santos scribes

_{for AG}

Come to me slow, and easy and empty 

let me breathe right here in the thick of it   

wring water from my spine so my hips sit tall and fill  

with the fluency of your flowers 

with the shades of your contentment  

until every last golden jungle has been etched into my skin  

so I might remember each lively wilding come winter 

Nudge me toward the drifting butterflies 

cause me to speak in tongues with the bees  

lay brilliance ’round each bursting head of Mesclun and Red Leaf  

Teach me again the Art of Being with Things 

the Echinacea and the Monarch 

the Insects who survive their swipes and stings  

the tender Radish already gone to seed 

Wrap me in your complexion, ground me to your limbs 

Stretch my days with your contemplative nature   

Plant my soul so my veins might course

with the ancient longings of your dirt 

Carve time and then space from me; to be naked and honest with myself  

Read books with me in the dim light, turning pages with your flesh 

Bring me every word I have ever longed to speak  

like spotted shipwrecks in a field of distant trains  

Conjure my curiosity and compassion for the sparrow 

for their tiny perfect feathers 

for the rain-soaked clouds and that first fervent hint at refraction 

every piece of broken yellow & blue thereafter 

And when I grow tired and full of you 

tell me I am magnificent. 

That all I’ve ever needed to feel like myself again, is rest.  

Bring me these things not because I ask them of you 

but because I have lived each day since you were here last

deficient in your fluidity, void of your radiant fleeting kind  

And the memory of you, of your sweet slender sliver 

does not serve the sameness of your presence  

what cannot wait is now  

what will never be more real than that, is this. 

about this writing

up until about five years ago I never quite knew what to do with July