L U M I N A * N O S T R I

  Lust It feels good to admit it:  I haven’t had it in so long. Like the proverbial creepy old man, My eyes rest on other’s upper lips. My legs wobble on the crest of  a pair of broad shoulders. My nose steals deep inhales of some stranger’s perfumed scent. My fingers imagine themselves wet to trace the tones of your skin. My taste buds, betrayers,  want it all, right now.

  Recall It was around this time yesterday,  under the tin of a more northern sky, the seagull’s call came crashing over our heads, loud and repeating… You’d been gone no more  than ten minutes when I heard it a second time, today. I was under  a gas station’s tin roof. I saw the two gulls call in time loud and repeating, not over my head  and not over the empty space  where yours would be. 

  Not So Secret Prayer Dear Whoever is Around To Listen—  Make me an instrument of your piece; that I can play each note as it’s meant to be played  and nothing more, nothing less. Let my small stones of hope, nope, and love, make it so.

  My Job  “Your job on vacation, mom, is to write more poems.”  I can assure you, my friends, that child is not wrong. But it’s also to make sure everyone eats, drinks water, has sunscreen, stops— in time— most of the time.  Most importantly though, is to really mean it when you play whiffle ball, or roh-sham-bow. Kids can’t stand a faker— so your best defense  to keep them from walking into oncoming traffic is really this. 

  Woman Things I just read a poem by a friend, about anger— the kind all us women folk tuck under our pillows  at night. The children, when they see it, call  my Pony Boy hair “disgusting,” aghast  at hydrogen peroxide’s power to take me somewhere they cannot go. “Maybe you should have worn a shirt.” My eight year old remarks, a witness now to the record of space  I held on a stage. It takes a good night’s sleep before  I realize it was my unbound breasts  that flagged “danger” in her girl- mind, and not the folds of skin  around my armpits. 

 God Loves Artists She ooos and awwws over every little creation. Flips through each page fingers fine pen strokes, or bold marker lines. She holds out more crayons more colors, says things like  “Courage, now. Go!” Her eyes twinkle with delight at each new beginning, each time we fail. She stands with us in the light next to good work, next to bad, and when we make something nice, she holds our chins  in the palm of her creative hand, And says “there, there, my child. Try again, be brave.” God loves artists, and I am one. 

  On Closing Does the California Poppy say to the night sky, or the clouds, for that matter,  the fog, the shade, “Pardon me, but I must close  now. It’s not you, it’s me. Thanks.” No. She silently does exactly  what is in her best interest. She explains nothing to no one, and notoriously fresh, greets the new day.

  My poem today is a rock.  My 10 Commandments  1. Be creative 2. Be kind 3. Be curious 4. Dare 5. Rest 6. Grow 7. Don’t give up 8. Reach out 9. Help 10. Be love ❤️ 

Legacy I went to  an Irish  Film Festival  today.      Turns out  every single film was about  you. 

  Permission to Fail I, Sarah Emma Ruth, do hereby permit myself— and all my descendants to fail. Fail wildly, miserably painfully again and again as many times as we are given by God, by Fate, by The Big She. In addition, I issue pardons to all my past selves— and all their many, many ancestors (the ones we children label with “good,” “bad,”) for each, for every  single time they failed. Forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. In the name of trying, of quitting, of holding on, and of letting go— in the best manner anyone ever knows how, Amen.

 One bell, then another! (A poem inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer in her Writing for Refuge retreat.)  When Tara’s trance of unworthiness takes hold, The cage of expectations  squeezes tight, the unyielding truth of your agency in  all of this comes down over the top  of you like a weighted black cape, listen for Rosemerry’s bell. Hear its playful, singing ding!  This is all temporary, ding! There are no mistakes, ding!  One day even these difficult moments will be looked upon, held dear. Ding! I want to ask Rosemerry now ‘are you sure?’ Ding!  I want to ask God now ‘Do you promise?’ Ding!  ‘Come what may?’Ding!  The front desk is empty, but someone left a sign that reads  “All will be well,  and all will be well, As long as I  take it bell by bell.”

 Weird Little Poem  I nspired by a prompt from James Crews @ Writing for Refuge "What would you miss if you were no longer here?" The blue-moth-mug my friend painted. Its bead-like black-irises. The small twin shape repeated five times over white on each wing. The playful shove of my cat, named after an old yappy dog always on the pen hand, always at the page. The moment when I lie in my bed  or that of another. The ability to search out the first or the last star.  I'd miss the smell of my candle which I light with  the best of intentions. Could I miss all the arrogant things splayed across the floor? I know I'd miss hot showers that end with freezing seconds.  First ten. No, fifteen. Fine, thirty.  I breathe. Jolt myself alive. I'd miss the bird songs by day, frog songs by night. Could I miss boyish grins, womanly curves, shared sweat?  I'd miss napkins with tea stains that flirt with my imagination,  slutty in their invitation for her...

 Magic Will Happen When you let the women folk  gather. When you utter the lethal words: no boys allowed. There will be laughter and whimsy, and body-talk and art. Someone will get teary-eyed Someone will be held dear. Magic will happen. So, Pentheus, you are right to spy.  The trick is to stay. Stay a maenad.  Stay around the camp fire. Stay and dance.

