There Were Mangos on the Trees

THERE WERE MANGOS ON THE TREES

W r itin gs Fro m T he D ig g ing D eep , Fac ing Sel f O n line Writing Course, January 2015

Table of Contents Sacrament​​/ Andi M Of the Earth ​/​Andi M In honor of /​ Shirin Cameron Sage. /​ Shirin Cameron crowned​​/ Genet Lakew Memie​​/ Jahan Mantin Shortcut​/ Jahan Mantin empty handed​​/ Brandi V Coleman Vacancy​/​ Brandi V Coleman Our Desert Days​​/ Laura Waldman Shame​​/ Laura Waldman The Story of My Shame​/ Jackie Joy Jackie Joy​​/ Jackie Joy Our Bleeding Sun​/​LadyBlack Dear LadyBlack​/ L ​ adyBlack Eradicating Envy, For Beth​/ Chloe Stingley Cheers​​/ Ricah Norman Clare’s Line ​/ Clare Towler Josephine​​/ Clare Towler Reconstruction​​/ Nicole Carlsburg

Dedication.

This is for women who dare to face the mirror.

This is for women who cry & shout out in writing, for women who ​go there,​underneath the underbelly, to the heart of the singing thing, yes, this is for women who are raw & open, split & juicy, afraid but still blazing into the night sky like a riotous star.

These are the women who parade their images all over these pages, who drag the grass across the page, or the mountains, or a painful glimpse into a singular moment playing out on concrete. These are women who have said yes, I will let you in (to themselves, & to you), who have tested the water & jumped in whole body.

This course, Digging Deep, Facing Self is about committing to looking, even when it is hard to open the eyes.

Here is the result of the willingness & courage to look.

The title of this collection, taken from Shirin Cameron’s prose poem, is the sun of hope, the juice of nourishment, the acknowledgement of a ​before​this before and an honoring of the past, an uplifting of beauty - a beauty defined as vibrant, succulent, feeding hunger with sweetness. Each poem in this collection is a ripe mango on the tree. Is a beacon of hope, is a human heart held in our hands. Be tender with these poems, but be celebratory. It is an honor to share them with you.

Special thanks to Lead Facilitator Sabina Ibarrola, whose presence gives permission, whose work keeps our course alive and breathing, who cares and cares and cares and cares. Who makes others care.

Thank you, alumni. Thank you women. Thank you reader. Thank you expanding world.

With humility & joy, Caits Meissner Creator of Digging Deep, Facing Self

Visit ​www.growfierce.com​to learn more about our course & community.

Sacrament Andi M I have a tongue so sharp it makes men feel miniscule trembling, staring they watch me long to press my body under their hands hoping it will make them whole they placed my head in a bridle a metal cage of silence a shield from the lashes of my words the shame cast from my insights public humiliation fit for a woman unafraid to survive I am paraded around town declared a witch, a whore a wild and willfully independent woman their eyes are built of the metal and leather of torture pulling me apart, flesh from bones they bleed the magic from my broken skin my spirit made of mist cast solid into dirt, ground into the fabric of my dress dirt of proclamation, dirt crumbles my skin but not my resolve last week they put a woman in a cage held her underwater until her hands stopped banging echoes against the metal the water her only witness the baptism she refused to give her child we have been silenced drowned

held captive at your finger tips reminded relentlessly that our bodies are not our own but they forgot we are wedded to the worlds as above, so below when they drown us we grow gills when they burn us our ashes will fill the air and line their lungs take up residence in their blood stream remind them constantly shadows hold secrets and secrets will be the death of them we are underground we are roots and sap and dens we have no bodies to return to the earth because we never left her we never got so lost as to believe that we were separate we are the lining of her womb we are the blood cast amongst the snow and trees as sacrament we are her servants, blooming and our memory, our mother is timeless

Of the Earth Andi M Eyes Sunflowers Hair Wild roses Eyes Summer river turquoise Eyebrows Wet wood splinters Earlobes Soft round mushroom tops Fingernails Pearls Hair Water reaching fine to freeze Breasts Wave lapped stones Nipples Rose hips Rolls Soft clay collapsing river bank Dimples Clandestine clam hideaway Hips Mud squished between toes Thighs Rising moon Blood Berries oozing Skin Yarrow flowers Marks Earth worms fleeing rain

In honor of...

