Poem for Sunrise

Sunrise. Towering up, chopped down and shaven close. Raw, forbidding. Daylit sky scrubbed blue with steel wool. Cracks crumbled from within. One inching vine crawls toward the center...where is it going? No one knows but the insides, the sap, the hollow opening in the stem. This tree grew from seed, grandfathers, anchored in stone and arching up to kiss the sky eternally.

I am a tree. I stay in one place, ever moving my hands to clasp sapphires in the air. My tongue is fire; I embellish voices in my mouth and bring them to you dried and ready. Throbbing between my toes: earth. Soft and subtle soil climbs through my pores, drips into my veins and fills my brain with lusciousness. I freeze, then thaw at the first eternal springtime. Winter is over. I survived! Now it's time to breathe again, to be new again, to live again. It's time to come back to life.

I've never been afraid before, just stuck in a place where I don't know how to get out. I can still breathe through a hole in the cave, but my eyes don't work and my body can't move. I am alive. My flesh fills with emotion. I drip with sweat, effort, work. Nothing budges except my eternal discontent.

The breaking through is a breaking asunder. Molten pieces of rock, clay, volcanic ash. I am on fire. I spew everything I own into the upper atmosphere of existence because I know my friends are up there to catch me. I know if I die I will end up clasped in the arms of an eternal beloved one. I never fear, for I too will die. I will die with you, for you, amongst you, because of you. And I will live again that one bright morning we all look together and breathe.

The breath openness, stillness, flow. The brake of innocence, sweep of stars. I know not where I came from, yet my hand aches with the desire to tell my story to you in gold-leafed pen. Will you listen? Will you shut your mouth long enough to receive one tiny message of eloquence or desire flown forth from my tongue? This is medicine--flame, fire, flamboyance.

I know you think I'm joking but maybe this iron is too hot to use anymore. Maybe my feet will rust with under-use if I forget to wear my special shoes. Do you remember the last time you took a walk with God? Did you see him? And if you did, what did you say? What can you say to God? He knows everything in your heart. He is one with you. You are his baby, his child. He loves you like a father. Then maybe all we need to say is Thank You, and put a rose on our heart to show the grace we feel.

Tender-lipped openness
A dove winding high over a mountain cliff
I forget
Why
I didn't love myself yesterday.
There were so many reasons
Yet they all vanished
The day I saw my own reflection
In sand.

Where does time go when it goes away? Back to the future? Maybe time is stored up in some beloved one's hourglass, constantly recycling itself to be used again as Mayan Calendar energy or Revelations from the Bible. Maybe all I know how to do anymore is write. Maybe I've forgotten how to be afraid. Maybe I've stepped into my ship of dreams and I am finally living life from my heart. I know I put my eye in my chest--my poems reach out from there and touch the heavens. Do aliens from other galaxies read my words that are all strung out between the stars? Perhaps they feel my prayers as the golden light reaches out to eternity.