Divide the moon into two halves,
You'll find inside a million lamps,
Also cut the heart into two halves,
You'll find inside blood and valves.

Romance is trapped in a Shakespearean novel,
He buried it under the centuries with his shovel,
And the modern fast pace modified the human brain,
It's only a repetitive pattern of falling in vain.

Juliet has a husband, he's older by twenty years,
He's never home, she's always out shopping new fears,
Romeo is jobless, searching ups and downs for a key,
He heard life starts in the aftermath of a dream.

The old witch sitting in front of a glass bowl,
Now broke and retired, all her cookbooks are sold,
And the wolves are out, ruling the woods,
Magic's density in the air, isn't as high as it should.

So plug the stars out, pluck all the electric flowers,
The universe is now running low on power.*

● ● ●

From under the magnolia’s dark green leaves,
I saw Her. For the first time I recognized a face
Of someone who wasn’t familiar; I was
Comforted by a stranger. She showed me
A vision that would one day become mine.
I was 5; She was ageless.
We danced and told secrets and
I walked along her roots
Until the street lights came on.
Then I’d be gone, only to return to her
Branches’ embrace, coming to know her divine face
Day after day. Like it was my own. She told me that I
Was a warrior; She told me that I
Would never be alone; that my own roots would always
Guide me home; that my mind contained
Knowledge that I didn’t yet know; that through me
Healing love and creation could flow, in and out.
I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew She meant well.
I didn’t see her for many years. Until:
After 17 rotations of the sun, after thinking
All I was was said and done, She returned to me
In a dream. I was
Down and out, seeping self-doubt.
I looked upon Her face but saw my own:
She said to me
     “Come in through the leaves. Sit at my roots.
      Look at me: look at my blooming flowers that will soon wither;
      Look at my deep, entangling roots, that have held on for many storms;
      Look at my leaves, evergreen, but always growing.
      I am proof things remain but there is no way that
      You will stay the same. You will yield to change.
      To feel joy amid all the strange
      Is a feeling you cannot feign,
      A feeling foreign to your brain
      There is no way it will sustain. But, find peace
      Knowing that your soul’s moonlight won’t cease
      As the same light was never extinguished in
      All those who came before you:
      Your magic is ancient. Your roots are deeper than
      Any pain you may be feeling now. You carry within you
      A potent medicine, passed down to your in your life’s blood,
      From mothers, midwives, magicians, mighty warriors
      Who bore you, who birthed the essence of who you are,
      And are becoming yet.
      Like you, I, too, was once a sapling, just beginning to feel
      Our great mother’s earth, not yet knowing what it could offer.
      She ensured my growth was not stunted; that I was not lost in the forest.
      For every snap of a branch, there have been ten more that grew;
      For every season I went without, my blooms doubled the next.
      It is not in your mind’s eye now, but it will be:
      The day when you come to know Her as you know me,
      The day you fuse your old and current selves, to meet
      Who you will become:
      The past, present, and future selves as one
      Fluid transition to your newfound position
      Giving recognition to all parts: those without and within
      To strive, to seek, to dream
      May you never lose steam
      To achieve, to fight for what you believe
      To pursue all things with hope, all things
      With love, in service to below and above.
      Illuminating dark spaces, to seek familiar faces
      In unlikely places and cherish the embraces
      That you may never feel again.”
And She is gone. The coolness of the air, not Her branches,
Wraps around my shoulders
Much of what surrounds me serves only as a placeholder
For the connection that yields direction.
The signs and prayers could all just be deception
But is believing in something not better than despair?
It’s a game of Lotería, but it keeps matters fair
But magic and all is coming, with no shortage in sight
And I can change the course of fate if I will it.
Still, for now, the Fool’s fortune is greater than my own
What power can I possible conjure when I’m all alone?
I am left with only my intuition and sheer volition
That’s wearing thin, but I’ll search for more within
Even if nothing is revealed, even to examine my scope of field
It may yet yield all which is past and now healed.
I remember the pact we made when I was five,
But, oh, how much harder it is now to keep hope alive.
I’ll continue to dream
even when I’ve lost all steam,
even when the light narrows to a single beam.
I’ll continue to hope
even when the Universe says nope,
even when I’m seeing only a limited scope.
I’ll continue to pray
even if I don’t know if I’ll see another day,
even when the response is after much delay.
I’ll continue to dance
even if I’m not granted a deserved chance,
even if my moment’s magic fails to entrance.
I’ll continue to create
even if I share my art too late,
even if my efforts are met with hate.
Magnolia’s gaze reminds me of my earth’s view
This vantage point above it all
But keeping close to those I’ll care for
Nurturing with compassion and intuition,
Healing by soft light,
Providing others with gentle protection,
Remembering my ancestors’ loving lesson
Of rooting, and growing, from deeper within.

