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Archive for August, 2026

At the Poetry Slam Championship in Kansas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 2, 2026| 1 Comment »


 
 
There in the church of poetry
beneath fluorescent lights
on a makeshift stage, 
one naked heart
after another came to the mic
and through words and breath
they turned wound into blossom 
again and again until the evening
became a giant bouquet
of the unbearable being borne.
It is a terrible gift to make beauty 
out of suffering,
and this is the gift we most need.
But what stays with me, too,
was how each time a poet was called up,
a woman in the middle of the audience
with a voice made of equal parts
midnight and salve
would croon low and smooth, 
Let’s go, poet. 
Each time she spoke it, 
she made a red carpet out of sound, 
a generous path for the poet to step onto.
Each time, she spoke it, 
I felt my whole being soften and open
through the alchemy of encouragement. 
This, too, the gift we most need—
to dare to turn toward
what makes each other bleed.
This, too, transforms wound into generous bloom, 
the gift of hearing and hailing,
honoring each other’s humanness, 
saying yes, I see you, I see you. 

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Reunion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
 
Thirty million years ago, 
a number I can say but cannot
comprehend, the mountains 
 
where we hiked today
were covered in a deep layer
of volcanic ash which somehow
 
formed the spire of Lizard Head Peak.
I am constantly stunned by this world
that makes and remakes itself 
 
out of the same matter.
How complicated, yet how simple:
we all belong to each other—
 
a thought that, for a time, 
made me feel like a crumbling mountain
walking among crumbling mountains, 
 
like a dry stream bed walking 
along the dry stream bed, 
like a clover gone to seed 
 
walking amongst fields 
of dry, papery clover petals,
every step a reunion.
 
 

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