Shirin Cameron Before tio Armando came home from the war with track marks in his arm. Before cops shot sixteen holes in his leg and you would giggle with the off-beat of his prosthetic limp when he carried you on his shoulders. Before alcohol claimed your grandfathers life, and you laid your daddy to rest because his heart just couldn't, any longer. Before your grandmother took that feral boy with the wide eyes in. Before the fear in your mother as she dodged words, and vacuum cleaners, and hands around her neck because the coffee ​just​wasn't right. Before she walked her teenage legs out to the river and built a tipi to escape the weight of the house.

Before Diego dug a room in the dirt with his seven year old hands, thinking maybe he wouldn't be found if he went underground. Before your stepfathers belt made your heart quiver and your sisters looked for sweet surrender in the bottom of a box of pills. Before young legs spread open, to birth more young lives, and the mouths to feed piled up like dishes in the sink.

Before your sisters anger vomited onto the walls of the house of worship on the hill - FUCK YOUR GOD - and the sun bore witness to all that had been lost. broken. torn. damaged. displaced.

Before the hurricanes of politics and poverty washed our people up here, and there, There were mangoes on the trees. Morning mists on the thick green slopes of the mountains, and the music of birds and frogs and soft breath rising and falling. Green chilies hanging out to dry. Samhain and the thinning of the veils. Highland dances and fires and laughter and hija, our daily grind was the chatter of women in the bamboo circle crushing coffee beans to welcome in a new day. Cold Northern winds blowing us indoors to the warmth of heart and hearth. Warm tropical rains and the damp scent of rebirth. Mountain peoples of east and west, with hearts that just keep giving, and keep loving. love so full, so soft and resilient. love like a womb and we are tangled in the umbilical cord. that open door, open kitchen kind of love. that abundant love. that invite the block over for dinner, and does that young man need a place to stay kind of love. that stay up all night painting worlds with words kind of love. lives like ours make for storytellers after all.

Have you ever seen people fight like that, and then laugh about it til their bellies hurt? using humor as a weapon, as a medicine. great dirty tears down your cheeks humor. tribes of misfits and troublemakers and sparkling eyes. we who etch phoenixes into our skins to honor all that we are, and when we pass release butterflies from open palms and watch as they dance towards the sky.

Sage.

Shirin Cameron five men with eyes like running water stand guard as she enters the joint. mic at her side like it offered itself, tripping on wires and bags and a dozen shards of glass just to share her vibration. her stage a spread of crimson wings. and when her lips taste the instrument all the clocks start counting time, backwards. she's that beating heart of the tribe, mother of the caravan woman. eyes like the gleam of early morning sun on the river back home. timeless like an afternoon nap on warm sand. queen bee, and just a taste of her brew makes your blood flow thicker. unapologetic. no small in her silence, no quiet in her thunder. she swallows oceans when she speaks, and hugs you like it ain't no thing. like she didn't just turn your body into molten liquid. like fruitflies aren't flying around where your head used to be.

crowned Genet Lakew we sat flipping through the archives of our old life in Ethiopia, in childhood, when all of us were alive and sickness hadn’t claimed first one, then two, three, and finally four. we stopped at his picture. she cooed and awed and asked if I remember him, the man tasked with protecting our home from outside invasion. she waits for me, excited to exchange memories about him, relive those golden days. trigger, trigger, trigger. it came with no warning. yes, I do remember him but no, my memories aren’t warm.

I remember a man snatching my girlhood. and for many years, I knew not how to make mistakes, how to say no, how to inconvenience people, and adorn my crown. womanhood saved me.

