The Rose Dance

Golden light from the window
Silence, the sweet sound
In this peaceful scene
the rose dance begins
A row of beauty lines the room
dead petals hardened with age
but full of inhuman life
the rose waltz will start
An unheard music
sets the mood
Listen without your ears
Can you hear it?
It begins quietly
the boldest beauties
start with gradual swaying
If you are still you may watch
The dance becomes wilder
leaves sway and stems are merry
Cobwebs join in
Adding their mysterious, slender grace
Tossing, spinning
Faster and more intense
The slightest sound in unheard
over the roar of the motion
Solemnly it calms
swaying choreography ends
the air remains charged
with the energy of the dancers
Can you feel it?
Come join the rose dance

Self-esteem

A fire in my head/ burns reason to rage./ Thoughts, like embers,/ spark and crackle in the wind./ Sometimes, a flaming ash escapes/ and scorches; / but more commonly/ it burns itself,/ kills itself,/ just as my thoughts/ burn my reason.

It's a lie, what they say, that the Sprit goes to bed at midnight. He's with me now, at 4 am, as I cry, alone, in a bed that's not my own, in a house that's not home. He soothes my heartache that makes it difficult for me to take the deep breaths nessisary for peaceful sleep. He sorts the thoughts that speed through my consciousness, causing a traffic jam to rival downtown NYC. He sends me dreams that calm the confusion of daily life, and gives me answers to my most complex questions. Even now, at 4:30 am, he knows who I am. He knows that I am trying to fix what I've done wrong, and prevent future sins. He knows how much I want to love him and be loved. He sends His spirit to protect me from myself; from the hate and degregation that comes from being excessivly self-critical. And now, at 5 o'clock in the morning, he rests my soul, and my body. He blesses me with a world of dreams where everything happens the way my most purely natural mind imagines it. No, the Spirit doesn't sleep so that I can. Thank you, God, that I can have thy Spirit with me always. Amen.

Oops

I dropped it lost it.
It was so hard to find
in the first place,
and now
I have to find it
all over again.

Train Whistles

I am pulled from a sleep with no dreams by a sound that woke me many other nights of my 19 years. I don't open my eyes. I feel the familiar room surrounding me. My books overflow their shelves; my books that hold a code that might unravel my thoughts because it was from their pages that such thinking leaked, one idea from this writer, another idea from that one. The books, however, are closed, still. I sense the presence of the beautiful desk. A birthday surprise when I was a teenager. It is magical, literally. It is all covered with papers from school, unfinished projects and more books, but I pull the rolling cover down and my room looks tidy again. The wardrobe bears down on the room, a haunting mass of darkness. Too big to belong, I try to disguise its bulk with posters and a hand drawn world map. In the darkness, these coverings further distort the giant, multiplying the ghostly shadows and random spots of light. I sleep with my face toward the wall to keep these images out of my dreams. The presence of the room has sound, too; the low hiss of the air vent above my head. The air moves my hair as I lie with my eyes closed. It tickles my neck. I twitch because it feels like a spider. I will dream about spiders again tonight, big ones that won't die. Sounds produce memories. The growling furnace outside my door reminds me of playful fear. I try, sometimes, to scare my siblings. They screech. We all laugh. Dad pounds on the cealing from above us. He yells at us to go to bed, but later, he'll hide in behind the furnace and make me scream. He'll laugh more than I do. My sister, on the bed below me, snores loudly. I think, momentarily, about smothering her. She smells, too. Like a young teenager, she smells, the way they do before they master the art of deoderant and clean clothes. I love her. I hate having her in my bedroom. The train whistle blows again. It's later than usual. It's beautiful. Sounds bring back memories. An old memory seduces me back to slumber. The rising sun greets me as I sit on a porch. The backyared in front of me is not large. The fence at the end of it is. I hear the whistle and come to the porch. I count the train cars. They don't have trains like this at home, I think. I am too young to know that trains are everywhere, not just at Great-grandma's house in Canada. One last time, the train whistle blows from some distant track ouside my window. The brief dream disappears, leaving only the blackness of the back of my eyelids. I can feel the winter cold finding cracks in the seal of the window frame. I pull my blankets back on top of me. They fall off when I sleep. I must not hold still while I sleep. I open my eye for just a moment, accidentally, really. The wall in front of my face is white, but it is not mine. The familiar presence flees. It is replaced by college books, bills, rent checks, car and health insurance, food plans, jobs and budgeting. I am abandoned in this place that feels and sounds like my room. Real home is not far away, but far enough. Even now, when I'm half asleep, I forget that train whistles blow everywhere, not just at home.

