it's 4am, where are my boundaries?

i am standing in a river of my own blood.
of my own making.
i am seeing my own babies--
my beautiful babies--
my beloved children
killing themselves
killing one another
killing each other
i am standing in darfur
i am standing in rwanda
i am standing in witness at the borders of america
watching, again, the walls
the berlin walls of separation
threaten, again, to go back up
i am watching
i am witnessing
i am attending to the death
i am attending to the ravages
unleashed upon this earth
i am standing in a river of blood
made from the leaky red stuff
pouring out of all i have made
to come here
to be here
alive
in this eden you speak up
here, alive in this world of love
i am standing in a river of blood
i am standing in the deepest waters of new orleans
i am standing in the crumpled towers of manhattan
i am standing with the women crowded under covers
of darkest darkness
causing them unspeakable pain
i am standing under the hood of my own despair
i am standing under the helmet of my own knowing
that all is beautiful, as you see it
that all is good and right
that all is all and always
and i want to scream
i want to scream my kali scream
i want to scream my angry scream
i want to show you your eden with the eyes of my scream
with what i speak
with the sound of all i hear
with what i know is mine
killing mine
taking mine
before my time for their time
and i want to scream
i am screaming from here
i am screaming under my veil of silence
i am screaming and bleeding
i am attending to the red river of death
that flows deep in me
when i can hear and see
the death
the death
the purposeful killing for your crucified god
for your abraham and his seven sons
for your muhammad
for your bible and your talmud and your torah
for your christ
christian love expressing
singing songs above the hatred
holding hands above the pain
making offerings above the in deep despair
the grief and longing in the way
in failure
in crisis
in homelessness
rampantly raging across this good green earth
this eden
this dream
of heaven
you, with your practiced words,
and you
you
you with your big gong
and its beautiful sound
and your practiced hand
and your stunning ability
and your expansive joy
and your generous heart
and your kindness extended
and your gifts bestowed
you are simply pissing me off.
you are beautiful, to be sure.
you are kind and knowing and good.
you are offering, truly, your gifts.
you are offering, joyfully, your words.
and i receive them.
and i love them.
and i am strengthened by them
in the way i am strengthened by a visit to oz
a visit to heaven
a visit through a dream
a promise
a truth i know is there
but at the minute, my son, my beauty,
i am looking through fun house glasses
and seeing what your eden is made of
the dead bodies and bones piled up
in catacombs
taking my limited time in france
away from the louvre.
i am crawling through the dead--
as you know, bone does not decay
in any of the regular ways
and it takes centuries to wear the stench away
of something burned
in ovens
six million
twelve
how many did we count before we stopped counting?
and what of israel now?
and the middle east?
and the threat and promise of threatened peace?
and the whirl of the sound of helicopter blades
and the damn postcards in the mail
marines taking my oldest son
not even back yet
not even here yet
from africa to war
i will not stand in the rivers of that blood alone
i will not stand, picking up the bones,
bending and burying and mourning alone.
and when i tell you that i love you--
that you are talented and good--
and that you make sure i see you
and hear you understood
and i know, i agree, i find you as the god,
you abdicate.
you go away.
you climb up on your cross.
and you, yourself, wad your art up
and trash yourself anew
and i am left here in this blood
now, too, attend to you.
and you tell me as you're leaving
that you've put all your beauty there
and of course it is my choice
but i go and gently care
for what you yourself have wadded up
you, yourself, have trashed
and take my attention, yet again,
to restore you
to hold you
to heal you
to prop you up
to find a space that's big enough
to fill what you have emptied
and i resent it.
and i know you didn't ask--
you were "happy" in the trash--
but you are beautiful, too--too beautiful
to leave all wadded up
and when you're in the bin and spin
you cannot help me
you cannot stand beside me
you cannot turn the tide
and make a block
and be a ride
a guide
a star in the sky
by which i can find my way
you are only there to grieve
you are only there to save
and i can remember
only just
what it looked like when you were you
there on that wall so beautiful
there on the wall so true
and i need that still--
or do i?
and the ravages still rage
and i need the needing needy stuff
no longer
now
what i need is play
i need you with me in the river
coming up, again, with games
and planting pretty bodies gone
in eden once again
and then a story, sweet and true,
that has you always being you
and never getting on or off
the crucifix of truth
i need you working in the garden
tending to the weeds
i need you working through the winter
helping me to gather pleas
i need you standing, sweet, beside me
picking up this mess
and stopping all this craziness
and tearing at my dress
i need you full of your sweet self
and glasses off, now, too
i need us seeing this same river
damning up the fools
that start the thing with hatred
and cause the thing with fear
i need you standing next to me
knee deep, head clear.

whale watching

and it was an early morning
and a late arrival
and just as everyone boarded the bus
we joined the line
and got on
and rode
and rode
and rode
the bumpy way
to monterey

and arrived
and got out of the bus
and walked in the rain
and boarded the crowded boat
and went in bumpy exuberance
off
toward the great unknown
of the deepest waters
of possibility

and we carried our dreams with us
our great white whales of imagination
and looked to the vast black ocean
and saw ripples and waves
and things that might be
things that could be
things we imagined
things we wanted to see

and when the boat stopped
and the voice on the microphone
told us what time to look at
and what to see
and named what we were seeing
we saw it
her words brought it out of the darkness
and into the seeable

and in the seeing
we saw the spray
and then, a split second later,
the long black bodies
of up to that moment
only imagined great fish

whole whales
from someone else's photographs
were brought into a wider view
by just a sliver of long black length
above the waves
and we saw

we saw

we saw

we really saw
for the very first time in our lives
no matter how many times we've seen them before
these long black moments
of whale

and this miracle of seeing
continued
up and down the rocky waves
of deep, dark water
and with every sighting
we held our breath
and moved, as she called out the hour
from starboard to port
and looked off the bow
toward forever
and saw all our imaginings
realized
in the real thing

the real thing
flanked by others
a pod
a family
breeching and diving
deep
deeper
into the under water depths
of our ignited imaginations
burning
bursting
with what it is
what it was
what it will continue in memory to be

a searing moment
a far lean off the rail
a longing and looking out
with the spirit of expectancy
and the sheer joy
of windy seeing
what was once only an idea
an image
someone else's picture

and in that moment
what had only been a caged beast
was there, off the boat,
in the blubbery black flesh
of the wide, alive water
in glinting daylight
REALLY real
our whales
alive
in the wild
with each of us
seeing each of them
for the very first
unforgettable
time