I was fourteen when I first tasted real bread
Having moved to Milan from big D
The land of bland Wonder

I left Dallas after a year of peak pain
Most of eighth grade culminating
In grand jury testimony against my father
And termination of his parental rights
Three months later we moved to Italy

I would have gone anywhere
To avoid my shame and terror
I still cringe naming those real feelings
Real like a color you think only you can see

I practiced lying about things that didn't matter
Testing to see if my lies were detectable
To protect my sense of self, of cleanliness, of value
To protect my right to imagine that I had a future

So when I moved to Milan
I gained the priceless gift of anonymity
I couldn't say what had happened to me if I tried
Not in Italian
My inability to say it allowed me to become someone new

I moved through the streets, no longer dependent on adults and cars
I took the subway, traveling miles underground which suited me perfectly
No one knew where I was
I was safe

The smells come to mind
The sooty exhaust of an industrial city
The bitter tang of espresso - everywhere - and
Of course, bread

There were bakeries around every corner
Enough that you could smell baking bread
And sometimes almost-burning sugar
Wherever you might be

I learned, with all my senses
That life goes on after war
Buildings are rebuilt, people still dress up, and
Bread is truly daily, no matter the disasters

I've never been much of a baker (the rules, you know)
But I learned to tell the truth, and
I've become my own source
The yeasty start of the ever-new me

I began saying Yes in 2004
It bubbled up from deep inside
I would hear myself say it
YES

Sometimes when least expected
Like a burp that sneaks out
Before you realize it
YES

I remember being shocked
Amazed, really
What’s going on?
YES

It sometimes comes
With a certain kind of smile
Guileless and thrilled
YES

Like a great whoosh of wind
On a crisp sunny day
It clears all paths forward
YES.

I have felt like a secret treasure
Since before I can remember
The invisible pillar of my Self, strong and whole
I wondered if others Know what I Know
But they never said

I’m a secret part of Jesus
I thought as a girl
But no one talks about that

I’m secretly smarter than you
I often thought
But you can't say that either

I’m secretly powerful
And secretly beautiful
And secretly just about
Anything I want to be

And clutched inside the fear of being found so immodest
Lay the fear of finding out
That maybe I’m crazy
And I’m none of these things

But as the shell has worn away
Over all these years
I see that I am all of it
And so are you
And if I want to talk about it
I need only ask.

I walk through some days
With the warm, heavy confidence
Of a child that’s done wrong
Or is at best confused
Seeking mother's embrace
Knowing I will be received
And encouraged to try again

Other days I am a big bright mirror
Reflecting everything and everyone
Revealing what is
With a joy that shines intensely
Filling me up
That I may be a more perfect mirror

Today I am quiet
Willing to wait
Willing to bare my soul
As an invitation
To whatever is next.

We all share this not-knowing
And its humility ​
The only real knowledge
Is of the mystery

Perhaps the answers are plain
The way seasons change
The lifespan of a man
Or a planet

Does the planet also become wiser
With its mostly-dissolved regrets
And acceptance of Self ?

An unfurling frond opening predictably
Toward the sky.

I seem to be waking up
On the soft forest ground
Cool and foggy
Quiet but for soft forest sounds
Waking up very very slowly
The light coming through the trees
One beam at a time
One beam every few years
I roll to my other side
And doze some more
But the light has been growing
As if morning is coming
Daytime is coming
It's time to work.

All my life I've had secrets
Like most people
Thinking that therapy and writing
Would help get them out​
That I might die if I kept them inside
The truth is, if I don't let them out
They will die

I learned recently
That my secrets
Live in a small space
Like a pouch
Under my heart
They are most private
Most intimate
And I know they will tell me
When to birth them
To nurse them on the milk of my aliveness

They've been growing inside me
Since before my birth
Like the ova I was born with
They can divide and multiply
They are my precious children
And I see now that I am responsible for their lives

I am humble enough to tell you
That I wasn't the best mother
For a young girl, my young girl
Thinking I could carry her with me on my adventures
I thought life would open for her
That I would just see who she was
Not engineer her into some kind of adult

I should have sheltered her more
I should have nurtured her more
I should have should have should have
I loved her, desperately
I love her now
But I can't make the same mistakes
The secrets are not like her

They watched her form
Watched her growing inside me
Enduring a hard birth
In my own bed
In my youth
The secrets were not silent then, but I neglected them
I could barely take care of her! or myself

The years are moving quickly now
Weeks move like days
And my time is coming
I'd be lying if I said
I wasn't afraid of this next birth
Every day there are little waves of cringing anguish
And a growing determination
Of no turning back
Until then, I can rest

Sometimes they crawl out of the pouch
To play and tumble on my belly
They are cute like baby kittens
But maybe like comic book kittens
Because they will turn into massive creatures
Massive like mountains
And when it's time
They'll assume their grand role
In the grand scheme
At least for a day

I will not be afraid
When they are impossibly bigger than me.

