizzy and dizzy
and dizzy with my unrequited love

never did he allow me to land

Lorca viene por la puerta y le pido
que se queda
qué hay ciertas cosas que en la noche se pueden discutir
cómo el resplandor de la luna
y la partida de amores que llenaron la copa
O cómo cada copla puede ser escrita bajo
los escombros de la noche
bajo los luceros que conjuran el nacer de la mañana

Dame tu abecedario para comérmelo
para finalmente tragarme todo esos límites y esponjarlos para abonar las flores que nos quedan por plantar

My high school was on Martin Luther King Blvd across the street from the Los Angeles colosseum, the sports arena and the Exposition park
I spoke your name so many times when telling my aunt on which street to drop me off when my parents where too busy to take me to school, when telling the pizza guy where to deliver the food, when asking the bus driver “Does this bus stop near MLK boulevard?”

Your name like your legacy permeated the streets on the other side of town and was carried on the tongue of the urban fleet
of feet commuting, living, making a dime, trying to spread visions of a loving world

we inherit your words and they are gifts and we honor them today
I am happy your name never left
it enveloping
humanely birthing hope
in us it remains

Había una mujer que le hablaba a lá Luna. Tan encantada estaba con la luz de la luna, que un día extendió sus manos hacia ella y le clavó sus pulgares.

Al tenerla en sus manos la mujer abrazo a la luna cerca de su pecho y le susurro con cariño “tu aluzas las más oscuras de mis noches”

I stand in the shower with lavender fields in my chest

how do I scrape off the muck, scoop out the loathing
and take off the gloves to pick up the patches of fear
that periodically gather at the base of my shower drain  

how do I heal each limb so that with majesty
I awaken knowing
full and bright that I am a child with wings
and elevation is the right song that pours out when I dream
an inheritance marbled into my being’s skin
                              …
how does a child beget forgetting
how does an adult continue such forgetting

what is the suchness of wholeness
whose scent of remembrance seems mythically far
but its verity present within our plot

                              …
our hands reaching for the bunches of lavender
that can be gathered from a bountiful field
a calm whiff of what we truly are
that can send us back into an infinite space of fruitful life
cusping possibility
                            ...
portable pastures inside our homestead
running water
and a chance to be cleansed
what suchness of being over my body  
how ecstatic
how simple to stand under the showerhead 
on the toes of today
with a meadow in my chest

The doors’ music plays from the speaker at a pub near namsan tower and friends point at me “L.A woman” and we laugh.

when I first listened to this song I was 13
i guess I am a woman and I am from L.A

Poetry whirls around me
and you will blow in like a leaf
And we will twist and turn
swirl in a leafy tornado

**** playing it cool
**** stoic faces
**** stiff limbs
you and I will dance
and the music will end all of time and drown out everyone except you and I

I look at the tree and see my lovely leaves
We share life together their bark makes that part of the world and my body makes this part of the physical world. “Oh my leaves :))”  what do you think when I stare at you with such joy in my heart ?

Let go, this story is too painful, too many pits for you to fall in
for once and for all
let go

all stories obstruct
all narratives limit
yes time passes
you can carry very verb, every noun
but I promise you your load will be too heavy

Just let go, start again
free, May this moment open you
May this life and all the boxes you put yourself and me in melt like icicles

I want for you the greatest gift of all. The lightness and the presence
the peace that they say surpasses all
it real
Please, let go
do not stay stuck to tangles web of stories
I want for you the most beautiful of lives
Let go, it has been enough now
This living is opening, this heart of yours is overflowing
Let go, you do not need the past
you passed it, you are brave whole and ever radiant as the wrinkles begin to deepen when you smile
Let go and laugh
Let go and love
Love, come back to love
no for me, not for anyone
just back to love
Love for the daisies, the sun, the wind
love for your humble soul
Love
let go and love again

Let people be and smile on through the day
feed the core, feed the core, feed the core

let people be and enjoy the breeze
nourish your being , nourish your being, nourish your being

