Monday, March 31, 2014

Reading at Luna Negra, Mission Cultural Center, March 26, 2014





BLUE in the CIRCLE of CONSCIOUSNESS



very in love at eighteen 
my grandmother Mimi
was married in a blue dress
wearing blue glass beads
blue like her eyes
like these forget-me-nots 
blooming everywhere here 
and it’s these flowers 
that make me think of her dress 
and of her eyes and if I continue
I could bring in the sky 
were it not a rainy day and gray 
but still
thoughts and heart
are connected of course
in the great circle of consciousness
and were Mimi alive today
I would decorate her hair 
with these pretty little flowers 
and she would praise their sweet
prettiness and then fall into 
a kind of flower-rapture 
all dreamy-like
oh my look at the pink of these azaleas 
wouldn’t they make a lovely dress . . .
only to snap out of it abruptly
to ask me (once again) 
if I believed in God
but instead of feeling squirmy 
like I used to
I’d tell her I believe 
in these forget-me-nots
which are one and the same—

blue like your wedding dress 
Mimi
your beads
your eyes (and mine)

blue like god if that’s
the color you choose


Many thanks to Adrian Arias for this photo!
The poem I am reading is for my grandmother Mimi and is included in my book
I Just Wear Wings - collected poems of an aspiring mystic
available at book stores or by ordering from Small Press Distribution: http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=I+Just+Wear+My+Wings