Poetry: Kathleen Dunbar.

water flows down

Water flows down –
whenever it can, it sings.

When they’re tired
fish don’t need to lean –
the flesh of the water holds them.

Even the cook collects his own bones
when he gets up in the morning –
he sings and chops while his bed is still warm.

The world is so simple
and we keep on seeking
like the blind alley of the wind.

I’ve seen how we try to collect
something outside ourselves
to show our love and our need,
believing that what we are
is not enough.

I knew a boy who stole some roses
for his mother.
Before she came home we sat near them
astonished at their beauty
and in that boy’s eyes
I could see love and pain
falling like snow. 

He hurt so much,
just being a boy alive –
I was sure
bees woke up in his dreams
golden, black and soft
singing into the roses
stumbling home to
the sweet honeycombs.

Some days we arrive in ourselves
in the doorways of longing.
In the spilling places
our mouths fill with words –
hellos, goodbyes
kindness, need.

That afternoon there were no words –
just that we almost remembered
the mysterious hives
and the honey stood up inside us
slow as rain, perfect
full.

with or without a pillow

with or without a pillow, this is the surface of the dream:

I am the gingerbread house and I am the sound planks
I am the father who builds and the boy who trusts
I am the one who drops his raised hand and does not strike

the door stands open and there is nothing in the way
because I am the one who accepts
because I know I am both bowls of food –
one for the lover and one for the lost
because I am the one-legged man singing on his path
because I am the lost child
because I am the water poured into the unannointed mouth

this is the surface of the dream:
I am the resurrected Christ
I am the demon transcended
I am the woman in white
who touches the robe of the demon
and finds her strength
I see my own future and forget it again

whatever flies, I form its wings
whatever opens, I am there to show the way
whatever closes, I am there to mourn the bones and bury them
I am the last syllable uttered in darkness that expresses hope
I am the first ray of light in the morning

this is the surface of the dream:
I am the gesture inside the word
I am the long back unfolding its joy and sorrow
I am the scapegoat and the murdered oracle
I am the penitent and the seeker
I am the poet descending into hell
and I am the path back
and the gravel of the path
and the fallen plum and the opening flower at the gate

I am the water boiling in the kettle
and the old man asleep in the garden
and the youth trying his first strength
I am the horseman with a broad chest of hair
no longer brutal, I can hold my woman to my heart
because it is open – and I can let her go
to dance a slow dance and a fast
burning to her own fire
and have the strength and desire to wait for her
all the while dreaming that my fingers and toes
have grown together into four great nails
until I am my own horse thundering over the earth
carrying my beloved away from war
carrying her into the light

this is the surface of the dream:
my friend wears a coat of live birds
one by one they arrive from nowhere
snuggling against his hips, his waist, the small of his back
he looks over his shoulder in surprise!
he has been waiting for a boat here where the coast is wide
where the land is flat for miles and the water is flat for miles
and it is hot and bright and instead of the boat the birds arrive –
at every dream's surface is a building
whose only purpose is to exist
so that one may stand in darkness
repeating the magical sentence of release until it works
so here in the doorway I use the words
and the soft coat quivers and breaks apart
in a thousand claps of wings
returning to us the joy of opening
and the bond of the friend seen and the story told

in the dream
all hands meet
in the darkness
all wounds are healing
this is the surface of the dream:
this is the door:
this is the promise:
this is the medicine and the bread:
inside the darkness is the neverending light

Orchids are Blooming

Orchids are blooming in her throat
she doesn’t know
steps around them and turns her face
to the wall –
she thinks her bones are only hard.
We begin to find the marrow
and the floating joints
the pillows of liquid between the vertebrae –
and somewhere the bones unbend a little
the muscles of her arms remember
the ease of the dance
the flowering of her heart.
She begins to find what she wants to shape
– and shapes it!

Inside the grass
an orchid sings.
Carefully we enter that room
where it is singing –
“Ah,” she says, stepping out
“I remember,”
blooming, moving now,
deep in her iridescent life.

hands

so.  slowly. 
I pull in the long memory:

I always looked at the house
from the side before I went in
putting my hand on the overlapped wood.
being small, I was closer to the
heavy heads of the flowers
falling
         falling.

you stood still in the yard
your hand palm-flat on your hip bone
the other hanging.
from the half-curled fingers
you let go of something invisible.
but I saw –
a room opened inside you
I had guessed was there
the dark shadow falling out
of your eyes.
you let yourself feel lonely at last
and breathing it, relaxed,
nothing more put off.

