Introduction: This piece was inspired by an article I read in the Washington Post about A School of Music for Women in Afghanistan that was destroyed by the Taliban and turned into a bunker for their operation. Only some of the women were able to escape. Some Americans who were assisting the escape efforts are … Continue reading Song Stress – For Afghan Women
So often it steals our passion and replaces it with exhaustion. It sneaks underneath conscious intent like sleep undertakes motivation. We cannot fight biological needs, and trying only makes the depletion worse. A fever returns the moment we push past the need for rest. Doing our best to rise above the rules and machinery, we … Continue reading Rebel Dreamer
I approach the food bin next to the one she is pulling from and wait. Her head moves slowly to turn and look at me as if I am laying audacious claim to her territory and resources. Standing there with several inches between us the smell of entitlement is stronger than the smell of bacon. … Continue reading Queen of Lines
I. My body is a microcosm of the earth, raging against invasion, depletion, destruction. Scars are blocking my guts, like damming up the Amazon River when 70% of our medicines come from the jungle it feeds. Some things just need to flow or the world suffers. Tribes have survived deep inside the forest, keeping the … Continue reading Life Giver (Pacha Mamma Gives Birth)
This image is a still from Becoming Who I Was, the film this poem is based on. It is a documentary about a child who was a Rinpoche in his previous lifetime, and is displaced from his home in Tibet due to reincarnating in a rural region of China. He must travel, with the help of his elderly guardian, from a village in wintering China, through India, to Tibet, in the hopes of being reunited with his disciples who must claim him in order for him to fulfill his purpose for reincarnating. But Tibetan borders, as we know, are blocked and heavily guarded. I highly recommend the film, for the moving story, and for the stunning photography.
And now the poem.
Sometimes a little says a lot. This one was just too big to do it any other way.