I grew up and learned that there were, are, will be many like me. girls fast paced into women. men like you are a worldwide phenomena seeping your way into homes far and wide like incense that burns and burns and burns. memories are a tool. evidence of the things you wanted to keep hidden into your grave. your shushs and promises and threats silenced me decades over. now I’m in the season of excavating, removing the shame, the value judgments, the denial of choice and dignity and sanctity. now I’ve learned labels, found words to name your grip on me.

abuse. violation. trauma. violence. the shame’s on you.

I’m clear of shame because those acts you had me conceal say a lot more about you than about me.

I’m free of shame I’m free of you I’m free free me. crowned.

Memie Jahan Mantin Just a young teen gal beehived and bunny eyed cinnamon speckled legs draped over the hood of a car cheekbones higher than the island sun at noon.

A sharp young ting’ scooping out the buttery inside of the ackee fruit after the poisonous fumes had been exhumed.

That Harry Belafonte look alike Slit-eyed and searching caught you. laaaawd - what it looked like those slim legs supporting that distended belly.

A married man’s little girl Full with his little boy.

I heard you ran past the smooth and waxy leaves of the cradled palm trees.

Ran til’ your mother called you back that white haired woman skin as light as dry sand Jamaica on the tips of her fingers in the steam gently lifting from the pot of curried goat in the softness of her upper arms.

The Shortcut Jahan Mantin Sometimes When silence surrounds like that in-between moment after trying on a too tight sweater arms high above my head eyelids momentarily smothered in itchy blackness.

I imagine your thoughts when you took that shortcut.

Did he whisper 'let’s go this way?'

Did you hesitate, led by this man you thought to be your friend?

Or did you move freely unaware of the suburban houses mutely lining either side of the street silently begging you to stay on the road.

What did you think?

When he led you into that lightly wooded in-between space?

A tunnel of trees and aimless dirt.

The light of the moon slicing through branch openings peaking in on the unimaginable.

I wonder what you thought when his fingers winded around your neck.

Was it harder than he imagined?

To grip your liquid throat?

Like chasing a wet stone sliding away from shore.

And did your consciousness stay in the front row?

Or did it cover both eyes with the front of its palm and quietly exit through the back door too frightened to bear witness.

I give thanks that you were dead before he took from you.

Unable to physically experience this desecration.

Jammed into a garbage bag reduced to mere contents.

Limbs and hair and breasts and fingers carelessly packed into plastic.

And your remains they overflow spilling out of this old shoe box.

Stacked letters bursting like the juice from ripe plums and sticky candy filled ​pinatas written in teenage angst and expectancies.

Our crushes and curiosities Red inked doodles and heart shaped dotted letter i’s.

And I laugh, laugh, laugh with a soothing ache planted in my heart Smoothing down the old, faded looseleaf pleased to hold you close.

empty handed Brandi V Coleman my back is a landscape generously littered with “forget me” and “she love me” knots waiting to be worked out a sweeping sepia garden of muscles gathered to mourn every time love couldn’t find its way home see, everyone leaves eventually except for you you, who I carry around like the tension in my shoulders that I thought was normal until someone else touched them you, who of love built for me a brilliant, b(l)inding castle a cage by any other name...

I, who from inside never noticed the putrid black you sent crawling down the walls in that place was only us and love and love was as natural as breathing and art poetry became a way of life for me, like inventing imitations of truth was for you Imposter I still have not forgiven my intruder alert for failing system disarmed and you roamed about freely, one hand claiming mine, the other collecting every rose petal I dropped along the way not that I thought to look maybe if I had, instead of celebrating sight, I would have noted the way color changed when you stood in for the sun eclipse inevitable, maybe all of this running could have been meant to escape the shadow, instead of chasing away light maybe this infinite marathon, at least,

can teach my legs and lungs exactly what they can take or maybe, I will finally learn to stop fumbling through maybes and stand instead in testimony that darkness must last just long enough for our eyes to fully open everyone leaves eventually Including me.

