Poem. O Powerful Windhorse-Goddess

LUNGTA
The Tibetan word for Windhorse

Sounds like true love to me you say, and I roll over in bed
my eyes at the far wall where the two dollar junky furniture
I bought at the Crumpton auction junk sale props against the wall
a shelf for my jewelry, of which there is a lot
my couple movies and my few remaining CDs.
The shelves have cobwebs in the square corners that glisten dew-like
in the sun. There is no sun out it is late now. The shelves are painted barn red.
I like the junk piece and won’t throw it out because it reminds me of earthen clay.

Is that what it’s like? I ask and cover deep up under the softest sheets I own.
The ones that never get washed because I always need them on my bed as home.
I sigh and close my eyes, I am caught in the parallel between
the floating obvious of the everyday and the permanent parts
settled in me the wired lines at night, there when I go to sleep.
Fleeting thoughts I label as whimsy. I guess I stopped believing
those because often there is not enough energy to try.
I drink water out of a hand thrown mug given to me by Brook
made by Mare. That was when I had nothing but whimsy the birthday
I spent long days lying in the dirt on my farm talking to the sun.
Brook is in bed, probably, with Brandon right now.
You are a good friend I think, but do not say this out loud.
I marvel instead at how the phone cut out, your cell battery dead
3000 miles away from here, Newport, in your own bed. The last thing
I said before I lost you: I deserve that. I deserve to be treated like gold.

The Tibetan word for self-existing energy of basic goodness translates
in English to Windhorse. Think of that. When I first moved to Oregon
several of my poems featured a horse and when I met you it was clear
by your hair that you were made of the breeze. In your essence there
could be little pink forgetmenots braided in, and sunlight that actually
looks like linked ribbons and keeps certain curls warm and in place.
The way the sea pitches between the light of the trees on the Coast is
a miracle, cities are built and torn and ravaged for the lac or the
want of it. You are from Kansas, but came there because the land
Gnostic as it is, had secret currents run in its cave. You are archeological.
You piece clues together, sit Ashram in your bedroom, divine the code
you now call Anusara. This is goodness Beth, same like you said to me
on my back on the purple mat Whale Cove over my Northwest shoulder
where Crow always met me for coffee in the trees: Breath. Just Breathe.

O, powerful Windhorse-Goddess of muscles secret land-work and breath.
It is so good to have friends, it is so good to have a friend as you.
You are, we, the Princess Path. We take steps and the Anasazi dance
around fires that today smolder only as lichen or what is left in the
red clay. We celebrate, we yearn more, we beckon ever-forward.
The sea and the trees and the cavernous glee is our yarn and we sew
it all back together in this dance. These steps are yours, are me,
are unraveling a secret code that is and will always be gold. And I get it
when you say, That is beautiful, that is beautiful. You are saying Friend,
my friend, you are beautiful. Just breathe, just be. My friend, o Windhorse
you sweet sanction of grace and air through trees, you who works hardest
with hands and wrists and hips and muscled sinewy legs, you who carries
all on her back, who is never and ever loaded all the way down, who runs
and gallops and whinies with ribbons flying and sometimes screams:
You are beautiful, sacred. You are beautiful, as said to me
You deserve gold. Just breathe Just breathe…Just be