I wish I had more time
For the time in between For waiting for things to happen For giving more energy to my dreams For planning for the future For building on my maybes Try Maybe Many And more Any Less of Sharing and sure When we went to the beach there were more ways and Lots to be I want to blur the lines between the shore and sea and what We are supposed to be When so little is there but waking and going and coming and in and out Meals and transience Home and freedom Finding discovering from the sea There come gifts each morning And gathering Thinking about this and going back to the farms for fall Somehow blown into the wind And lofty Tan and salty What do we do when we come home? We don’t gather We dont We observe and make an art of it in our minds We come back to comparative darkness There is no more open landscape No blazing dazzling sparkling sea at morning and night No No more blinded mornings No more constancy of the sea The sound in my ears For there have been years When the stormy water The constancy of a roaring sea Nearly brought me to tears Nearly buried me I nearly needed some respite from that sound Longed for silence And even night didnt bring I have loved the sea I have feared the loneliness of that little strip of land Seen it rearranged and partly submerged by rainwater and wind Why have we built cities on these transient shores Tried to pin down a roaming pile of sand Why do we gather there and do the same with our loved ones While it may be hard to change our paths And gather under umbrellas We dont migrate there like geese for fine weather and food We fight the climate and freckles We wear shoes and cross the burning sand We swim in the salt and exfoliate and heal our hearts and minds But like any other place Imperfect and not perfect for any one of us We are gathering to strengthen the bonds of our families We are pinning together the sand of our many flying wayward spirits We aren’t cultivating except in our hearts We are by a certain measure A privileged class Even if we fear we will go hungry for it Even if that is our fear And we offer instead the solidity of pinned down sand on the perch of a once strange coast The ability to fight the sand The knowledge of another kind of fear The patience of a different kind And hunger And something we might be proud to admit Or cultured silence Patience and privilege Pride and right at the heart of the matter A day lived on sunshine and salt On waking up to a new tide and a new seashore The sea never stops It reaches further and further Every wave a comparative success or failure An advance or gentle retreat We grow to to know the sea We greet it We tumble into it We run and fall and trust the water to catch us We dive into the waves and know the way the water will carry us We play and play and learn the way we must watch for weather We aren’t farmers We walk the beach and view the leavings of the sea Little broken pieces on the edge of a wave That are let go of That can no longer hold on They are left Stopped and dragged and dropped And empty already Flower petals of the sea that are dropped and blown in a wave that is the wind Are we learning to cultivate flowers at the seashore Are we learning to let go of petals Or to gather these losses In a kind of caring justice Taking time during the hottest growing season We always leave just as the tomatoes are getting ready to produce Is there an art to cultivating That is a bit like that When its time to produce we really must let go of the reins and stop the watering? Or am i just not charged with the gardening And why do I feel so guilty for this travelling Idle time when im not working Is it in winter when i do my gathering? Ive heard the shells are better in the winter And that is when the sea roars more ferociously Is my strength in standing In knowing how to be hungry and in no sight of food In not forgetting leadership And cooperation When my pantry is empty When the sea wont stop crashing Why do i always travel and fear about eating See family and worry after that about eating I grew up in a desert I know how to sit in the sun and watch lizards I know how to scratch juniper berries against sandstone And wonder where there is water To pick at cactus and wonder how it wont give up its moisture I live here now and i know how to admire a colony in a puddle I know how to see a wave of life growing in a habitat that is not a lake or a river or a stream Ive seen streams dry up and watched life blossom in those puddles Ive understood that sometimes life doesn’t need a lease or a promise That it doesn’t need a title or a permit That it doesn’t always look like it got permission Or sound advice or many how-to lessons Life itself is extra Excessive Life is sometimes built on the promise of God A future Future cultivation Sometimes it feels like life is bought on credit Sometimes life just has to feed our souls Sometimes we gather for something other than subsistence Sometimes the future must be chased and rushed after Is gained in those final exhalations The little extra momentum Purchased by a wave before Or instead is more invested in pulling back In conserving Pulling under Ready to help push a new wave higher Life new life In hungry times Times of fear and hunger Child of those times Child of pinned sand Of migrating dunes Of wind and