Vacancy Brandi V Coleman Where do mothers look when their children are gone but not missing When the fabric called family wears its holes gaping, like the silence between phone calls Daughters, unguided, explore cities with names too big for most imaginations Sons, undeveloped, patrol remains of parched desert villages, outweighed by the assault rifles they acquired before facial hair He did not choose to leave but his mother remains, remembering the childhood he will never meet I did not know she was leaving until the email that came two days before and I wonder if the conversations we won’t have would be easier to forget if she had actually vanished Disappearing acts are not reserved for magic shows and mothers are not candidates to be living memories usually What are children called once they have been made to become intimate with distance and strangers?

With devastation and danger?

The lucky ones will have lessons to rely on, remnants of how love was meant to feel before we knew there was a word for it Before the first women we ever knew, ever knew there was an alternative to teaching us

collectively, we wish they would never have had to learn

Our Desert Days Laura Waldman It has always been you leading me by the hand this time to the desert always you, saying, ​just buy the ticket you who rolls down the windows turns on the radio lets in the cold desert air and pink desert sky you who boils the eggs & packs our lunch stokes the fire before dawn waits while I buy too many postcards at the National Park gift shop when I tell you I’m scared to go to the outhouse after dark because coyotes you don’t laugh, you hand me an electric lantern and say ​go when we climb to the overlook it’s you who says, ​let’s keep going let’s wade into that prehistoric field where dried wildflowers look spiky up close but soft from a distance light plays on them like the teasing of an old friend and they stretch on, abundant as our words how many nights we fell asleep while the other was still chattering into the phone the soil these wildflowers live in has known volcanoes and glaciers our memories are one thing, but to be here with you now is another the shifting sky, the yellow light, the altitude the nearness of time silent breath of stone permanence of shadows sudden flatness of the view when I’m with you I feel like I’m alone​, you told me while I skimmed a magazine and you waited for an image to develop on your photograph which was soaking in a chemical bath me, I never feared chemicals soaking in through my cuticles never feared contamination by cleaning supplies never felt like a pure person never mind waiting if you’re running late never mind driving if you want to sleep or doing dishes after you cook me such feasts for years you gave only the most cursory of hugs

and I from a family that squeezes distant acquaintances now you can dance, can cry and I’m proud of you you can have your earrings back when you earn them​, you told me so I did, the day that guy touched our asses outside the bodega and I followed him in and screamed until my knees shook and you were proud of me now, in the desert, we make it back to the car in time for the sun to drop speeding along these tumbleweed, telephone-wire days we stop for chili, stop to try fry bread I pretend to take your picture while you pee in a ditch

Shame Laura Waldman hurl it from the top of a building but if it should scatter when it drops better off a bridge don’t release vapors you don’t want to breathe, sink them because you do want to breathe just like everyone else you pass on the street each must get home in time for a personal curfew after a day of interrupted conversations narrow misses from cars that zip too close legs falling asleep under desks we think we’re doing each other favors is each of us thinking, ​I'm protecting them, I know something they don’t​?

I did, I found the very edges of my personal atmosphere forgave someone something that didn’t deserve forgiveness by not rejecting him after his confession then I walked around like I had pockets full of ocean when what I wanted was to be like a stone in the sun that water beads off of unchanged I wanted the water to say, ​thank you stone, you let me climb you on my way back to my maker but it wasn’t like that--I was clay in the kiln and when I came out you could break me I knew I would die one day.

When I ran along the shore I knew better what the ocean was hair slapping the back of my neck with each stride I was further into what I didn’t know.

I didn’t stop, rode busses all night into new cities woke up contorted and sore pulled my sweaters around me until the bus stopped I stretched wide like lion and tumbled out into the cold sun.

