Becoming Sanctuary
If you’re experiencing yourselfas a lonely individual right nowdon’t read this whole thing yet. Firstgo outside, touch a treetalk with an old person and a child and a birdeat something made for you by anothermove, rest,...
![Poetry at 50, in the US, as a woman [white], 2021, during a pandemic, in a glorious & painful spring, a flash poem, in four parts](https://www.collectiveself.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IMG_3336-400x250.jpg)
Poetry at 50, in the US, as a woman [white], 2021, during a pandemic, in a glorious & painful spring, a flash poem, in four parts
1. Our flags always fly at half-mast now.Wide and unhealed wounds on high for the world to seeflap dripping loss and pus rains down into the public square. Below themwhite men, whips still in handand a few hard-yoked women, their heads downplodding alongfacing only...
Pandemic Emotions, September 2020
This is for Bayo, who prompts me to be more honest and open, more me, and to let go into becoming more us... Some friends are saddened right now by humanity's apparent reactionary rush to re-occupy familiar ways during this Covid-19 global pandemic (known as the Great...
What I’m Made Of
Thanks for the fun prompt, Natalie Kinsey! I wrote this poem for fun two years ago, on January 9, 2017. Just re-found it. Forgot to publish it. Whoops. Since it still rings true, seems worth publishing now... What I'm Made Of I am made almost entirely of open sky ...
Why I Write
I had a gallbladder attack---a tall, dark gallstone and I passed a wild night in the emergency room---last November. I've been slowly healing with an unhappy gallbladder ever since. Now here in July, just two weeks ago, facing unexpected stress, I found myself with...
Poetry Reveals Our Hidden Roots and Connections
Poetry reveals our hidden roots and connections. Isn't that cool? Look what I just found. This brings me so much joy… The Light of the House by Louise Imogen Guiney (published in Happy Ending: The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guiney, 1909) Beyond the cheat of...
Defending Silence
I walked alone in the Because I felt the pull of I knelt beside the To better see the And then to my A warm light touched And the whole place began to Or maybe I just I couldn’t believe my And dropped down to my I reached out to And found And found And found...
What the Blue Bird Said to Me Today
I want you to celebrate yourself. Shake off your dust. Find fierce stones that speak to you hold them, gentle now, then drop them into rivers wrinkle your wide-eyed face to focus as they sink straight down oblivious to the current. Muck arrives through always-clear...
Follow the Flowers
I want to be that hummingbird following flowers from Bellingham to Baja I want to be human, too cheering all the others who follow their ancestral dreams back and forth across imaginary borders
The Invitation (Rewrite Approximately #7? I’ve Lost Count)
When the wind strolls in, my meadow friends dance and bow. When waves rush to crash across my ocean friend, wide beach smiles back at me and the eagles work-resting silent on wind above etch sky-to-horizon greetings down all the way home so strong, having learned to...
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