  The Do Nothing Days Some days the kids ask for a “Do Nothing Day.” Note to self: remember! that’s code for “The Beach.”  Grab the umbrella, water, cuties, and a fruit-pattern towel for each. At the beach we can do nothing in the sand,  then do nothing in the sea. Invite their auntie  who lives nearby, so we can do nothing in company. Let’s do nothing with the seaweed colored purple, orange, green and do nothing with all the yellow rocks that lay about  the scene. A “Do Nothing Day” like this makes me  glad we passed up swim, softball, church. It’s the “Do Nothing Day” on the TV, or phone that makes all those “no, thank you”s hurt. 

 FOR JORGE CHAM At a reading last night in a multipurpose room carbon copied from the one of my elementary experience  I learned three important lessons about authorship. One even if you earn your doctorate from Stanford, your parents will still have reservations about your choice to pursue your art. Two, nothing brings a group together like an invitation to play. Three— the most compelling art is art that reflects with uncanny accuracy its audience. 

  BILL Anyone else cry after talking to their tax guy before there’s a bill is due? “I just want  you to have a happy life.”He explains.  A happy life. Like when I was a happy wife? When poetry was crawling through my hair like Medusa’s snakes? When I was looking up body art of Charybdis for my calfs before six am, trying to externalize my rage, my self-betrayal? What if, Bill, for this woman, a happy life is one where men who “know better” don’t say shit? What if, instead, she is free to make bold and courageous messes in any color she please sans your commentary, except what you’ll need for write offs?  What if, Bill, for this woman a happy life is one where the poverty she shields her children from is not measured in dollars and cents, but instead in thoughtless time spent?  Save your authority, Bill, for someone who’ll respect it. I did not go through the agony of divorce for someone else to set my course. 

DOES EVERYONE DESERVE THEIR OWN PRIVATE EDEN? A place far enough from ancestral fire  that your own rite and ceremony can be tinkered with in the dark;  where human needs for satiation of hunger thirst, lust, are held with equal reverie;  where you get to pick every song, every channel,  every page in your personal library; A place you can walk around naked (or not) as you please… Does everyone want such a place? Need it, even? Let alone deserve it (whatever that word means). I want Eden. I have for as long as I can remember.  I just didn’t realize she was the place I go to escape the cacophony of family sounds.

 SO FAR FROM TRIBE AND FIRE a mirror poem of Denusha Laméris's Small Kindnesses  "So far from tribe and fire,"  is how I have  lived. Now? I make that choice no longer.  Vonnegut said "L ove whosever around  to be loved."  " Tribe and fire ," Laméris told me,  are found in  "the fleeting  temples we make together" in "brief moments of exchange." I choose to string these brief moments like prayer beads on the rosary of my day. My tribe and fire is here, always.  I just have to read the poem. 

  Coffee Shop Tension Does everyone drink the same brew as their mom? Vanilla nut smells like we’ve  made it to donuts after the theatrics of  church. Dad’s Old Spice, Mom’s muffin (bran), and the four of us all squeezed in a booth. Does everyone drink the same drip  their mom does? My rebellion  was always  the bagel order, toasted with cream cheese. Not much has changed. 

  Forgiveness Some religions want to bottle forgiveness,  sell it to you  at a price.  Others allow  it's hanging around  like a scent. It's something you can choose  to breath in at any time.  Yet to me, forgiveness is like pineapple, or asparagus. It changes the smell  of your body, its taste even. The tricky part, of course,  is for forgiveness to change you,  you have to be able and willing   to swallow it down. 

  Market Day Round 2 At dinner, my family  has demands: “Give us the highlights.” “What was the play by play?” “Did you enjoy it?”  These demands for me demand more questions. If they mean the way golden light danced across the white blanket this morning in such a way I had to rub my eyes, twice, to make sure Tink wasn’t in the room, ~ Or how I saw, twice, between passing faces and funny t-shirts and stories about rocks and poems and art, an airborne shadow of a hummingbird darting about eucalyptus  leaves across the way, ~ Or the weight of heartfelt  admiration of an eight-year-old boy with long hair over the rock I made about my dad, and the way his younger brother called the whole family back to add more color to his rock, twice, ~ Or how, when my awareness  skimmed light as a water bug atop the wash of a whole day, I wrote in my notebook “Is this the right place, the right time?” and my poet friend arrived, twice,  baring gifts like humor and grace...

  Gold Trees of Early March’s Early Morning ~ I suppose it will often feel like “just yesterday” but today it was. Just yesterday you both were here snuggling my soft bits what sags and squishes of these empty sides. I told you both “Look! Before you miss the golden trees!” They are as beautiful today, my loves. I hope you both see that too.

 Vale la pena Una poema pequeña aún vale la pena. 

Fair There is a job fair today at the library across town for folks who speak two languages or more, like me. I won’t be there. I'll be speaking Spanish in my son’s first grade class, after spending my morning making art, listening to poets following my musician-friend’s advice to give it to myself.* *the title of Penny Sparkle’s song , a friend from my Creative Cluster. 

 Collecting I am collecting again:  handmade ceramics, the wonky ones discarded  in thrift stores; brass animals from afar or nearby; song books, receptacles, notebooks,  markers, movies and music and friends. I collect friends.  I crack open my heart, show my soul to friends. 

 Fucking Around The universe sent me two twin vases so I could break one, stomp around about it, before being the only person in town to sit down on this Tuesday to watch  The Poet, a movie a friend suggested with the caveat  “It might be too on the nose.”