Now I turn my back on the moon

And wait for the sun to rise.

I know it will.

I listen to the crickets sing

And the wind brush through the treetops.

Soft clouds cover the night sky,

Dropping the curtains on the stars

And the second act of their play,

Setting the stage for act three.

What character will the Sun play for me this morning

In the great dramatic star of the color-filled sunrise?

And …. Will I choose to be the protagonist or antagonist today in act four?

And… what exactly is my motivation 

In becoming for or against 

Any of our current made up ideologies?

-jenn

 It takes a lot

But it doesn’t feel like much

To squeeze through the gates of time

Unseen

To stand like a stowaway 

On a cosmic Mayflower 

A rose on the wallpaper 

At the big dance

A fly on the wall 

On opening night of the big screen

“What if?”

Is an endless possibility 

To see a way

And say

“Right now,

I’m going through!”

And like a dream

Or the view from a body cam

Watch it unfold in real time 

And be available 

To live 

To exist as Pure Love

On this planet

Without condition

Or certificate of forfeiture 

And still be ever true to you and to my own true nature 

To feel like a kid 

Who’s buttoned his shirt up wrong

And know

It doesn’t matter 

I wouldn’t cheat you

Or do you wrong 

This is a song about

Allowing someone to help you

Remove 

All those wet blankets

You feel weighing heavy on you

This is a song about wanting to be great

And willing to wait forever 

To do it the right way

Like a kid who’s buttoned his shirt up wrong 

On picture day

But also knows 

Without a doubt 

It doesn’t really matter 

-jenn

 It’s just as if I’d seen a turtle 

My eyes got wide with glee

But as I approached I saw it clearer

Just a fallen leaf

With a shadow sticking out like a neck 

And a rock lay behind like a head

But luckily it wasn’t dead

It wasn’t a turtle at all

But I rode by on my bike

My eyes still wide

My heart content 

Surrounded by mineral and vegetable alike

And happy 

Just as if I’d seen a turtle 

-jenn

 Standing thigh high in a field of tall blue bonnets,

At the foot of a rocky hill covered in liveoak trees,

Twirling around in my gingham frock,

With my skirt blowing out in a perfect circle,

This is my happy place. 

This is where I am the lord of the mandala of my existence.

Through a paper veil

Worn and thin and yellowed with time,

Like onion skin,

A frame appears of wood mahogany,

Dark in contrast to my grandmother’s ivory apron.

There is a look upon her face in that photo

That i only saw once, or maybe twice,

A look of bliss,

A look of peaceful loving joy.

A smile in the midst of the Great Depression, 

On a day when she had enough to feed everyone,

A plate on the counter piled high she was making

Of chicken salad sandwiches to feed the guests 

Who’d come to her eldest daughter’s wedding.

I hear the Bridal March begins! 

In my head I sing happily, “Here comes the bride!”

But I am still here,

Thigh high in bluebonnets,

Missing the wedding,

Missing the mayonnaise,

(Maybe, by now, I’m missing the cake!)

Twirling round, all about in the flowers,

Shining as the lord of my own mandala!

This is my happy place.

-jenn

 Today I rode the bus with the children of Pecos, Texas.

So packed in like sardines were we,

That several children  found themselves sitting 

Cross legged on the floor, in the middle of the aisle between the seats.

One such child was an eight year old Hispanic, 

And I want to call him a man instead of a boy,

Because I remember his face, his old soul eyes.

I remember how he took an old coke can 

That had rolled up beside him from the back of the bus somewhere,

And he pulled a pair of tin snips out of his pocket

And began singing in Spanish,

With the voice of a thousand ancient warriors.

I felt the bus swerve and looked up to see,

We had avoided running over a big dead dog in the road

That someone else had hit earlier with their car.

I could see up ahead several more animal carcasses 

Dotting the highway.

But the artist’s song kept me spellbound.

I would glance up at the road ahead, occasionally,

Always returning my gaze quickly to watch the sharp cuts he made on the metal.

And as I listened to his melody, I discovered

That his song told of his day at school.

He sang was about how the teacher had asked the children 

To write a page about what they were going to be when they grew up and why,

And he had gotten a zero because 

He couldn’t write.

But now he sang,

About the plight of all the children,

Yet how everything was going to be alright anyway,

A beautiful heartfelt spontaneous hymn.

He sang about how “what he was going to be when he grew up,”

Was exactly the same thing he was now:

A person who sits cross legged on the floor

And makes art out of trash.

He was going to specialize in tiny decorative saddles

That he would make out of old coke cans. 

And it was exactly when I heard that lyric in his verse,

It hit me that

That is exactly what he was making.

The last few snips on the can,

A few critical bends and folds,

And miraculously, 

The most bejeweled looking tiny decorative saddle I ever saw

Appeared out of the crumpled aluminum.

The bus swerved.

I looked to see.

We had just avoided another dead dog

Lying on the highway.

-jenn