As I work on my house
I come to realize how
Many wires, lights, switches, and bolts
It has on the inside and out.
And so I begin to think,
We are the same.

We can look beautiful on the outside
And be terrible on the inside.
And we can look terrible outside
And be beautiful on the inside.

The size of the house does not matter
If it is not filled with the desire to shelter.

The shape of the house does not matter
If it is built on the perfect foundation of principles.

The color of the house does not matter
If it has the ability to spread light onto the world.

This is your house,
What you fill the house with is what you will have to live with,
Till the day you clean the house
Which will clean your soul.

the ultimate masterpiece
   of soft flesh perfection
an ideal of creation

where life meets
   conception
form fits function

life breathes anew
    softly
then rages in cries

heard loudly
    of deities
of Goddesses

of galaxies brightness
    dimming
in awe

marrow and bone
     clothed
in eternal gloriousness

standing as
     God  
made her

for the flowers
     moons
man to absorb

for life to have
     hope and
eternal glow

The moment arose, less like a siren, than a sunrise
And I, I began to confess

Not to a lover, or a priest, or to the lover of a priest
Instead to a rain soaked stranger sitting beside me
who’s eyes afforded me assurance that my burdens
would find safe harbor upon his shoulders

Though I churned slowly at the start,
like a steam engine, rolling downhill, my pace quickened
As I transitioned from casual transgressions down
the rabbit’s hole, rich with growing shards of truth

His knowing glance, like Santa Claus to a wayward child,
set at ease any concern that time was limited
and so I slowed, rather than rush past some truth
that demanded full accounting
while in him I found familiarity that I could not place

Though his words were few, they were will chosen, marveling at how
matter-of-factly he regarded my menagerie of secrets, sins and lies,
always with a short story, similarly slanted, in the life of someone he once knew

And feeling not the least put off,
I reached asunder and pulled the roots
of the most stubborn weeds and laid them plain upon the bar as he,
accompanied by a cup of tea, relieved them of their tenacity, reconstructing them as sunflowers whose season,
now soaked with light, was yet to come

I shared the deeds I did, for what I misunderstood love to be,
and how far I had fallen from the places I once stood,
at which point he chuckled
drawing sticks on a napkins back
to show me how much higher I was standing
since making peace with my reflection

Yours are the stories of the world he said with tender conviction
The lies you’ve told, the chase for gold the fear of ever getting old

They are but songs in the opus that you’ve just begun to write
And not a single passerby out there in the twilight feels less guilty
They simply have not yet found the courage to look clearly in the mirror as you are now

And like a caretaker, he swept my confessions into a pile,
exposing a small scar, circle shaped on his left hand
as he coaxed, then chided them into the silver light
that reflected off the bar  from the street lamp that stood patiently in the rain

Without a word he tipped his hat and set off on his way,
while the bartender, perhaps in kindness, charged me but for a single tea

The days to come were filled with love
and more wonder than I’d thought there was
as I, unburdened, learned to walk, then to run and fly

And truth be told the stranger had not crossed my mind
until the day a careless step left a peculiar scar so very strange,
circle shaped on my left hand