the glory of an apricot in the morning is worth facing the entire world for.

an hour ago, the doctor's hand
on my shoulder, the pursed smile of empathy
(my doctor has what i have)
and she says:
you're just riding the wave.
walking up the hill
belly convulses with weeping
presses against the lumps inside
and pain shines through.

near the top of the hill i see him again
on the next corner.
for weeks now i see him
in the bodies of people still living.
this time i wonder why?
why so often lately?
and another part of my mind gives the answer:
it was this week.
how many years ago now? three.
three years.
does his spirit come then
or does some clock inside me know?

top of the hill
inside the house
the peonies i have been watching
unfurl and shine
have begun to fall open
dying on my altar.

how do we get up? how? how does anyone ever
become so brave? and having done so, how is it
that we can ever close our eyes again?

it wasn't a lucid dream per se. it wasn't that i knew what i was there to do. but when i headed toward waking the second time they were safe there past the end of the world, she with her belly big, trying to make the future. they had a plan now, and something to eat. transitioning back to waking i wondered "but how will i get all of my shoes back to the waking plane?"

they seem to be here just fine.

over a silent breakfast on the grass behind the dining hall i wonder what suffering feels like to a moth.

on the path again an hour later i find scattered mothwings. a plop of bird excrement. ants breakfasting on the nub-ends of the wings where a bit of moth-meat must remain. i consider, pick up a wing, gently shake off the ants, and sit down on the nearby bench where i like to write, a single mothwing at my side to write this, for all of us.

-

all my life i've had falling dreams. last night i didn't know i was dreaming; it wasn't a lucid dream. but i recognized the place; the height, the bottom, the people watching me fall. when i was a little girl i fell down a thousand manholes. i remember seeing my father look helplessly down over the edge, the light so high up. i couldn't walk over manholes or grating in the streets with ease until well into my third decade. i didn't know all this in the dream, but i knew: no, not this, not here, not this again. i knew i wasn't going to die; i never land. but i simply refused the dread, the whole show. and i climbed out. i climbed out!

i've been reading tibetan dream yoga. one of the foundational practices is to tell yourself in the everyday waking that it's all a dream. whew. and yet after finding myself grow stony and put the book down after reading that, a few days later i was walking down the street in the sun, past the fruit in baskets outside the corner store and i thought with bliss, oh, yes, this *is* a dream.

but the dream turn, oh, oh! what a wonder!

they fell to petal
pieces
entirely

beautifully
reminding me
to love the moment

and let it go
let it go
let it go.

love everything
cling to nothing
let the beauty be

what is.

that i could not recognize the songs of the birds

that the cats would not come to my call
even the animals
speaking a different language

but just like home in the

wisteria in bloom
pealing churchbells and
petal-strewn gutters
everywhere

after a couple stops we neared the neck of the woods where very nicely groomed men with fabulous shoes began to board. the guy, who was reading homer in 2 books and had his notebook on his lap, was reading, inward. the three men who had just boarded were all watching him. i realized what a fantasy he was, the student reading homer on the train.

one of the men tried to strike up a conversation. he wasn't very skillful, but the guy didn't seem to mind the interruption to his study. i thought about how i never respond to strangers; my response to attraction (my own or theirs) tends to be to draw inward. as i stood before the door at my stop, i thought that i could just walk over to that boy, lean down and ask him if he wanted to kiss me. and that he very well might.

i think if there had a little more time before the doors opened, i might have done it, just because i am alive.