wandering Of sweeping along a stormy uneven coast Of traveling to the point of disintegration Of gathering petals Of learning to bloom and shed keep blooming Of learning to fear If its hunger Of giving If its calmitude Of wearing into nothing Of facing wind Even if i am transplanted Even if i am always coming home My eyes adjusting again to greenery To shrouded horizons To slower skies and softer light And settling back into The time when people are bringing forth our harvest Me with my roots just resetting Just with readjusting What do i give and when is my time I am transplanted What is my duty Is it to the sea? When do i return? The skies here don’t blow like that The landscape needs no pinning The people need no respite from the sound of stormy water If i am transplanted and i dont understand my purpose If i try to think about the excess of family Of gathering for something other than cultivation If cultivation of a family is something that can be done at all If i am transplanted If i am to take that growing home with me And wander around for a little while and try to understand How seashores relate to my home Is it by pine trees And puddles Is it by seashells and tumbling rose petals Is it june bug holes and chipped and broken Is it by the stars? Not when there is no silence Food Silence Understanding some of my needs and how i act When things change When ebb and flow Understanding how you cannot juice a cactus How my spirit might cling to me a little tighter if im always in the wind How a puddle full of hatching things Might make me want to protect and pity Might make me watch the weather Might make me pray for rain My storm weather creeping always from the shore behind me As i swim and examine the incoming sets I try to understand the sea and what it has to say So deeply i am almost setupon by storms How to look over my shoulder How to live in my beautiful outdoors How to love the land and be transplanted from it To live with memories and rejoin the harvest To be spiritually giving And vulnerable because of my hunger To be angry for being transplanted To be gathered like pinned sand When i am growing forth from my family There is no soil I am no daisy I am a branch and cultivation is very far away I am magnetic I long for the soil and yet the sun calls me to it And feeds me another way Pulls me farther from my home I am fed from the soil I am surrogate I climb to the sun I have a duty Fed by the feelings that pull me in two directions Life is splitting open and shedding older layers of skin Life is excess and life is resistance Life is flying sometimes and not knowing how to feel I am transplanted and i am very good at this feeling I am gathering to nourish my spirit On pinned sand Trying to grow to know an ever changing sea Admiring dead and lost and castoff seashells That have been brought forth like exhalations and cling to or expire upon Prostrate on the shore Protect me from this sun and cool me in the water Dance with myself and know myself when there is less of me When i am transplanted When there is sand And wind When family is truly a suspended branch Longing for soil and certainty Facing a sun and with no place to go but for it Be it duty And carefully and definitely potted and fed on scarcity And When i come back to a farmland My fear and vulnerability They are good for my home. I give my prayers too and my life is part of my world world. 2/18 I was writing that the day you died I wish I had written with you instead We could have been pen pals I knew you were depressed a little bit Maybe it was because you were talking to me I know it’s not my fault that you died Because it just can’t be To me you are like the boys on the cover of the U2 albums You are so masculine and brave You are pale like oleander You had white shoes and socks You were too good And too dark too White is my favorite color But the thing about it is I’ll mess it up if i touch it And either my heart was hurting No absolutely My heart was hurting And i reached out to you All i could think to talk about was my car issue And you gave me such good advice And so heartfelt I wanted to take it And i didnt Really what i wanted to do was take your hand I can’t lie, Youre the kind of friend i worried about when they weren’t there You came to things and i could tell you were just supporting friends And carrying around some heavy regret Maybe it was because of the way you were so ready to help me with my car problem And the way you were so willing to share about your own And how you had given your car to an ex And had been biking ever since I wanted to tell you you obviously deserved a car That i obviously couldnt just buy you one Because of course i have a son who i put before all else And because im not one of those rich entitled girls Whose dad’s buy them a boat Which they give to a friend Who sinks it This isnt a beautiful poem And you were really beautiful Im not struggling to get the words out But also there is no art here I wish we had made art together I am caught in this weird place Where i am afraid Of so much And its mostly of a nature of giving spirit When i want to give it most I feel that all of mine has been given or that giving is suddenly prohibited Or dangerous Always i am afraid of losing my most precious son I would have given you my car I wish i had said