The Story of My Shame Jackie Joy when your mother married my father she gave me a porcelain doll, rosy cheeks, long eyelashes, mocha skin eyes that closed when laid on its back a blank space beneath her dress when you’re​​a little girl, they give it special names: Peep-A-Deep, Pululu, Salt Ting, Nanchie, shame wraps itself around me remembering madness at my midnight reflection, your fingers inside my ruffled panties, proof that I was beautiful, it was a game, you said, rubbing on my budding, hot, sticky, skinny, little legs, staining my lace ankle socks, the tops of my white, patent leather shoes

~ remember when I asked if semen looked like yellow dandelions? they blamed it on my precocious little mind only thirteen, officially told I was a woman You must learn to protect your secret garden not able to tell, the soil already overturned drunken adolescence, they skipped that in the textbooks, holding panties with one hand

a bottle of beer, or whiskey in the other under the covers on a hot summer day,

caught with the girl I kissed, it was the same day the boys next door took turns writhing

on my body, and I showed her how to touch me gently so it didn’t all seem so ugly ~ another era, such emptiness: the baby and husband would save me at 17, I’d mend my wild, wicked ways, then twenty one, I left him two daughters by my side, dragged by the hair, I was still desirable then ~ I now lay quiet in the clearing softly licking my wounds I’m living this life in reverse It’s not too late to love me It’s not too late to save me It’s not too late to heal me It’s not too late

Jackie Joy Jackie Joy

No, I didn’t get any taller I’m just holding my head a whole lot higher I’m talking to my angels there floating above the skyscrapers I’m not afraid to sparkle Flood the world with my light

Family, Love me, accept me as I am A little bit crazy, a whole lot damaged But better despite the ware The truth no longer traps me in its snares I offer no apologies for the only way I know to love Fiercely, passionately and ferociously Forgive me for my madness, for that anger thing Let’s agree it’s served its purpose I can’t fit in that box you tried to put me in This body is big and curvy and it moves like a wave I’m a hustler, gotta keep on flowing I’m going to have a wonderful life Living the one designed by me I dream to want for nothing Rich in family, rich in friends, rich in lovers, Changing my role from victim to hero

A strong black, double espresso shot An acquired taste for a cultured tongue I’ve learned how to say my name and smile

Our Bleeding Sun LadyBlack The sun glistens reflecting shades of crimson lights bleeding desert sands severed bodies falling daily death crimson hatred festers here you can taste it like habaneros burning the flesh on your tongue no milk to soothe bucking Black stallions broken dragged to death trivial like children killing ants pristine clean dove White Magdalene crushed, killed, snatched from the golden sunray taking her home or to the check cashing spot in the strip mall so she could buy groceries and feed her two year old Bosnian man killed on his way to his hotel while in St Louis observing the protests death has no color, no religion, no politics Daddy dies, we cry, bury him and go back to school African children beat up for ebola by Latino children Latino children beat up for immigration by Black kids Black kids beat up for being black by White kids White kids beat up for having privilege and the beat goes on knowing better doesn’t make it stop tears are too salty to quench the thirst indescribable pain deep in the belly staring up into the eyes of her would be savior a baby, sired by the heat of fear seen in the face of a man who doesn’t see himself a man unless he controls a woman, cries her last breath then dies of dehydration in the arms of a mother, legs torn apart as Jihad and sold into slavery because women should be forbidden to learn

Dear LadyBlack, LadyBlack Who do you think you are?

A fairy Godmother super rock star running these streets, bossing the bosses in hot pants and metal high heeled boots!

You were made from ginger yellow sunrays floating on the walls of your dreams come true.

You wonder why you have so much guilt, but nothing can make up for the distance between your joy and their pain.

You are not in control. You are not to blame.

You claim you want to heal the world but you’re afraid to leave the house.

You build walls of wants and fears between you and your true existence, crying in your hermitage where no one can see you and hold you accountable for the misuse of your gifts.

You want to know the truth?

The world is waiting for you to find it.

The people are longing for the familiar touch of your heat.

Your brand of healing is absent and necessary.

Your brand of healing is what made leaders in the promised lands of time tested religions and ancient spirits.

Your brand of healing can only be brought into the world by you.

Why, because the troubled past of the spirits who died for you is the balm of gilead.

