Of Strings and Stardust

The strings call to my soul
stronger than words could ever elicit.
The mingling transcendent cosmic flavors —
salted by my tears and compelled
by your crashing waves
on the shores of my inability
to know my own heart
to decipher her needs
and control her defiant inclinations
of passionate longing –
“Move me! Make me feel!” She demands.
The strings acquiesce, inciting floods
of serene turbulence – night’s glorious
celestial embrace. My heart beats
to the heightened rhythm. My breast — rising
and falling with each gorgeously tormented
sound – each gentle nuance is like dancing atop
night’s glittering constellations, like waltzing
through the galaxy’s infinite dust of beauty,
heedlessly and magnificently bounding
from one star to the next.

 

 

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Calypso’s Calling

Come to me my love. Ulysses, hear my cry!
I’ll wait for you in our secret place –
Where the water meets the sky.

 

 

I Wear the Sun Differently

The sun is shining
and so are you —
your smile is full
of rainbows and
blueberries…and
hope. But, I wear the sun
differently. My eyes —
cloaked in the melancholy
of your scars —
cloud and bring forth
vengeful floods,
unsettled and unavoidable.
My love is messy —
to say the least. Pieces
of me and you are
scattered like ash
in a blaze of
stardust and dreams.
My anvil’d heart
sinks into the depth
of your ocean eyes.
Your words, like water,
wash through me
as you burst into
colors of vibrant mists —
your hues of healing light
glitter the path
to what will make
me whole again.

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about the painting: “The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” (oil on canvas) piece was painted by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich in 1818.

Dandelion Dreams

 

When I was a little girl, I thought dandelions
were beautiful yellow flowers. I never understood
why my dad would get so angry
every time I made a wish
with those cottony clustered clouds.
Umbrella-ed seeds floating all
around spoke of all the possibilities of who I could be and
what was to come. My wishes rarely came true,
but then the parachutes didn’t
always catch the wind. Stubborn anchored sprouts refused
to move with a puff of my cheek. And I knew
that my dreams were stuck.
Now that I’m older, I know better.
Dandelions and their seedling blossoms,
the ones that line the beds of unkempt gardens,
are just weeds of wistful thinking.

 

yesterday was blue, like smoke

 

Yesterday was blue, like smoke.
We walked through the cloud
Of the unknown, the unseen:
Matters of hope and hopelessness,
Joy and sorrow, laughter and tears;
In order to find our true purpose.
From there, we awoke
To the dawning of the sublime;
Where stars shine like beacons,
Glittering the path where we break the yoke
To our past, to our struggle, to our unending night.
We are beckoned to the blaze, to stoke
The flame of red and orange and blue.
And the smoke fills this place and our lungs
With hope. Now we long for the day
When we will say: Today is this,
And tomorrow will be that.
This is what is true, this is what is spoke.

 

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Background: The line “[y]esterday was blue, like smoke”comes from the absurd yet existential play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard. This line is found at the end of Act 2 when Guildenstern and Rosencrantz discuss the change in season from summer to autumn. Rosencrantz remains on the surface with this conversation by only concerning himself with the fears of being cold in the fall and winter; whereas, Guildenstern immediately jumps to a deeper level by discussing the “browness at the edges of the day” and how “[b]rown is creeping up on [them]” as if he is completely aware that they are nearing the finality of their existence in the play (their proverbial winter). Meanwhile in the same scene, Hamlet converses with the soldier from Norway as the three schoolmates make their way to see the King of England with an official letter from the Danish King (which originally calls for the death of Hamlet; however, along their journey, Hamlet rewrites the letter to the King of England, which then calls for the immediate death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern).

Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern vainly attempt to cope with the predetermined fate (via Shakespeare’s Hamlet) of their impending death. To universalize this notion, we can consider ourselves as characters in the play of life, and like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, we are all aware of the inevitability of our own demise. Yet, we soldier on through life and act as if it (death, our necessary end) weren’t completely true or applicable to us. We attempt to find meaning in this beautiful and tragic play of life.