Limbo on Earth

Limbo is living in a clearing in Hell.
The blaze and the crackle stupefy you.
Every time you are afraid, the flames creep a millimeter forward.
It takes a long time to put the progression together,
to realize that once you lose yourself to fear,
you will be in Hell.
After you realize that, you do your best to feel nothing.
You have to get out. You know you cannot keep this up forever--
But knowing that draws the flames a millimeter closer--
so you try not to know it.
You have seen the moments when the flames seem to part,
when there seems to be a path between them.
If you were ready you could run forward
But that would be so frightening!
And how could you stay alert without being afraid?
So you stand, stupefied,
Or you act as best you can as though nothing is happening,
and seal your fate.

The Color that is All Colors and No Color at All

The Color that is All Colors and No Color at All

My mother gives me pearls,
I give my mother pills.

We unwrap them from the white cotton
that has kept them whole--
the pills, over space;
the pearls, over time--
and slip sideways into an unguarded moment to offer them one to another.

"Take these." My mother tries to hang on me
the symbols of a woman's Self-Possession.
Dignity. Prosperity.
The Subtle Gleam that glows greater through the years.

"Take these." I try to foist on my mother
newfangled hopes of unearned ease,
a soft night's sleep, a morning without pain,
a magic trick to fix those things her generation was taught
can only be endured.

We who were one flesh now must scrape the belly
of the ultimate mother, earth,
as we strive to speak in minerals,
words having run short of the depth of our need
to still feed the goodness and leach out poisons,
and maintain the transubstantiation
of Love itself
into Life itself.