Guys and Making Choices

The other day, my sister called me. She was upset because her boy wanted to take her on a date, but he refused to plan anything. He wanted her to decide where to go. She was frustrated because she felt that being responsible for date activities is a sign of appreciation to her. If nothing else, she felt that he should decide simply to respect her wishes. I could relate to my sister's frustration because, not even a week earlier, Mike and I argued over the same thing. I told him that I have a lot of major decisions and responsibilities that I have to take care of every day. It is a relief when even one choice, even if it's a small one, is taken off my shoulders. He argued that he doesn't care what we do as long as I'm with him. Though this answer was flattering, I was not impressed. Today, at church, I overheard some girls talking about a date. The one who went on the date expressed her frustration over the fact that the guy had not planned the date very well and expected her to decide where to go out to eat. Really guys!? What happened to the days when the guys were responsible for every detail of a date? Girls, if you have any opinion on this subject, please reply to this note. Maybe, if the guys know that this is important to us, they'll try to change.

Memorial Park

I can see the whole park. The pond to the north. It's all covered in slime during the summer. It's fun to slide on. Like ice skating with water up to our knees. The slime collects in our toes. We play king of the rock on that boulder that someone threw in the middle. The police drive by. They yell at us to get out. We wait 'till they leave, then get back in.
From where I sit, I can see the playground. It's no longer hidden. It's behind those stumps. Those stumps were trees. Trees that we climbed. The police men didn't like that either. We never really liked the playground. It was built after we were kids. The old equipment was better, but they took it all out. "Too dangerous" they decided. The drinking fountain in the middle worked once. It doesn't now. Kids try it all the time. When the sun is hot, they are disappointed. One boy I liked kissed me in the slide. The big tube kind that kids try to climb up. It wasn't very fun. He was a bad kisser. We like the swings, though.
The bear cave is closest to me. It has only one door. It has bars on it. The cave is a small building. It's made of thick cement. It's sunken into the ground, like it's too heavy for the dirt. We were afraid of it. We aren't now. We saw the door open once. They keep boring things in it. Things my mom would like. Shovels and mowers for landscaping. We sit on top of it and listen to concerts. Only sometimes, though. It's too crowded, too. I try to push my friends off. I really want to push the strangers off. The loud, annoying ones.
The fields are far away. There are three now. Big ones seperated by a sidewalk. The sidewalk says no bikes. We ignore that, too. The policemen don't yell at us for it. We play frisbee and football in the fields. There used to be only two. The south field was the swimming pool. They tore it down. Another one was built further away. We miss the old one. The new one is crowded. The fields make us dirty. We get grass stains and mud stains. People bring their dogs. We get dog-doo stains. In the summer, we spray each other with the sprinklers.
I can see the stage. It's blocked by a few trees. The trees are fat. They've been there forever, I think. Bands play on the stage. Rock bands, sometimes, but mostly brass bands. They play every Sunday in the summer. People come from all the cities around to listen. Mostly, I think, they come to visit each other. Only the people who sit in the seats listen. The people on the grass play games and talk. We sit on the grass most Sundays. We throw grass at each other. We dance on the stage. When all the people leave. We dance the cha-cha. We dance poorly.
I can see the whole park. I sit on the wishing man. One boy I loved told me it was the wishing man. I told my sisters.
We sit on the wishing man. We close our eyes and make wishes. The wishing man grants our wishes. He always grants our wishes. Unless our wishes are bad wishes. One friend proposed to my cousin while she sat on the wishing man.
The wishing man is a tree. A giant pushed him over once. The wishing man didn't die. He grew bent. Bent enough for four five of us to sit on once. Now only two or three. We're bigger.
I sit on the wishing man. I can see the whole park. I sit on the wishing man because we are gone. Every lover who walked me over the fields has left. Every friend who muddied my knees and squished goo through our toes moved. The dancing stopped. It stopped because the partners gave it up. Other friends throw grass at each other now. A child asks me if I will move. She sits on the wishing man. I watch her make a wish. I don't know her.