Many Faces

Faces of the mother 

Are many, oh sweet child 

You know for sure

they see us in all our glory

And they hear us in heartbreak

Small eyes watch how we

Move through this world

Aware

Taking it in to spit it right back out 

In our general direction 

Our eyes watch them, oh sweet child

There goes my heart walking around out in the world 

How we ever stand it

I’ll never know

How we ever learn to sew up the small tears 

Left in our hearts

I’ll never know

But will we ever get tired of the soaring 

Connection of that golden ribbon that binds us 

Not in this life

Or the next 

BL

5.10.20

A Lockdown List

A Lockdown List

Say yes to your hungry soul
Walk into the stormy night
Speak what you've been holding back
Sip whiskey at midnight
Think of the color of your best friend's eyes
(her beautiful eyes)
Make a list of the hugs you will give when this is over.

BL 4.26.20


 

If Only

If I had known how much I would miss
The people in the ether
The incorporeal ones that I love
I would have named children and pets and cars and trees
For them
Sung their names on the wind
Called the dog Floyd
Named the girl Joan
Spoken them into my life each and every day to keep
them present and part
of us and threaded through
All that we do as a quiet benediction
A nod to love
An affirmation of the people who
were my person

If I had known.

BL 12.27.15

Stealthy at night

Tonight I will steal away
my breath will hitch silently
and my feet will curl down lithely as I hurry in the dark
Don't find me
I need to wander and listen
I need to hear the rain and wander

Tonight I will drink sweet coffee
and steal, steal away while the fire is in me
I want you to miss me
Like the rain misses the waiting earth
I want you to ignore my absence
as though I still stand
A statue forever bent and tending
Someone small and needy

Tonight I will take out my pages
and I will tend them
I will care for the words and I will feed them extra syllables
for dinner
And I will discipline the unruly nature
of the spilling lines
And then I will wash the pages clean
and start a fresh day

There is always something to tend.

Bethany
May 2015

Lurk

I want you to live on my street
so we can wander around
and lurk under trees
I want to walk barefoot into your kitchen
and feel the grit
and we can't care
I want to whisk you away
for hours
so we can laugh until our faces hurt
and all I do is make a face and you dissolve
into hilarity
I want that
That meaty filling part of life that is helpless laughter
and sublime enjoyment
And the certain knowledge that it will
all
be
okay

XOXO for my Greenway Therapist
-Bethany

Rosary

This one goes out to my ladies, near and far. Now I'm grinning, because in my head, I sounded like Barry White when I typed that. 

I gather you in, your strength, your positive thoughts and vibes - you. I think these days roll by and we hurry and scurry, and I think maybe I forget to tell you I care. Then I read a bit of a writing by someone like Rachel Lewis, and it burns me with its direct beauty. 

*******************************************************************************************************

I count you on my fingers

One digit for each

You are my soul sisters

and I am saying lucky

with each name I recite

lucky lucky lucky

Lucky we found each other

lucky lucky lucky

Lucky our hearts knit

I breathe your name

I call up your essence in my head

In times of need

You are comfort, you are calm

On days of challenge

You are rage, you’ve got my back

Like saints I whisper you into being

Conjure you with a memory

You are my rosary

My consolation in days of dread

Blood’s got nothin’ on soul

BL

5.29.14

To Be Me - Birthday Edition

What a day for a poem on being me! Today I am 37. I keep hearing Alice Cooper in my head "I'm 18, and I don't know what I want..." then the Beatles, then Cracker - the birthday songs of my life. My parents would play them, my friends would crank them up, and now it's me: singing them in my head, musing on those years, happy to be right here. Right now. This is the good stuff. You are the good stuff, you friends. 

Here's one from a few weeks ago:

To Be Me

To be me is to be hearing snippets

to be hearing lines pass through

words forever unfolding

like ribbons rumpling

like kites with no tether

balloons with no hand clenched tightly

It is background

it is white noise

It is a parallel life

invisible by my side

I can turn and be silent

or I can grasp that kite

sprawl those words across paper

from my hand

to your heart

I can keep walking

watch that balloon 

into the distance

lose that kite to the wind

Those words might have been

The Words

That line might have made

It All Clear

This circular universe

this unicycle of life

might never bring the same exact words

but there is nothing new

under 

the 

sun

BL

2.19.13

Mom comes to visit today, so, there will be tales to tell. You know it.

Cheers!

Valentine's Lines

For my Small Ones

Do you know how wide love is?

How tall or deep or heavy?

Do you know the shape of love?

The weave or thread or softness?

