Green...clarity pyramid

GREEN 
Tropic 
Paradise 

Oft we get blessed 
When we least expect it 
Though it's what we asked Him for 

"I may look good in emerald."

© NP 09/28/12

DIRT

DIRT

Inside

Mortal clay

Good enough to eat

They are all not tasty

Though God makes them all of earth

The transformed won’t leave you hungry

© NP 09/23/12

Hip Pocket

How can I even begin to explain

From whence and where this feeling came

To a girl child living in the twain

Of day’s sunrise and moon’s wane

Who’s never had in her veins

A love leave a permanent stain

From knee to hip occluding brain

How to distinguish between the swains

That would take to task her soul in vain

Many times and over and over again

Until in darkness she must abstain

To break a the links of choking chain

How can I even begin to explain

My experience that makes this plain

As weather telling needs a vane

To show the wind outside of pane

My heart has been newly arraigned

Because I let the spirit guide and change

Prepare me for this man ordained

After much praying of a campaign

And time taken to retrain

A life that had been detained

By holding onto too much pain

How can I ever begin to explain

My high is not of chilled champagne

Nor even that of fermented grain

I had to give up on my tired refrain

And stepped into a brand new lane

The living of life I now do retain

The joy in life I have regained

And as far as I can ascertain

His love for me is pretty plain

So in his life I will remain

From mountaintops to mundane

For at his hip I have been claimed

© NP 09/24/12

it's not about me

When I awake

I can lie still in the mornings

Waiting on you to join me

In that early morning grace

Of knowing that we have

Made it to today, whole,

Intact and in our right minds

I can immediately give thanks

That my prayers from

The night before have been answered

And while I may not realize it

In terms that I can touch

It never-the-less has happened

When I awake

I do not find you wanting

In any measurement of fullness

And I find your need

To begin the day in peace

A match to my own

So we go about the ministrations

A cup of tea, a heel of bread

A song of prayer, hums, whispers

Made by our own thanksgiving

Of a fast to be broken

When I awake

To the leaving and arriving

Of winds across a blue ocean

The scent of mangoes

And pleasant call of greetings

That await outside our door

It is good to be still

Against even pleasant intrusions

So we begin our day together

As we ended it the night before

In prayer for the things

We want for others and ourselves

When I wake

I am overwhelmed with

The extravagance of life

In placing me beside a man

Who understands that mercy

Is not a weakness

Nor love a fault of foolish men

But something to be treasured

And returned tenfold

When I awake

I realize that this day

Is not about me, but us.

© NP 09/19/12

Nick of name

My mother picked my name

Out of the base of her experience

With the foresight to make it simple

As if she already knew that I needed to travel

Nothing too heavy and nothing too light

And nothing extra, just enough

One letter with a tail for balance

Another with a hook to hold on

To my answered prayers

And two that reached for the heavens

Just four, complete, completion

Yang and yin, you and me

Fusing, marinating and blending

A synthesis of life producing

The realization of joined ideas

Four ways for a day’s labor

A work always in progress

I fell in love with words young

My crafting and showing

Me in ink, me on paper, me in chalk

Me in the stability of helium

One, two, three, four electrons

The basis of all organic life

Length, breadth, width and time

Four testaments to Christ

Four worlds in the tree of life

I never grew too tall

Or too thin and was thus spared

Being ridiculed for either

And the nick of my name

Can’t be changed or diminutivized

Without changing who I am

To you

I am as volatile as the air and fire

As calm as the water and earth

Not in contradiction

But in balancing quadrants

And always in motion

My thoughts never shut down

Patterning and reconfiguring

Turning the wheel

Clockwise and opposite

  

I am not interchangeable

With any one past or present

My name does not hide me

In Slavery, in Christianity or darkness

I choose to be who I am

You chose me to be yours

I accept your hypocoristic

And hold that name in my heart

© NP 09/6/12

Overstanding

Today I dreamed of the sun

With eyes wide open and looking

Through a window newly clean

Rag in one hand and windex in the other

And just for a moment I could

Smell the ocean wafting

A warm breeze across my feet

So I had to remove my socks

To see if I could wiggle my toes

In a sandy delight of pleasure

I can taste the greenness of

Of your heart holding onto mine

The windowpane seems a doorway

Only I have been asked to enter

When I listen, I can hear your voice

Folding the wings of brown pelicans

And whispering past the lushness

Of the bougainvillea vine

Sweet and sensuous lyrics

Sounding off tamarind clusters

And shooting carambola stars

Calling me to you throughout the day

Upon my prayers gazing beyond glass

I know that you are my overstanding

© NP 09/17/12

oh death

Out of the corner of my eye

A shadow briefly passed

And only just for a second

A refraction of light

I should not have seen it

No one else seemed to have

Or were too afraid to acknowledge

A moving darkness in the sanctuary

Cloaked in blindness

A momentary patch

Over the third sight

 

Of the multitudes of pew sitting folks

The hallelujahs were loud

The lights grew dim in the noon hour

And it seemed a hot chill passed

While we all called on the Lord

Weeping for private dreams

Praying for private wants

Ignoring private needs

And the reaper walked unmet

To the tares hiding

In amongst the wheat

 I averted my eyes lest

He would find me wanting

Offering to make a crossroad deal

Though I knew full well that

This is now the harvest season

And I understood the word mercy

In that moment

For maybe I hadn’t done it right

But I am still favored as wheat

And at the dimming of this morn

Death passed me over

 

© NP 09/10/12