replace the plastic chairs.

lola don't know what happened.
she really don't.
but you can peer through her gloriously, glorious bay window and find her
and her paper dolls
barely seen amidst a mountain of browned maps
rolled up over and over with all her plans.
lists and places and trinkets and things
her little life inside this mansion of a cabin - built with woooooooden beams,
ceilings low to the ground,
has
been
interrupted.

watch the terribly divine inter•jection.

it must be
the great pause/reversal on the ancient tape player.

hear it sssskip skip, change. the blood in the atrium beating to a new, ethereal rhythm.
the silver record, switches to something of divine nature.

and she tastes it all crashing down, as rubble and rust cover
her little life of dreaming -
and ceiling dusts rest upon her tongue.
listen
as she whispers to herself, in the squeaky voice behind her mother's
red lipstick, "He tends to do this to me..."

invisible movements.
missing bed frames.
the great reform.

FOR WE HAD IT ALL FIGURED OUT.

ya, she's a dreamer. a seer. a fairy in a make-believe world.
ya, she's an architect. a lover. a terrified child in need of deconstruction.
lola's one of those with chipped white nail polish, and gaudy diamond rings, and dancing fingers upon the bottom of her
hair.
ya. she's a daughter. a dancer. a safe-havened sojourner looking for a home.

and there she was: mapping out all the bold-fonted tomorrows,
with colors and numbers
and connecting dot.dot.dots,
all perfectly in line,
lining up.
cake. and horses. and oceans. and fire from heaven.
babies. and 17 stringed harps. and foggy fruit gardens.

all perfectly one after the other
etched in her expectation well,
going deep within her soul.

columns and rows like pebbles in the walls of castles.
deep dark waters like the kiddy pool in the back yard.

(stones captured from a greater, rock mountain?
waters stolen from deeper seas - stretching beyond those blufffs like mighty knights on the backdrop of sand, sand, shell, and sand.
it must be only the outlines of her coloring books.
ever and only.)

but THEN.
click one, twenty, thirteen, ten.
He comes -
that stranger of a man,
light, and Life, and mystery, and power..
it's either this way
or that...
he arrives on a horse painted yellow
out of the abyss of her inner frame

can you see him
knock
the
house
down?

smell shreds of map and paper and color
all over the ground.
mounds of piles, and piles of mound.
and lola remembers, even through blurred vision within
the waterfall of wondering.

in a whisper she recites those classical words,
"I love it when He does this.
yes, I am sure."

for there is something delightfully fascinating about
swallowing the soup He serves.
she's been at the banquet before -
and what sings to her from the table of glass
sounds better to her stomach than all
the potions of concoctions of adventures she's
written out before.
being blanketed, anyway, by sinking, submerging sands of time.

his offering exceeds her faction-ing.

his diamonds are the fat beat that
make the song worthy of a dance.

she knows she's not a good artist.
her play-games bore
the atmosphere.

lola longs to live -
and so she's remembering.

his redefinition is her reality.
for the title of his book is still,
"i know your desires."

watch him reprogram the time machine.


this is glorious.
and lola breathes.


selah unto living.
and living unto
LIFE.

the Day of His beckoning

She came home from a long, weary day with an invitation awaiting her -
perched upon her pillowcase - the letters weaved in with gold and silver,
written in a language her mind comprehends, but the words formed more
than mere syllables - something of their message caused her spirit to sing
a melody ancient yet fresh to her heart.
"To Beloved Rose..." it began, and even the mere mention of her name caused her soul to leap.

It was Him.

She had been waiting for Him to call her up, invite her in... to remove Himself
once again from the cloud of unknowing He had been dwelling in that she had grown familiar with but refused to call finality.

She had been waiting... longing...
desiring His coming...

With a trembling heart of expectation, she hurriedly prepared and crawled under her white woolen blanket to rest and wait until the hands on her clock reached the time entitled, "The Hour Of Her Visitation".

For there was nothing much she could do but wait. but rest. but trust He'd come.

And as she lied there, she began to recount Him from all the times before. She began to remember His love and the moments she had heard Him speak. These times had ruined her for all sun-scorched delights her simple life offered - for the transcendent tastes left upon her tongue, heavenly melodies stuck in her head, pleasing fragrance lingering upon her dress had driven her to what some would call madness. Since then she had been consumed with one thing, which confused many of her companions, for little Rose had become a new woman walking upon earth but living from some other place.

