Jazz Is

As the ocean to the shore; always touching,

but the ebb and flow keep a mystery

alive between the two.

The universe expands like the lungs of a newborn, gasping for air for the first time. From nowhere

it began and is now indefinitely in motion.

To know the theory gifts a sense of security,

but to feel the rhythm in your bones is to be free.

His fingers play sadness and it creeps under

her skin as if it were her own. No single note

makes it so, but she knows him now.

I’ve been seen, says the moon to the sun.

I’ve been felt, says the sun to the earth.

I’ve been, and will be — the music

whispers into the air as it’s waves

float eternally into the ethos.

Growing Pains

It pulls in the pit of the stomach like taffy,

stretching at the edges in rhythmic motion —

a constant discomfort for the common good.

Enlightenment is heavy. Not a weight on the

shoulders to be lifted, but an encasement —

a place to grow wings under uniform pressure.

Rest your hand on a mirror and gaze at the

eternal distance between the palms. No mighty

will can change it. Same goes for those babies

born from your diligent womb.

Against our chest they rest but for a moment,

asking us to remember that from us they came

but from us they must always be moving away.

When The Poet is Still

In the midst of the happening there’s no creation.

A seed sown, possibly, but no more.

As he silently sobs at the top of a casket and

she welcomes new life from inside herself,

there’s a stillness that must be present — it quiets

the mind of it’s musings, and opens the heart

to quiver or quake or break into pieces. Experience is

not the moment for clarity, but an electrification of

primitive fibers, causing arm hairs to stand on end.

Only after can we imperfectly observe the wreckage.

Document it’s angles, catalog the way our hands

trembled, as they still do while note is taken of such.

The retelling can be beautiful, but up close you see the

brushstrokes of the artistry. The distance of the two

grows farther as it’s told, and listened to. And somehow

it still begs to be so. A flower, since bloomed —

asking to be seen once more.

Universal Attraction

Two galaxies, passing through time,

the shimmer of a billion suns

briefly reflect in each other’s eyes.

A common bond is shared in knowing

the weight of gravity holding the other

together. Every burning twinkle, the

cornerstone of its own planetary system,

orbiting relentlessly. The pull toward one

another is nuclear — strength that eats light

for breakfast. A collision of this magnitude

would spew radiation for light years,

fundamentally shifting the fabric of space.

And still their darkness reaches for one

another, across oceans of interstellar matter.

It may be lifetimes before they know if the

aftermath of this destruction will be

catastrophic loss or a fiery nebula

of cosmic possibility.

Bare

To be seen in early morning light, as the sun

begins greeting its subjects one by one.

Once revealed, it can’t be undone —

Strokes of ink on a white page, delicate

scribblings of truth, each loopy letter reaching

gracefully for the next. Petals of a rose

unfurling perfectly slow, exposing a tender

center filled with promise. One can never

survey the full depths of the ocean floor,

too many beautiful dangers lurk at the outer

limits. But the weight of darkness pulls

you deeper, so you go. In the quiet

salty depths, she whispers

I want to be known,

and so you go,

you go.