waking up during itikaf

God is not human.

God speaks oak and mountain and rabbit as

    fluently as your tongue, or theirs.

God reaches to you in your humanness, in ways

    your human soul can understand.

You were created to respond in uniquely human

    forms - God knows our quirks.

But God is not human. God is beyond human

    understanding, and cannot be limited by

    humanness. We are not the measure.

God is Greater. God is Greatest.

You are a child of the universe.

You are on a journey home. 

Let your kinship with the world swallow you whole. 

Dissolve in the embrace. 

You were once held in a womb.

You still are, if only you knew. 

windbite

hungry windbite snaps spitsout

bones

hissing sucks marrow howling

gulping whole

and we toothstung

cheeks and

tonguelashed hands and

windfeast in winter famine

prayer for the new year

clean sheets fresh

brewed tea combed

soft hair daylight

rippled with cold

small starts

daily miracles

but inside

stretching delta of

desire

all whole all flowing

reaching ocean abandon

who is to 

say which 

salt is pleasure

which

silt is restraint

all is ecstasy and fertile

live here says

the heart

on every day ordinary

undaunted by

yearning live here

says the heart

tea served in teapot changes tea two

of cups changes alchemy of drink matching

hands around matching china patterns the

conversation differently as if to

say this ritual cannot be skipped

Banish

put me on the tongue of the woods

let it decide

pronounce or swallow

man can have no measure 

of me

veins runes in cursive

bones jigsaw riddles

eyes magpie treasure

my pleasure is the groan of river ice

men come fear-striken

and fall through 

my displeasure is wildcat scream

breeding haunted air 

so take me

to where the woods

opens its mouth let it

kiss and bite blessings into me

suck and spit curses out of me

I will become an utterance in this place

the hissing teeth of its smile 

cutting fruit at night

cutting fruit at night

bloodpooled pears

pocket knife

bruise pruning

it’s midnight on a wednesday

don’t you know 

front stoop alive with juice

slicing skin chunks thoughts 

collecting bowl between feet

she’s in one of her moods again

deciding to process the pear harvest 

before tomorrow

deciding who to be

before tomorrow 

downpour

every time it rains

the sky is pouring one out for the homies

all the dead gods

not the greek ones or whatever

the ones so old

no one remembers their names

and on the hard days

the sky cranks up the boom box

extra loud

the favorite songs

to crash and crack

open 

the clouds