Love, in Defiance of Fear

Mirinda Fleenary

The same little bringers of joy
(each their own)
have a corresponding darkness.
Incentive is bleached to tatters.
Innate knowledge of expiration
fails to incite movement.

Life appears senseless because the senses are inadequate.

Don’t discount the ordinary.
The earth is made of poems
and every time we touch
a sacred act has taken place.

Chastity, in Defiance of Lust

Mirinda Fleenary

Mastery is secondary,
first comes raw desire.
But the former stays with you.

When you said,
I do love you too… you know…
I said, I know… in your way you do…
(and I’ve written you a letter explaining all I know on the subject)

but I didn’t say
that when I said
I love you I meant I love you
like there are rotating constellations in my eyes and I’m four years old
outstretching my arms to signify the bigness of the universe
and I know the fully vulnerable truth of your mortal bones,
still, I make this gesture of belief in your holiness.

I do want to hear you sing.
Unpracticed,
as if you are walking alone and noticed how
everywhere around your body
hearts are beating
(bugs, birds, people, animals, us)
and all of these heartbeats
are synchronized
religiously.

Freedom, in Defiance of Bondage

Mirinda Fleenary

The skin begins unflinchingly
with the breathable ability
to grow in space.

Then illness,
the hurdle of mortality,
and judgment
based on ignorance.

Acknowledging is resisting when
it is
to have known intimately the infection
of dignity which crazed humanity
into lynching itself, and to have taken an autopsy of human reason,
(of what evolved into and out of imprisonment)
and to have come to the place,
(even beyond brokenness, anger, tragedy)
the amazing place,
(that after visiting we all want to tell about)
where forgiveness
helped us find our radiance
and freed it.

Ecstasy, in Defiance of Agony

Mirinda Fleenary

Not stagnancy,
but the unremitting agony
of being separated from God
because you are separated
from yourself.
Checked by the realization that God and the Self commune,
which annihilates separation
and replaces it
with Ecstatic
Union.

Beauty, in Defiance of Demoralization

Mirinda Fleenary

The body I was born with begs to differ.
It has seen Elohim offering every creature
a bouquet of flowers,
a field of flowers,
a planet of flowers,

so as to remind us
over
and over
and over again,

how beautiful we are.

Riding the Bus

ache beautiful
flicker flowers
Life passes, yes,
fast and sorrowfully.
Celestial clockworks spin
above our slowly proceeding vehicle,
but for this moment
- briefly  -
we are all passengers.

Arise

Mark 5:41


Talitha
Cumi
Shhhhhhhh
Haaaaaaaaa
Ssssss
The breath
Ruah
Breathe
Hear the sounds of your mouth.
Focus on these.

Kaddish, 1939-1945

Brothers! Sisters!
The flames eat skin, the smoke climbs up in puffs
Before it happens we see it happen
Pray me the Kaddish
My mother cries, her face is pain
Pray me the Kaddish
The babies’ bodies- piled in pits
Pray me the Kaddish
Six million of me are marched down to death
Blindfolded, open eyed
We accept that our family is murdered before us
My mother cries, she cries!
Now drive your cars and go off to work
Stare at electronic screens
But look,
Know,
How we have prayed
And pray

pray

Kaddish

Fana

Wading in first,
each palm, extended.

Where the wind, solitary
splits open and pours out
Blood, sap, and milk.
Cupping the hands beneath
the outpouring
the cool, warm
spurts of the gash.

Tree roots grow deep into the wet sand.
Eternity stirs in their marrow.
They fan out their fingers
And brush the red heart of the earth.

The clay is soft but the sun is hot .

Droplets seep into the cloth
The river’s edge laps at the hem.
Water ropes rise 
and weave
around the body
Dancing,
Coursing,
Baptism.