something more Like You can borrow my car anytime Because you were borrowing my bike for practice And i trusted you Despite the darkness I wish i could have explained that where you found me I guess i am just a stone and thats what i have been here I didnt know i was a stone with a black mark underneath And you were so brave to move me And expose my pain Because i know you could see it Why didnt i say more I know it could have made a difference I had so much i wanted to give you And i felt it when i walked away I think i did give you everything i could But i wish i had given you something to hold It couldnt have been my ring for you to wear on your pinkie And yesterday I made myself a sandwich and it was enough to give me strength i needed to go out and take a walk I had bought my favorite kind of expensive pickles And even though i am kind of mourning For someone honestly i barely knew You are like a white flower bud That oleander in springtime that got bitten by a frost You are a friendship that i wanted It would have been art I think we could have been friends So there i was eating pickles And regretting i hadnt bought you a jar Or asked you to the store with me or something Knowing very little Having been blindsided by something like fate again Knowing i had worried about you Even just barely knowing you If that was finally love Then i love a white hero If i was like guenevere You were my bravest knight And i loved you the most Because our love is bound by death And we are on either side of it If i am like guenevere Then my adventures are very much over And knights who do their errands Are like the guardians of my spirit And also patrolling its boundaries Moving on the counterweight of my feeling And even into a place i can’t go right now i guess When i walked away I think i gave you my pain And i wish i could take it back Or we could have transformed it I was worried about you Being as lonely as i was Following transient friends To friendly games And being so polite and quiet And not taking just by presence making Not giving but just being Knowing as i do the bounds of desperation Knowing and worrying But not saying Because not knowing I should have gone thrifting I should have been more giving This is not a beautiful poem And i would put it on your grave Because it’s me A mom Always worried about losing the most precious thing Always wanting to start over with someone Who understands i can but i cant Because of all these things You standing there Following a friend And just being You understood And not just with your thoughts I always want to curl up in someones arms And hide my head in their chest And i didnt But i would lay this on your grave And i would say That you are a knight of my heart If i was dreaming and you would permit me To love you in my dreams And the thing is I wish friendship wasn’t cruel sometimes That love wasn’t so terrifying And that i could have held your hand Dreams aren’t something to run from Maybe to run to And since you have passed I have been thinking about how some people dream more boldly And without fear And that i want to learn from people like that I wish we had eaten sandwiches with crispy pickles together And felt ready to go back outside together I wish i hadnt been afraid to be your friend And that change is ok And won’t break anyones heart I wish i even knew what foods you liked I know my taste is a little plainer But you might have found me funny And even if you didn’t borrow my car You could have known how sweet i found it That you gave something of yourself for a person you wanted to part ways with And then found a way to be With less And were just kind of pedaling On that knowledge Thinking always of yourself In limited terms And patiently waiting to grow and change And just running on that gear and being yourself On terms that were kind of limited by your giving that up I wanted to help you be a little more To gently help you move on And to add a link to your chain or A new sight to your commute A blossoming thing That you could pass on your circuit Knowing as i do How it feels to be so vulnerable So looking inward So giving of your self So strictly focusing on your own karma Your own self you can offer You were a blossoming oleander And it was so nice to meet your family and know How many brothers and sisters And how much strength there was in those bonds I knew i was meeting someone who lived in many different places Whose heart was in so many different relationships And who was so white and clear because their heart was living in so many loves I feel so angry with myself for not staying closer to that candle The little light at the center of that beautiful glistening web You are beautiful like that Like dusty dewdrops pearls on the web of a spider You are oleander Blossoming in springtime Cold and brave Pure and giving I am selfish and you are gone beyond life How can you shroud around someone who isn’t living for themselves You were sucked into a bottomless black hole And i should have knelt before your white sneakers And never left you But my son My son would be like a turtle shell And you will be the light that guides my spirit I can follow you and give to you Even when you are gone I worried for you Because i have felt like that too But then i am selfish And i still live at home I want to