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Today begins the day that I share with you a journey of finding light in the dark. Today is the first new moon of the year, the time when the night sky waxes darkest and most cold, so thick that even shadows have no name. Bright stars give the indication that not all is lost, and we can go forth into the night, knowing that, as has happened for eons before, that the sun will rise again in abundance. We can reference the Tarot here, the Star card giving promise of change and something new; hope in a glassy pond splashed with pinpoints of light from stars floating in the firmament above. Perhaps our hands cannot reach that which we can see, but we know it is there, possible.

This metamorphosis and transformation is an old friend of mine. Without true darkness we would never know and experience light. I give you a beginning, a dark place, a reference.

(as a note, this blog does not like the original formatting on this piece...but you'll get the drift)

Mother’s Kitchen

Some say

All fights start and end in the bedroom.

But that room is reserved for lovers alone.

Where I come from

The kitchen becomes

The circle squared.

Splintery and dark,

Hostile wooden planks with olive-colored pegs replace

The smooth springy canvas of the ring.

There’s no strong bell to signal

The end of one fiery match

And the beginning of another.

The lady begins barking orders, again.

A stolid iron skillet still

Shudders in fright from

The last round fought.

It remembers every blow.

The dirty amber glow

From the stove hood lamp

Shines only on weary faces:

Tired and drawn,

her whitewashed countenance falls

into nicotine-stained hands.

Those frozen blue eyes have taken in too much today.

Moms’ coffee

Cold

with a slimy-stiff film of cream

my only companion now.

The last go in the ring took everything away.

A fly,

frozen to the ceiling considers

her strangely electric body

strewn across the floor and

the hulk of man-speed

With furious peg-eyes

Staring back.

Her face becomes one

With the clammy planks below her.

A dog whines in the distance.

If only the ranks of

Silly blue flowers

Marching across the greasy walls could

Muster the

Strength to pull her up.

Not this time.

Not next time.

Not ever.