Let others be
and just be

We get honest about the shadows
we get honest about the reoccurring feelings
we rip down our stories
so well woven spanning multiple pages that we gasp in surprise that we know them by memory

we hold space for them
and if that is crying
and if that a sentence that appears
floating from the heart to the surface carrying a message that  till then we could not bare to accept

...finally let’s not push it back down
lets look at it
let’s stop wishing things would disappear let look at what is true and allow its natural buoyancy lift over and over until
we finally offer it space and accept

Dear Dark Brown Eyes,

I  am glad something brought a wave of joy over your  countenance bubbling up as laughter. You deserve the clearest balm to ease your sighs and sorrows. And the warmest of hands to hold yours when evening envelopes the mountains
And the river that divides the north and south of Seoul is frozen over

My dear brown eyes, whatever you decide is yours to decide. Who you pray to, who you love and who you’ll be as the years go by
are all YOURS,
like the chirp of a bird,
or the song of a swallow
it must feel natural to you
and only you can hear it as it perches



MINE. My song calls me to you.
To sit by your side and to meet you once the the sprouts root and grow green,
past the frozen ground onto pathways which the light of spring is to reveal

Who you’ll be then and how you’ll feel
I will respect. The vines grow in many directions in and around all posts, fences, names and memories. They can become nuisances or the fruit for fine wine.

let your heart settle down, let your years sink in
let the beauty within your heart cleanse you “you are human” and your being loves you for it

A Lhasa de gusta el baloncesto más ,aunque es alta, ella es pésima con el balón.

El arco se le hacia lejos y lo más nerviosa que se pone lo más que se le aleja ese arco anaranjado.

Más cada día a ella le gusta llegar temprano al gimnasio de su escuela
para disparar unos aros.

Los más aros que dispara, los mas que se acera–la distancia se desase frente a ella.

Lhasa likes basketball, although she is tall, she is awful with the ball.

She perceives the arc to be far away and the more nervous she gets the farther that orange arc moves away.

However, everyday she likes to get to her school gym early to shoot some hoops.

The more hoops she shoots, the closer she gets –the distance dissolving in front of her.

In elementary school the kids who had  lice in their hair were sent home. During recess, you’d hear it through the small sneakered  grapevine while playing on the blacktop that “so & so go lice” –choruses of “ew” would erupt from the girls and some of the boys. In a few days the “so & sos” would return with a freshly shaved head.

As far I knew, lice were akin to fairies in their size and exclusivity. I’d never seen a louse or a fairy.
                              ...

There were many stray cats on our block.  When I was old enough to have a decent daily allowance I would save each dollar within my backpack’s side zipper bag until it had enough money to buy cat food in bulk.

I would get home three hours before my mom and pops, so I’d take my sweet time feeding the stray cats in the backyard. I got so confident that my parents would never catch me doing the deed that I bought two large silver cat bowls.
                            ...
My parents never caught me feeding the five stray cats. However, they did catch all the lice the cats left in the back yard.

I remember my mom running into the house screaming “ ¡hay pulgas!”

                              ...
On a Saturday, my parents made me help them spray the entire backyard. To teach me a lesson they said.
                                 ...
They were tiny and fast; they had that “now you see me, now you don’t” kind of speed. I wanted to catch them, but every time I tried I failed. Until I swatted at my arm, and squished one through pure luck did I know what a louse looked like.

Light of my light
earth and firth to the sea
hold me in your hands and guide me
release through me your yearning
whisper through me
so that I may sing it in the same key of love as you


(As long as the day can use me and calls me to rise each morning hold my heart in your hands)

When the bees buzz over the ripened fruit, you will know it was love that brought them to the stamen not pollination.

I am trying to listen to the poetry of my life stacking all the coincidences on top of one another
taking the most random of details and connecting them like dots over

I gather the riveting shards of glass
that have pounced like garden cats at the sight of a moth
when cracked by the simple act of you
pulling your hand away

I love you with the compassion, the deepness of self forgiveness, and the  jovial self belief that I love myself with.