Why, because the hunger in your belly and the famine of the ages is the perfect diet for truth seekers.

Why, because the salty taste of your tears and the flavor of your laughter is the cure for that disease called hate.

When the sounds of violins, saxophones, and African drums argue with the bright warm all encompassing light, does the fabric, color, and shape of life have anything to be ashamed of?

You remind me of the babies I have yet to give birth to.

Asking questions that need no answer.

Crying for mothers milk that’s already waiting, trying to train me to be at their beck and call.

But I won’t fall for it.

I refuse to be ruled by my tongue and bad habits.

I will give you the gift of understanding your troubled soul I will see what you do well I will seek you out for your greatnesses This is how I will show you I care I have always loved the sound of your laugh the secrets hidden in the drama and rhythm of your dance the fanciful way you wear your armour, layered, upside down and sometimes inside out Count your blessings, for your mother who loves you despite your contrary and cantankerous spirit for your husband who kisses you by the light of the sun and mends your wounds with candy coated told you so’s for the women who have loved you forever and traveled with you for eons Be mindful of your fears, and focus on your truth Remember, you will grow abundantly old with your husband, and death is only the broken water of childbirth into a new world.

Eradicating Envy, For Beth.

Chloe Stingley brown waves, flowing and shivering like the hide of a young buck quivering as it's last breath, escapes those innocent lips and stunned eyes. you dare to be the crimson red lips of blood in the fresh stark snow on the geisha's face. eyes crinkle like my granny's. lines where, all the secrets you've told and all the answers you hold, reside. take me to your sweet place. that land where all are free. to love, live and create what they please. your arms are pillows on the bed, in the bodega of my lover's sweet escape. hold him tight for me. cling to him like a sweat soaked linen shirt, on a sun soaked chest. oh mother, oh lover be all that and more.

but you are. you sit on the throne of your life. the laughter of children sprinkled around your wrists, adorned. tender kisses of so many lovers and givers, hang from your neck. adorned. body full and plump. georgia peaches and pale sandy beach skin. show me all the places on your mother earth, earth mother. show me where the love resides.

Cheers Ricah Norman Here's to having the least amount of melanin in your immediate family It will toughen your skin and release it slick like vibrant duck feathers Here's to seeing family with new eyes; a rare quilt of amazing black women Aunty, who taught you your two feet will sometimes be all you have to stand on Cousin​-Sister, who will teach you what it is to own yourself and the infallible value of laughter The woman who birthed you, who showed you the vulnerable face of internal conflict Here's to always having the perfect writing utensil for any moment it will reveal the different ways you may need to express yourself Here's to Spring rain your greatest teacher in dark moments Here's to the love that resides in your lover's middle only her core of soft, like the smell of fresh vanilla, able to welcome and soothe you Here's to every bookstore in Manhattan and Brooklyn and how you never need a map only the landmarks of your explorations to help you navigate the infamous concrete jungle Here's to the smile on your eight year old god son's face evoked by your gifts the only thing that can melt you into the perfect golden brown butter sauce Here's to his unadulterated love for trains, buses, football, and you it will teach you that life can truly be simple Here's to a sisterhood of almost 15 years that has brought you through hell, high water, and heartbreak

the crumbling and rebuilding of yourself will teach you the most important truths about yourself Here's to everything you never thought you deserved Here's to everything you never imagined you'd have but received, despite it all

Clare's Line Clare Towler A taproot burrows into the soil like an anchor without the lightness of choice.

The first thing I always see are rose-beds, then the white enamel of another fresh layer of paint.

It is the same colour as the pores in my memory shooting through solid imagery white, like edelweiss.

White, like a starched apron, like a porcelain God. I learn to arrive and depart without sharing my opinion.

Without asking too many questions.

Without refusing a meal or a five-dollar bill, their insurance against loneliness.

I see hundreds of years in a single gesture; the snail of her hand as she slides along rosary-beads, his routine nod of approval as she pours condensed milk into his cereal and arranges his pills, the thrift in her arthritic fingers as she skins a mango to the seed.

