The Bone Lines at its core is about writing. Writing about a life. Finding the poetry in the biography of becoming. Only in finding what it is I am becoming, will words follow from worlds yet unknown and unseen. Isn’t it the maps of who we are, really the only places that we travel? The rudderless boats that bob around in the world are myopic on the horizon. I see the nature of others and myself through writing. The texture of a conversation lyrically lives inside of the pound of feet. The color of a smile informs me about what that shadow in your eye is saying. It is in the view of a mountain that I might remember a dream, or a book, a mishap or pain that carved itself slowly into me. Writing is like that. The pen carves out symbols of my own living. I may wonder about that sky. It is my wondering that brings me to full confront — with the beasts of this life. The ache that washes over time — offer of clarity. As the pen moves deliberately across the page — tattooing mistakes and learning — a moment of recognition might be reached as the waves wash over vessel of veins and blood. There you are again. Over and over again, it is you.
Pilgrim from Witches Wisdom Tarot by Phyllis Curott and Danilelle Barlow
What am I being invited to pay attention to? Pilgrim. The pilgrim walks. Life is simple. Make your life a prayer.
Keep walking. What’s around the bend. What is up ahead. Fire. Earth. Water. Sky. Leave it behind. Go back again. Hold steam in your hands. The earth is burning. What is the most you can do. Magic is not the only answer. Get out there and multiply. In your mind. Behind the mountains. Way up there in the tundra. What’s in your go kit? Do flowers hang from the mantle of your anger. Candle light burns the last spark of hope for hooligans. And misfits. Heavy pack loaded with maps, rose petals, yarrow, band-aids, arrows. Let the steam swirl through your confused brain hurting from not being understood or forgiven. A nearby haven of field or animal holds close to streams that the answer can be found in. A smile may or may not be necessary. It is for the birder patrol to decide.
Autumn Equinox
The challenge comes. Hope is found in the hidden star. Go within to find what is needed to create.
The day dawns with soft rain cleaning up what is left behind,
Boots, wood, mistakes wash down the back river way.
Looking through mist, I can just make out the person that I have been
Maybe will be, after this is all over or the animal bones have found a place to rest.
Sudden insight comes steadily, the voices, the places and the scent worn from years of wondering.
I see you on the side of a bridge, eyes squint in the sunlight just before you fall backwards toward the water.
There is another sound. I hear all of the people crowded on the grass as music drifts over our heads
Smiles that smell like beer and wanting
Beat, beat, beat like the beater bar on the looms that sailed under my feet as I learned a way to create through wool, plants and markets filled with vegetables in baskets.
Roses show up in brown paper, you know where they came from
Penciled notes etched on the inside telling you how to navigate the world of hearts.
Stephan Grapelli’s violin couldn’t even keep me awake after a day of picking apples in an orchard heavy with the noise of bees. You smiled, knowing that flowers don’t always make a difference.
It’s the moments when you’re on the back roads at 2 a.m. , a van filled with musicians is pushing your car down the road, pop clutching it all the way laughing. Blue overalls baggy and tied up with a piece of string in the middle of your back.
It is the days, the nights that come randomly flooding back as I walk the compost bucket out to the back pile in the woods. Maybe a bear will hear me smile. Maybe a bear will make me stop or want to run. Slowly back away, “Hey, Bear…”.
Turkey Vulture, why carry on
currents underneath catch your wings.
The updraft is where you are found, mighty
playing on the edge of invisible.
Soaring high, slight turn in
Breeze catches the tips,
Splayed fingerlings mark you,
Aerodynamic perfect flyer sees
Landscapes and Skyscapes,
While I stand still, lips parted
Holding my breath as you fly over,
Again.
~L
Bird Oracle Deck by Golden Blue .
Trumpet the sound
they wait, in cemented
tombs of the stricken mind.
Knowledge is in the earth sanctuary,
only held here, honored for a moment, forgetful
Spring is closing open, nostalgic
for a past that never was,
even in ribbon cutting
A pink pall envelops a rich mind that seeks, a final
walk along the tightrope.
~L