I love you knowing you are nowhere near perfect,but knowing this about you
just sits right with me

and your will, will be yours to make
and not mine to restrict or try to change

My lilied love awaken to the new day
there the small grass is growing and the glow of the day is here permeating our skin –warming us even if we are apart

My lilied love I hope you can feel me somehow in the thick light of the day
when you open your window or walk outside

My lilied love I know we are in different season of our lives but we are ripening at the same time,
soften with me into this life
sixteen years, ten years, five years, three years: the amount does not matter just  the fact that I truly love you and at the same time I genuinely like who you are
these two are uncountable

lilied love would you allow me to behold
you as you behold this day ever unfolding before your eyes

It so precious dear Lily, I want to cry again how the stream bends and the cranes stands still
today, the water deer came with a friend
today, I was honored that it brought a companion. So, I bowed as it customary here to bow to another.

Dear lily, I take it all. The temporary tears, the way in which I cannot hold all but care for all. Lily please tell me the heart is infinite for mine keeps growing and I have the suspicion the whole world is held up by deep love

the way these deers appear when ask the forest to please bring my friend

The people go out and line up
Lining up is an everyday thing, right ?
25 or less people at a time
these crowds aren’t so popular

I fold over the cool sheets/ let my skin warm/
I have a headache/I want to rest now/ I read too much/ I forget to wear my glasses/  I am too curious for excuses so I made due by pressing the book closer to my face/ now I need to recuperate/ play music/ drink tea/ memorize silly puns/ lighten the load/ cleanse the soul/ stimulate gratitude/ light a candle/ call beauty by its name/ come into presence/ listen

Liszt and the leaves sooth me
and I sway over the pavement looking up at their foliage

if there is an answer it is there
in their rustling, in their meeting of the wind and in the simplicity of the mystery

Little bits of awe wake me up
and undo all knots

They so elegantly swing me and  sway me into the following day with a sense of patient purpose

Small moments of life that make the heaviness exit and again,
make me light and able
to ascertain that dancing is for the spirits and the living who are
as willing as the leaves to rustle in the wind

A sparrow begetting birch
soaring lightly
on the grace of wind

I wish like all children wish (like those who with prayers on the cusp of their lips
wish profoundly and sincerely) for the burden to be lifted from those they respect
and hold dear.

I wish to carry a torch of love –even through a sunless day.
So, that if they cannot see themselves clearly reflected
because there is not enough light (to illuminate their entire mirror) then, at least I can point my little fire forward
so that they can see their next step.

It is strange to feel like I am right where I belong
when I am alone with my tender mind, my malleable body and
the continuous spirit that waves to me from inside while on the outside, I am surrounded by four walls, two windows, and few belongings.

I no longer own a car, I no longer have a garden to walk out to, I no longer have pets, or trees to pick fruits from, nor grass to lay over just
linoleum wood flooring to sit on and one mug that reads "Live Happy"

And I knew today that I would not leave you
that so was my love I dissolved into a sea and could longer pick out the grains of salt that were me

I do not want to pick me out I want to the part of me that is you to live and wilt as all life does when it’s time comes. How many years, how many embraces–I want them all next to you.

Donde la vida te lleve
ahí se abrirá de luz

played too many albums and ran my fingers down too many cold pillows that at this point I should feel silly
which I do only because they aren’t you

I have no intention of ravaging
through the piles and aisles of consumer goods in my mind

No ravenous hands that will do the hunting
deed and feed a primal thirst of mine, aching
to satiate a beast from an old fairly tale

Long, long ago is over. Long long ago in a faraway place
is no longer here and now, there are no beasts
except the ones I indulge and tonight- the room is empty

No high wall outside my window
just a half moon of solitude
and its ray of acceptance shinning through

Look at how beautiful you are when the thought of love opens up your arms to your own reflection
Look at that gleam in your eyes when you realize you deserve all there is
to a fruitful life
Look and be astounded
by the way your joy and your truth
are untouchable by shame, and embraceable by all who know this life is neither black or white
Look at you already so full of light
powerfully & unapologetically shinning into existence