Hope Floats

To my mother, who through no fault of her own, was my 'savage island'
...and to learning, and being taught: it is time to be free.

I was chained
long enough
to a savage island, dreams
hanging on a rod into the sea,
caressed by odd waves
yet always tethered and tied,
they pulled hard, and longed
to be free.
 
I picked at the knots that held
them fast; watching other dreams
spread wings and sails;
and I tried to launch mine, when
the monsters weren't looking,
always to trip on my chains, and sharp
rocks, and fail.

I cut my hands, and skinned
my knees, the savage island insisting
I cry and bleed, for my simplest wants
and whims;
but I only tried harder, to hold out my
dreams, to the liberating winds.

Despite my chains;
my arms and my soul;
my heart;
stayed flung open wide
and I sat on the jagged, dangerous rocks,
spurning caves where
dark secrets could hide amongst demons
that crept on the beach,
slipping silently
between lines of trees,
and howling out, in empty nights
just to frighten me, as I sat,
on my precipice, alone.
 
I waited there, until a small boat
drew near and saw me pulling
at my ropes,
my chains,
and my anchored dreams,
it offered me a hand, and I pointed to the sand,
where the demons cackled, behind palm leaves.
 
I pointed to the caves
where the secrets lurked, and silently,
the boat began to work, untying every bind
and cutting me free, it reeled in the rod
and all of my dreams; and the wind through its
sail, sighed and breathed:
"it will never matter to me..."
   
So lighter now, I stepped aboard,
and the boat sailed out a little way,
and moored, and the demons,
they could still be heard,
on the island,
but they could do no harm,
as my open heart and my soul
and arms, threw off
the very last of the ropes,
and I sat down and scratched
two words in the deck:
'HOPE FLOATS'.
 

Moths

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.” - Joseph Campbell
  
The sky's the thing
to an angel-winged moth; that
drapes its deafening, ragged, moon-cloth
along the most jagged of stars...to me the
things that pull are the scars of 'forever'
and 'might have been'; the moths
have hoped, and glistened,
and seen, their own pathway along
shining sea... For me, perhaps,
not so clear;
whatever somehow
feels
near; always yet further
away. I could follow them
for another day, or night -
the light ones
that have
so often
led me astray,
walk with them into
uncertain waves and call
with wolves across the bay...
but more tempted am I
to stick and stay
seated on a
filtered beach...the moths here
have much to teach
me, and I to learn; so
they and I will light
a fire
and watch both our pathways
burn.

Cats

There is more than one way
to skin a cat, they say, but perhaps
I am not for skinning one
today; perhaps the light is such
to let a cat lay, and see
where that takes me instead...
But cats do not lay
in their sun-blessed beds for long
lest they are
held there by some magic;
some curse;
most cats are fickle and find
ways to search and seek their way
out. Far be it from me to be
a mouse, and let the cats play
with my tail or my head,
that said, I take pains to stay,
when I can desire no other,
and mix my elixir every which way,
forever,
dream-led,
no calculating witch at all, but a gentle,
honest sorceress instead.
   

Knowledge and Power

We were watching the moon,
me
and you, when
you told me
that knowledge
was power, and gave me distractions
in the starlit flowers and all their sleeping heads,
whilst in the very
same breath,
and minutes, and hours,
you were spiriting mine
away.

Knowledge, I learned,
is a teasing game,
like all things else, something to be kept on
your highest shelf, and drawn down only
when it's safe...
Power, I learned, is not the same,
it lives in me, though weaker some days,
and holds
the magical hope of change.
  
  

Moth

   
Dress of lace, teasing the flame,
she hovers above, offering nameless whispers
and time ebbed
by; she dips and then offers
herself
to the sky in a moment's relief...
I stare alone into my beach
fire
and turn out a lingering light;
she bats her wings as though
to fight
against my letting go;
but I look her in the
eyes and know,
it is all there is left to do, only
the free
can return to you...she looks
me back in mine,
turns,
and flies into the moon.