These things I may not tell you

We may wonder and muse and smile

But the secret of love is this

my small one

Our hearts become the universe

and inside them turns the love we feel

Our hearts become as endless as the sky

full of the flight of birds

and breath of wind

Our hearts become as deep as the ocean

pulsing with current

and twisting with life

These hearts they fill

fill and feel

Feel and grow

until everything and everyone we have ever loved

can fit inside

Like you and you and you and you

And that’s when you know

How wide and tall and deep and heavy

How soft and weighty

That’s when you know that the shape of love

is you.

BL

2/14/13

Happy Love Day... kiss the ones you love! {Mmm-wah} 

In February

February is a thin-skinned month

pebbles bruise and

slide under my skin

The month in which I lost

my father

and almost lost myself

The month I realized

I was a borderland girl

as I wandered this world

and the next

seeking the lost one.

In February the pebbles tear my skin

never bouncing off harmlessly

In February I learned to grieve.

These years later emotional memory,

muscle memory rises, has imprinted,

still blindsiding me

still forming

the daddy-shaped piece of my puzzle

I’m still wandering the borderland

still searching for that piece.

Whether I realize it

or not.

BL 

2/10/13

Sometimes

Sometimes I speak like an elderly soul

who does not know conventional slang. Jive talk. Or hipster lingo.

She tells of things that have heart, this inner elder.

Or he. For sometimes, the inner elder me is a he.

He and she speak of what this life has wrought

and they say it in such a way

an unmistakable way

that heads cock to the side

eyes go bewildered

and silence follows, as though we have all

stepped into a play not set in this place.

Sometimes we are not

who we think we are.

And sometimes, only sometimes

it is tiresome to hide it.

Wearying to roll an immense eternal self into

everyday skin.

More satisfying to be alone, in every inch of self

Talking to walls and smiling at ghosts.

Where glass faces don’t matter

one

single

bit.

BL

1/29/13

For you.

For the New Year

I'm for Paris, I thought today
Let's go, shall we?
For seekers and lookers
and those in the mood for a change
For inspiration of art, writing, life
Fashion
Off they bundle and trundle and fly and sail
all the world over
so I'm for Paris, let's go
I imagine the cavemen
tiring of their meat
the monotony of hunt, gather.
"Argh. Need Paris."
And the aboriginals around a fire
weary of snake meat and lizard
"Eh. Need Paris."
The hausfrau of Alpharetta
sweeping the yard-thatch out the door
and scrubbing the applesauce from the table
"Sigh. How 'bout Paris."
A little bit of us needs a little bit of Paris
to refresh and recharge
and maybe just to remember exactly
who we are
right where we are.

BL
1.6.13
On the Occasion of this New Year
and Perhaps Thinking on the Return of the Schoolchildren in the Morn.

toil and trouble

I work my alchemy

with words

on pages only, if you please

Because kitchen magic

is beyond my ken

drink magic too

A domestic artsy bent here & there

But mostly

Mostly

I am left to mix and stir

double double toil and trouble

on blank white pages

Wishing sometimes I could 

eat my words.

Bethany 11/23/12

On Being Me

Sometimes I try to forge

of myself

a thing of practical sensibility

and future potential

Mold my dreams into

those of an accountant or risk manager

or some-such concrete job.

Turn my feathers into pencils and protractors

Take my spiral-tipped musings

and make them dollar bills

Turn these words that spill out of my

ear-tips and toe-tips and split ends

and finally to the correct metacarpals and phalanges

(ear bone connected to the...neck bone

arm bone connected to the....hand bone...)

Turn these cloudburst moments

into a puddle of numbers

For everyone knows it’s only mathematics.

Only. Only only only.

To fight against a foregone conclusion

And light that fire

to torch that forge

t’would be a short-lived flame.

Wordy girl with a phrase on the lips

call it a day.

That forge is busted.

BL 10/9/12

Behind a Glass Face

As I strain and put on

clothes to build

authenticity

earrings to dress the bones

fabrics to feather the nest

turn me inside out

that what I am made of is 

visible and available and unavoidable

spiking out of my eyes and pouring from my cheekbones

break into the sharp plane of my face

crack me like a shell

It distills in the midst, that essence that Is 

thickens and boils and builds in the marrow

while we drape and play dress up

an inferno is merrily crackling inside.

eating away at the chaff

Lunching on whatever is not

Of Substance

the unimpeachable remains behind

skin turns to glass

And now you see Me.

Forever and a day.

*************************************************************

I'm back. Since completing and publishing my e-book, I took a poetic break. And now? I'm jumping back in with both feet. Happy weekend to you!