And it was true, all she wanted was to be with Him again - to gaze upon His glorious face one more time. She knew, with all her being, that with Him there was life and through Him love was originated.

As her mind traveled through the moments of yesterday her eyes became heavy...

---

Suddenly, she was awakened from her unexpected slumber. Feeling somewhat ashamed for falling asleep in the hour she was to watch, she gasped in fear of having missed Him. Picking up her clock on her bedside she peered into the face as the hands whirled and twirled in madness, and instantly her heart began to whirl and twirl along with the time. "What is happening?" she whispered to herself.

Before she could finish the thought, her heavy, wooden door flung open and banged loudly against her bedroom wall. Still a little muffled from just awakening, Rose was easily startled by the sudden sound. Throwing the clock upon her bed, she arose to see what had caused the commotion. Instead of her normal hallway with it's normal wallpaper and normal doors - she found herself gazing upon a humble little path leading into a dense, wooded forest. At the beginning sat a little wooden sign with the words, "The Pursuit of the Knowledge of Him Whom You Seek."

Within her belly traveling up to her heart, where His voice so often echoed, she heard Him say, "Follow."

And so small and eager Rose began to move forward, one step at a time...

i am

i am...
a little child awakening from slumber. eight hours, three hours, ten. all curled up in cotton - lying upon the mattress which is lying upon the floor. soaked in sun rays kissing upon skin. knowing not what today holds. a blank letter in a viBRANT envelope. imagining and playing along. this is that. this is there.

i am...
a dancer who dances, mostly alone, through carpeted hallways and kitchen tiles. silent rooms like a silent film, scratch it back, back, back in time. or ribbons and bows of harmony to melodies that tied themselves around my heart, around my feet, to stir up love. sway to the right to the rhythm and bend to the left to the beat.

i am...
a lover. loving. longing to be loved. to taste love or feel it rustle the leaves of my heart. to eat love up like one would swallow the sweetest of candies down into the belly. than breathe out the scent of sugary goodness upon it's partaker. fragrant eating fragrance being its own delight, being your delight, delighting in you delighting in me.

i am...
a writer who houses words within a carcass. a tent of a being that's made of skin and bones where words and sentence and description dwell. the a's and b's are indians chanting in their teepees, burning a fire. but this smoke that arises is pale, pathetic narration's of the hurricane within. rushin' round and round.

i am...
a musician, if only in dreams, for melodies are heard and tinkering of keys within a record player that is playing my vinyl. but there is no megaphone to let the tunes free - singing, singing, singing chained down. the rhapsodies of heaven. the lyrics of prophecies. the braided do, ray, me's of another world.

i am...
an artist of sorts. making that which is like a pressed flower between the pages of the book. hidden from anyone, folded between story and word. it is poor & starving. starving & poor. it is letting this little string of the tapestry hide for another day when it has the hands and dollars and dimes to weave it back together.

i am...
a dreamer. a seer. a participant and viewer of a great, and even grander, theater. watch the heavy, velvet curtain be pulled back upon angel's wings. in the day. in the night. seeing things from other places. other worlds. other times. waiting. wanting. waiting to let them fly free from the cage of the rough pages of the diaries of unknown into the blistered hands of the hungry and upon the parched tongue.

i am...
21 in a world that is but 1-80, yet bought by a God who extends past the numeric line of time. an Infinite where beginning resides and ending finds its home. that which beats within is made up of the same blood type titled eternity - where the zeros never stop nor does the ticking and circling of the hands of the clock.

i am...
a woman. a woman. a woman. a responder. a creator. a connecter. a mother. wanting to feel the contrast. wanting to hold the tomorrow's in the womb of her today and breathe life and beauty onto the coming fields of darkness, little puffs of air from lungs that create lilies hidden in thorns. adorned with buttons of an inner-sanctuary and lace of gentle waves crashhhing upon the rocky shore.

i am...
a nomad, whose unemployed, yet fully alive. letting life live, living life. a wanderer in an unknown land, riding in the carriage of refusal - denying this is home, resisting the roots wanting to go down, down deep into the crumblin' earth, commanding a heart to look towards the time when that Desirous One takes the scroll and makes all things new.

i am...
what i am that i am.