visitation: 2 parts

1.

melancholy turned into ecstasy shortly after you turned up
showed up and flipped it all around
until the sounds that first sounded sad
were full of joy
and laughter was impossible to suppress
and sadly
when you left
melancholy returned again
but it was really just the forgetting
that you are always
here
with
me
I know forgetting takes joy with it
remembering brings it back
as trees talk to the wind
how could I forget?
how could we forget you?
a distant connection
awake just long enough to make me
smile into my coffee that morning
they wondered who or what caused the grin
I would never tell
faith fills up my eyes to the eyelashes
like tears
were falling
like leaves were
falling
like drops of rain
off of the cherry blossoms
so my eyelashes remember
filling you into every sight available
the gift of seeing what has always been here

2.

her hot temper
her hot face flushed
a power surge not like electricity
but water pouring into the currents of the present
the present currents
they say to produce they say to go forth
they say to move on
to move again
stop sitting still
her hot temper flared
her face flushed in anger
injustice always present
the time to fight was always now
even when sick and frail
which
she was not
she was Not
anything but real
what are these limitations
if not imposed by rigid worldviews
that made her want to scream
they say to produce words
make meaning from nothing
that anger seemed to fit her well
into her later years until it becomes oversized and
she shrinks to fit inside it
desperate to be understood, desperate to be sought out
these words are appearing on that branch
just over there by a poisoned river
ask not what you can do for your country
but what you can do while raging against your
country's limitations
her heart is in it all the time
face flushed
ask for her name in the first conversation
she just might lie to you
what are names anyway? she reasons
what are labels besides too constricting?
they say to produce, they say go forth, they say move on

stop
sitting
still