Firefly Spell

When we got to a clearing - beyond the point where we'd left the highway- you tugged my elbow and whispered “look”-I lifted my head looking up to a near absolute blackness.

Then I saw the fireflies. Fast spirals in and out of sight- I watched them tuck into the silence of trees to return, spin, tumble and increase. Tens became thousand – I could not count them.

A second time you whispered- "Breathe" I exhaled and let my feet root to wet earth and my eyes expand to blue-white sparks that came close enough to touch-

I can't say why but I grew anxious and you took my hand, asked me to give it just a moment longer, to open up just a little bit more – Then I felt a release-

A succession of slips, phosphorous ghost glows twisted from within my skull and out through both eyes. memory and lies, bits of laughter chains of events and voices of long dead friends, all gone and out!

Then your third whisper lifted me up, held me suspended, and brought me back down to your side. How long had we been here? And what issued from me into this night's wet blackness. . .

Your silence told me that now was no time for talking. Not just now.

March 13, 2010

Exploding in Silence

First an image of the opposite
Of the Buddhist’s hungry ghost
A full-bellied prisoner who instead of begging for more
Must expel, exhale, exude, reach
A spirit full, not empty, with infinite juice –

Then the second -a diver
And his descending in an arc from a cliff -
Toes pointed, arms extended to grab clouds
And in this image I find even a vulture who circles
Waiting for the diver’s next move. .

I am tossed to a memory –
three years of fighting with someone I loved.
We can’t speak now and can’t touch
And I am my only witness to the fact
That I will not forget.

I feel these rushes - body medicine
Coming on strong and in waves.
No one to talk to
Since the calibration is off
And what would people say?

How can I help you?
What else can you tell me?
Are you still seeing a counselor?
I would guess it to be like bleeding out
In front of bound and gagged witnesses.

Then comes the third image - rush of salt water
Shooting through my body and out my pores.
To the no one watching I want to say
There is nothing you can do but stand back. . .
I really can’t explain.

In all of this rush I know
That the explosion happens on the inside
And the outside remains still.
Passers by see nothing and maybe feel less.
Maybe it’s not happening at all.

And what of the accidental empath
Who happens by in this moment,
A misplaced intuitive
Who stands within range
Of the explosion and its subsiding?

Then silence returns.
I see my atoms returning and re-integrating.
The expanding and incendiary starfish contracting.
Body intact and the eyes glassy.
Crosswalk says go and I cross to the other side.

March 7, 2010