We grieve the ones who get out
We even struggle and strive to prolong this
This Living
If we really believe that we have souls
That the source, Heaven, the afterlife
Is so much better, truly
Why wouldn't we be looking for excuses to get out of here
No wonder there are prohibitions against suicide

So it goes like this:
Go attach to this brand new human body
Not even born
Be sure you're there for the first violent rite
The birth
The initial paradox
If you don't die
If you aren't traumatized completely
You cross the starting line
And become dependent on immature others
Who may or may not have invited you
With no choice, control or assent
Mirror and absorb their behavior
Their beliefs and attitudes
They will smile and feed you
Their wholehearted ignorance
Will confuse and confound you

Should it occur to you that something must be amiss
That this does not make sense
That the God they speak of
Cannot possibly be all-loving
And have unchosen children
That the parents who love you
Can abuse and abandon you
It will raise a silent alarm
An anxiety you'll learn to live with

Then try very hard to stay alive
To hang on through disease and disorder
Through despair and betrayal
With a sense after all
That it was a good life
Or if it's cut short
That it was too soon
How can it be too soon?
So they say it's for love
For learning and transcendence
But people live on
In anger and isolation
They hang on and on in pain and fear

The language you're born to
And it's place and class and culture
Will provide you with some explanations
Some rules
They are mostly sincere attempts

​I do know better
But Oh My God
It is so hard sometimes
It helps to know in my bones
That relief will be coming one day
For Everyone.

Last night I dreamt of riding
Bareback and unbridled
Fingers entwined in a thick mane
Colored like iron-rich earth

Galloping over grassy hills
In the gorgeous light of dusk
My fingers moved in that mane
Legs tight against the coarse red coat
The lone rider in a running herd
I breathed-in the whole sky
And time stood still.

I wake up to the soundless words
of repeated prayer and thanks
repeating, over and over somewhere above my sleeping self
I perform my daily rituals
silent movements to order and clean
water to replenish myself
and the day yawns into being
I look at the calendar
linking mind and memory
engaging the first gear
toward the long day ahead
I revisit the day just passed
the joys and petty irritations
all focused by the perfect light
of my life's tragic arc
I engage, again and again
moving, talking, thinking, writing
connecting
the spaces between us blinking
I visit the idea of tomorrow
and the days beyond
sending thoughts and hope
out into the darkness
to prepare my way
I fall asleep to the soundless words
of repeated prayer and thanks
repeating, over and over
leading me down to my rest.

Sure as my eyes are brown
I’ve been moving toward something
I can feel that I’m moving toward it
Closer, but not ready
Not yet
There is stillness in the knowing
While my life whirls around me
I’m waiting, lots of waiting
A sudden awkward doubt
Shivers in
Making me look up and around
And I wonder if this waiting
Is really just stalling
I wonder if this is how easy it is
A whole life could slip by
Without doing what you came to do
But as I sit here
Perfectly relaxed after walking for an hour
In this heat
I know in my bones
That it’s not yet time

The training and testing are often brutal:
(I wanted to leave my family in the airport last week after the two almost-grown daughters fell into a flux of provocation and retaliation)
(I attended a funeral last month where I sobbed heavily for maybe one minute into my sister–in-law's neck, it felt like an eternity, like a visit to a timeless place, like diving into a deep swimming hole, the time it takes to dive down, touch the bottom, and come back up for air, that's how long I cried, and it was forever)

Getting closer and closer
I practice saying what's true for me
What I've really done and felt, and learned
Without fear of fraud or joke
Safe in the anonymity of being one and many
Whole.

It's delicious
This sitting where no one knows me
An affair with myself
That betrays none.
My secret sense
Of who I am
Pushes tenderly behind my eyes.
The future, the past
Inside and out
My gaze spreads like honey
And I am everyone.

My dream voice speaks only truth
I take its lessons in the early mornings
It reminds me:
No preaching to the choir
It says I’m a warrior
It says I have the voice of a martyr
And I know it’s true
because I dread it

Preparing for a martyr's wounds
(derision, shame, attack)
Has taken so much longer
Than learning to be
whatever else I’ve been

My dream voice says I am meant to fight
The cry of tolerance falls on
Ears, corrupted and distorted
But the truth exists in each man’s soul
My dream voice says I will die fighting for it.