I catch glimpses - electric continuities of her in him, of him in me, and the tingle of an afterthought – a forehand can brush a live wire but an open palm clamps its jaw shut absorbing voltage like a too-generous heroin.

My fingers are discerning, like antennae in a jungle of love, searching for equilibrium, not gross perfection.

Luminous, messy, coming of age: I left gates wide open, rode bareback into the unknown, unbuckled the stirrups from my body to love in unconscionable ways.

There is no tradition I haven’t broken,

except the inertia of depression, with its drag and despair.

I put a kink in the chain, yet it still holds and tugs on me like an anchor without the lightness of choice but I keep showing up.

Bloodlines baffle, chafe, fade, rattle my core. They also endlessly entangle.

So maybe there is always a choice, however thin or fractured.

Josephine Clare Towler My first impression of you is silence, five paces of concrete mouthfuls of palabras and unwritten immanence resting between us.

You dropped hints in your wake, like a trail of lolly wrappers, littering my imagination I felt your difference like a surprise touch sending shivers down my spine.

Ready?

Never ready.

Willing? Choice is a leap.

Hours upon hours disappear in the quiet intimacy of your car, my car, secrets told obliquely, herstories like the pleats of an accordion, breathing in and out without a strict tune.

To see your splayed body first thing as I wake each morning rocked my soul and melted my cunt mustard, moss, magenta colours grew bolder.

If I had drawn a line sooner would things have been different?

Lines were unprecedented and required self-knowledge so we walked our bare feet to a pulp, until we knew.

Now I encircle myself with lines of salt, chalk and pills like far-off moons I swallow with a parched throat.

Now we sleep apart and I still wake up and reach for you impressed by another kind of silence.

Reconstruction Nicole Carlsburg Her thighs hang heavy, strong, twin trunks of a tree, steady to withstand the hurricane.

Sweet, tender flesh on the inside of her legs pulsing together with a forward motion that brings her where she needs to go.

Skin that bears the proof of years, decades, of gentle touch and a lover's gaze.

They propel her forward, through storm and desert, carry her even when they are aching and tired.

The flesh of a unicorn, a phoenix, a goddess personified.

She is the terminal leaf on a tree, the last piece standing on a chessboard, the solitary figure standing in a field, hair whipping in the wind, alone but not at all lonely.

The rest of her body, too, a fortress of safety in a war-torn world.

Her skin wrapped around the bow of a ship, cutting through stormy waters and headed toward safer harbor.

The sight of a familiar skyline from above when your red-eye flight is almost landed.

Sand under a microscope, its wonder and brilliance glinting up close, but hidden to the naked eye.

Smiling wrinkles around a lover's eyes.

Her bones, that astounding, wondrous skeleton who won't stay down (not yet).

Tiny bones have died, yes, but how the others have rallied in their place!

Absence mismanaged, perhaps, but managed nonetheless.

Solid, stable, steadfast.

The stunning intricacy of nature-a fern unfolding, the fractals of a romanesco cauliflower, the persistent regrowth of coral when the whole ocean seems to conspire against it.

A tree like mid-winter, branches sheathed in

perfect shining crystals of ice, bending low to bear the weight but unwilling to snap.

The spring thaw is just around the cornerthe first buds of crocus poking brave heads out of nearly frozen earth.

And soon, fields of purple flowers as far as the eye can see.

I've got other celebrations, more than time allows.

Her untamable hair, her glinting smile like the stars filling the sky far from man-made light.

Her moles and birthmarks and freckles, glittering dust marking this spot as holy.

Her nimble toes and dependable knees, her arms that move mountains and hold brand new babies, in turn.

And her mind, her spirit, is lovely too.

She is sweet like the fire-toasted marshmallow from the campfire squished between chocolate and graham.

Silly like a child, laughter echoing across the room.

She challenges, she comforts, she gives.

She is the sunlight at magic hour, the warmest yellow glow there is, soothing the skin of everyone around her.

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