tell you that im living something that happened to my dad’s family And i don’t know what to say Except that this time things have changed a little I wish i could have changed more And given a little I wish i was a better friend I feel as though i am shrunken a little And there are no longer places i am welcome Except at home I am not guenevere I am hestia I am not athena I am a black spider keeper An ash sweeper In truth i love hawks and crows and robins I love many things I have been so inward and only just made it through a dark rotation of a moon For i am a moon i think I am not spinning My soul has cooled and my face Aging and silent Worn by sunshadows casting light I face it and there is no longer music in me And worn as i am I am a stone And i have learned to lie in a bed And let water wash over me If you were a fish or a person who found me I had been staying there Desperate to be away from my home But also insistent on being left alone Yet crying out for love So silently A mark i hid underneath me And you were the bravest of men For seeing me and caring And never once daring To disturb me And i could have bowed and kissed those sneakers I would lay this on your grave I would keep following those white shoes And never lift my head and watch you bloom Cruel frost And tears What are tears And why do they swell up in me and why does my body want to send them out I feel i am shrunken a little after i have cried Why do i expel the salt i had inside If something Some ice inside me had melted Or maybe some ice formed and took up that space Water expands when it freezes after all And water doesnt like to freeze when it has salt Did my heart want to freeze a little And is that why tears came I wonder as spring comes I wish you had seen some of the things i had since i met you Like weird fields of frozen crystal sprouting up like fungus From dug up fields of red clay Like my son skiing Like some of my paintings Like all of my friends and family Life feels like excess Like those crystals sprouting Forced forth From frozen soil And sprouting up in sparkling towers Life is excess And you were so vulnerable Churlish bud Like shakespeare said Thyself devoted to thine own bright flame I think it because i have felt it To thine own self too cruel And pity the world or else its famine be To eat the worlds due by the grave and thee? When life feels so like excess And you like a careful giver For a moment unwilling to take in any And walking a wire towards your future I would have been that flower stand cropping up on your commute Just something new To pass and view I would have been that clump of grass That you could softly roll over as you pass I wanted to be And you always gently I wanted to help carry you through To something new A new spring When you could give and take again You are so brave You are oleander And i wont forget The way you made me feel when i met you This isnt beautiful poetry but it is true And i wish i had given it to you in life With more than just asking about what i should do with my car And walking away wondering if it would be too silly To ask when id see you again And already worrying Ive been the thing you felt like I resent my duties at home But have nowhere else to go Just by your presence you offered me hope And having been chided and humiliated In the past I felt that taking was just That a stone cant grow legs Because it would be mocking god Or something I didnt want to anger the world By taking your hand And that was something I worried you didnt understand I just wanted to bury my face in you And have you wrap your arms around me I have a fire to keep I have a broken jeep I would have had far too much to ask of you And now you are gone A robin hopped all over my lawn Looking at me With a damaged wing And it just wouldnt let me catch it and hold it I chased it And yesterday I found it dead and frozen behind my house Under the legs of a charcoal grill I dug it a shallow grave It was still soft And its eye still i could look into it Like my grandpa It was buried before the light left its eyes I think wakes should be more common I put a stone over it The soil was soft and dark There are still brown leaves that begin to stick together like paper In the springtime Having been frozen and thawed by so many passing winter days And now rain I am thankful that i could bury a robin I began to think of painters and I am not a painter So i wrote this letter And i buried the bird with respect I will try not to be two things Although if i were a stone Worn smooth in a river There is another side to me And by laws It could be winking in and out of existence anywhere in the universe I think you turned me over I will bloom in your garden You are oleander And i am a jealous stone In life there are two sides of me In living and in death And you were so brave And you held my hand Now when i am relieved with joy I am aware of a weight lifted off of me And i choose to see you as relief You are still a part of me Carved away and you are air There used to be cold marble there you were art and I was ice you carved my heart you saw the surface of me
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AuthorWe are Kieran and Michelle, two 32-year-old William & Mary grads living in Virginia. Archives
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