PAINTREE

Van Gogh retired from the world
and painted flowers, not as they were
but as he saw them. In families,
in aching color, whole even when broken. 

The world saw something else in those
pictures, and in him. Funny people
paint those funny pictures.
Don’t look too close.

I’m afraid of being seen. 
Of becoming a portrait on someone’s wall
that I don’t recognize. Or worst of all, 
being shown a mirror. 

I plan and analyze and overthink
so that I will never be caught
being human.

And yet when I see van Gogh’s irises, 
I don’t see flowers, I see a brain –
raw, disordered, broken, different, 
beautiful, powerful.

Tree of death, you guide me
through sharp nostalgia
for a world that has been left
far behind in the east.

Tree of resurrection,
you assure me 
that an ending is also always
a beginning.

This fire may burn your bark,
but it will yield staves
hard and sharp.

The labyrinth is burning.
Something or someone set it ablaze.

We who live on its edge watch
with horror and delight.

We always wanted to know
what was hidden within and now we might.

The secret in the darkness
at the labyrinth’s center, if it even has one.

The secret known only to a few priests
and the king himself.

A monster, or monsters, treasure,
secret learning too powerful to share.

The labyrinth is burning. Underground
chambers collapse and crack the streets.

The secret of kings will be revealed
by fire as the palace falls

and the walls fall and the roofs fall
and the sea rages in 

and the sun disappears,
we will be granted knowledge

locked away by our ancestors who taught us
to turn away from the wrath of god.

What has filled the labyrinth?
What could power not dare reveal?

Nothing at all.

Nothing.

And as the city turns to sand
and fans of water in the mud,

and some of us play the monsters,
robbing treasure they couldn’t loot,

with that knowledge of the world
as it really is will come freedom,

Luó, freedom through destruction,
freedom from all constraint,

no halls for lack of walls,
no paths for lack of forests.

In that expanse we will be forced
to decide whether to become kinder,

to grow a lattice from entwined fingers,
to build a wall or build four,

whether to rebuild the maze,
what to write down, what to hide.

Most galaxies don’t have rings.
The Cat’s Eye Galaxy has two –
A bright inner ring forging stars
and an outer one cold and diffuse.

And nobody knows why,
nobody knows why,
the Sun is cool
and the Moon is high,
but nobody knows why.

The Nike of Samothrace has
impossible wings and a modern
brace to keep her hands raised.
She may have balanced on her island.

But nobody knows why,
nobody knows why,
cities may fall
and marble may fly,
but nobody knows why.

Caterpillars can be trained to fear
ammonia before they harden and
turn to soup. Despite becoming goo,
the butterfly will remember.

And nobody knows why,
nobody knows why,
a mushroom will run
and a rabbit can cry,
but nobody knows why.

I’m frightened of change.
Choice paralyzes. At the start.
But all of us get used to it, whatever
it is, and keep going, or start again.

And nobody knows why,
nobody knows why,
I painted a rock
and I baked you a pie,
but nobody knows why.

It’s so easy to break things –
trust, a heart, a nation.
So much more work
to build.

It’s easy to get sad
and feel helpless.
It’s easy to get angry and
want to break something back.

It’s difficult when your ears
are filled with the sound of shattering
to hear the blackbird sing
or to look up and see the trees’ fingers.

The hurt is designed
to make you feel blind. 
Wipe the blood
from your eyes

and take a moment
to notice everything 
even as it breaks
a seed becomes
a burning sun
take the time
dissention
to love
some-
thing
and
make
it

grow

Enclosed, uprooted,
and left hungry, 
I will find my own way.

I reach to the sun and
create
my own sustenance. 

Once I’ve had enough,
I put down roots
and share with my neighbors.

I never meant to land in the water. 
I’m no sailor, no navigator.

Tectonic forces have cast me adrift,
the land ran away from me, 

islands on the horizon receding
faster than I could learn to turn a rudder.

I lay for ages in the cold doldrums, water
turned to lead, air to sulfur, I could not breathe –

until, gradual as the dawn, the arrival
of these misty storm birds,

who pull me forward until I am upright
and regain momentum,

moving toward the harbor I cannot see
but have faith is there beyond the swells.

Albatrosses, frigate birds, gulls?
I don’t know, or much care.

They are my wings, my strength, my sails,
this boat, the wind, the waves,

as am I, in turn, for them, 
hoisting each other toward the sunrise.

In the low fingers
of the Alps, lavender grows,
fragrance among vines.

It’s not the only thing
that flourishes in the spare
roughs of the maquis.

But by human hands
the blooms are reared, and come to
symbolize the land.

——————————

I too have summer
and winter thoughts forever
budding in my head.

I try to train them
like bonsai. On the best days
my summer garden

grows tall and pulls me
straight up to the soft blue sky,
frost beneath my toes.

——————————

In Texas there is
no want for French lavender. 
It grows in gravel

in our own gorgeous
wastelands. Autochthonous ward
against scorpions

and other household
demons, dried and stored for this
latest queer winter.

I will not buy dark flowers until the wake is announced.
I will sing bright songs and stoke the fire.

I will write stories in green and give them away
and my friends will read them to their friends.

I will paint the ceiling in pastel and neon and
we will spin beneath it late until we fall down laughing.

While watching for bitter torches in the long night
I will bake apples and scatter incense and magnesium

so that if the house should be burned down
it will shine and smell like cinnamon.

I will not obey in advance;
and I will not surrender my joy.