The Sunday Note: Fresh Baby

This one goes out to my fast, funny friend, she of the newly delivered daughter. Long-awaited, much-celebrated: fresh baby Alice.

Drink it in, it spins your head

this dizzy love

delicious smell.

You are not tainted with life

and its dirt

You are only new: newly arrived, newly alive,

Newly become

You.

Softly caress, marvel anew

Fine skin bears the lines that will come later.

Drawn-up knees, froggy curl, arms a-stiff and flailing

Curve you round mother's warm body, inside out,

you are not alone.

Fresh baby, fresh baby there is no other like you!

Every mother's heart thumps in universal delight

to recall

The first sight of a new person whose little world became the wide world

Oh those fresh baby shivers

Fresh baby smells

Your tufted crown holds the elixir of love.

With love...

BL

6/12/11

Flint and Spark

Our dreams are not the same

We thirst for different water

Our hands can clasp only for a moment

Then I must step toward my light

Drink deeply

Inhale courage

and step forward.

Our lives are not a match

Our ways diverge sharply

and yet we can spark -

flicking small lights of inspiration

that can only in times come from

friction

and an uneven meld.

Spark and step away

Light up and retreat:

This can be such

a

good thing.

BL 5/15/11

I am not the first to find inspiration in conflict or strong emotion. To find my stance only in opposition to another. Some of my clearest writing comes in defense or in personal salvation; in pouring out the rub on paper. I think there is power in recognizing this. Power in knowing that if everything was {roses} there would nothing to light the fires of creativity.

Nothing to flint the sulphur of the soul.

I am learning. Honing my chosen tool and learning what brings it out in force. What causes a smile, a pounding heart, a twisted mouth and the errant tear. I am a diligent student. I am not, however so aware of when the student has completed the course. My husband knows I would be a professional student if it could be allowed... and so he quietly edges me toward the lip of the nest. He provides me with the necessary tools and the proverbial backbone. I am a noodle-like bird - at once al dente, next moment overcooked and sliding to the floor.

I use a lot of words when one good cliche would do the trick.

Pardon my southern french, as I tell my own self:

Sh!t or get off the pot.

Maybe that will be the next segment I will take on this summer, in addition to The Sunday Creative. :) Thank you for listening, as I talk myself through the next turn in this path.

Your comments and emails are always a treat.

Happy Sunday...

The Sunday Creative - fresh

To see the gift

with eyes anew

And begin with an open heart

Look on this time

these little beings

with fresh grace and renewed

spirit

To hold the moment

and look it in the face

with a pounding heart

I see you, and isn't this so much fun

To be here in this instant

This tenderness, it bursts out of my skin.

BL

4/17/11

Need another fresh look? The Sunday Creative is all about the fresh today...

The Sunday Creative - Fly

For the artisan, the creative,

It is the moment a concept takes shape

When shady vision clears,

and the image coalesces.

The instant when a vague notion

becomes a concrete plan

and pieces of color and pattern transcend

individuality.

It is the flash from maybe

to the birth of oh yeah

Oh that second!

That is the one we live for

The one we leap toward

And the one that keeps us on the hook

The twinkling when we know who we are

what we are creating and how we are meant to -

This is the moment, instant, flash and second...

when we

fly.

Want to see how the other Sunday Creatives fly? Clickety here. And thanks for checking in...

The Sunday Creative - crane (for Japan)

With utter dignity

and undiminished anguish

they walk.

Away and away from destruction

Away and away from despair

Away and away from a life familiar.

With unfazed resilience

and internal beauty

they walk.

Forward and forward, to what the next day will bring.

Forward and forward, one simple step in front of another.

Forward and forward, gaining determination.

As reeds by the creekside

whip and bend, lean and toss

Thrown by whims of weather,

The bent reed does not break.

But it does wait.

For calm, for strength, for sun

And slowly, it straightens.

BL

3/28/11

With heartfelt hope for Japan and its people, I join The Sunday Creative this week. The theme is "crane," representing the Japanese legend that folding 1,000 cranes not only brings hope and healing, but makes a wish come true. I add my crane to the numbers joining in this project, and a few words too.

The Sunday Creative - Soul

It has a smile, and a voice of its own
An effortless connection
We search and long and hope to find
one or more in this life
We peer into the eye's depths
Deconstruct the words of another
Unnecessarily.
For in that moment of realization
there are no doubts
These paths have crossed, and I know you well
Seems to cry out from the heart
And we don't come close to understanding
but we certainly accept
There is no substitute
for a soul mate.

BL
3/14/11

Happy Monday to friends near and far! For more soul glimpses, The Sunday Creative crowd is here.