I breathed too
relaxed what I didn’t even know
I’d held for you
and suddenly you saw
me watching you
the mother-part of you
arriving in your shoulders
softening and hardening at the same time.

and then, the act I thank you for:
before you called me to you
for the comfortable hug
and the smell of your hair in the sun
you paused
for a moment as long as a life
while the loneliness spoke between us
not in words but in the light
that ran over us like water. . . .

and when it flowed away
your clean strong hand remained
as alive and holy as a being
who relinquishes heaven
for a heart that beats and breaks and loves.

that is the moment I woke up
in the sudden ocean of your act:
the raw truth in your relaxed hand
of love and loneliness and the fullness
of our longing washing up against
you and me and the flowers, everywhere!
splashing the white boards of our house
warm in the sun forever.

we went through the door then,
to be inside our house.
one of my hands you held in one of yours.
my other hand, schooled in your strength
pressed the houseboards as we passed
fell open
and blazed with the tears and laughter
of the sweet wild galaxies.

 

sometimes when I am sad

sometimes when I am sad
that is a good beginning too
and I go along and see the bottoms of things
the places where the rain ends upon earth
the bottom of wells
the underside of stones
the salamander's wet belly

and what is left is the one who sits on his hands
I know him from the lining of my coat
from the residue of my dreams
from my friendship with the dust under my bed

and however this all works
this engine of my bones
that takes me through the world
he reminds me of the flesh, too
the soft rivers of blood
the sea that begins and ends in my heart
the heart that smiles even at the bottom of things
and when I forget
he sits on his hands until I wake with a start
from my own forgetting

then I see roses and their red thorns
birds' shadows over stone
the soft hair of children and old people
and I pledge again
not to make my ways into teeth of iron
grinding down the world of my days
but rather to make my way the opening way
to uncurl my hand in a starry gesture of joy
to sing the vibration of love into the universe
to use what I have to live the mystery well

and I find that I have everything I need:

I am alone

I am in communion

I am finishing

I am always starting

I have old shoes, but good enough

I have a small bee at the most important flowers

I have a man in a shabby suit healing my feet in my dreams

I have a lot of love to give

and there are plenty of folks to give love to!

I have myself, and for this realization my bones thank me

finally, I can let the water of myself spread out wide
plenty for me
plenty for everybody
letting the invisible force of the universe, of creativity, of love
take me where it will

I have spirit
I have love
I am alive
and I can sing to everyone
the song at the bottom of my heart:

I love you completely
and everywhere at once
like the rain

 

o sweet single simple roses

o sweet single simple roses
cascading through the night
in the broken places

you are there!
I want to tell everyone this

we're all the same
afraid of the dark
falling into despair when
our hearts are breaking –
o how much we desire to touch another
to be touched
in all the smallest and deepest ways
and how often does it all run away from us
like water over our hands
so that we are left, again
alone in the darkness

don't we endlessly try to say ourselves?
to hear back again and again
that we are loveable and loved
and in the press of this desire
we end up being unable to hear the confirmation
we cannot use our own ears
not because we cannot believe
but because we cannot accept our broken bones

we are so stubborn
if only it were not for this or that
isn't it all supposed to be golden in heaven?
no.

I tell you, all the gods are listening
even the god of pain
who weeps for us
even as our hearts twist

and death wakens
curling in our footsteps like smoke
he weeps because we have lost ourselves
and tries to teach us the secret
the one we stubbornly refuse to see:

you who want to be loved – love yourself
enough to sit uncomfortably in an old chair
with all your heartpain and your cracking bones
and know that that is part of the miracle
and that you are perfect anyway
because however much you feel abandoned and cold
that is how much you will be able
to feel another's pain some day
and that is love

when you can thank the aching and the sorrow –
when you can accept the dark
then love will arrive because you are pouring it
so much so that roses will bloom in the night
rising upon their own thorns!

ah sweet, after you have
finally petted your own teary head
with infinite tenderness
another's will appear instantly
lost in his pain –
now is the time!
hold him, even though
he will not be able to feel you
hold him because you want him to feel himself
in all his pain

and when you can, don't take yourself so seriously
because didn't you know?

this is why while it is still dark
a little bird awakens
tips up and down
on its branch
and sings
laugh because he has woken you
bird as he is, he has learned before you!
get up and go out early
find where the dew gleams upon the roses
and begin to give them all away.