To Give Everything Away

Perpetual beginner, it was love
you wanted to tie to all the worlds

patterns of fir trees & sunlight
running stitches & knots

donkeys browsing the hearts
of thistles. You sewed certainty

across the lifelines of your children
the prayer rugs of desire

At this distance we can cover
everything with our outstretched hands

the moon, the home, a childhood
of whispered secrets, oh goodbye

we learn to give everything away
here on these moving waters


Last summer I thought I'd tuck many of my poems here--and then we moved the shop, and then my computer died, and my files were lost...Time intercedes, life crowds in. It's been...3 years? 4? since my sister-outlaw died, telling me with her last breaths that it was all okay, it was all right, and how beautiful the flowers were.