Origami

September 1

ORIGAMI

I fold my reality like origami, each day a shape to suit my whim.  A dog when I feel like begging.  A horse when I want to trot away.  A pot to brew up some potion.  A penguin when I feel cold and I stand on my egg all day.  I can bend and flex, change my image, but in the end I am truly flat and lifeless, a construct of imagination, but soulless and boring.  Reality cannot be my creation made in the accordion of my mind.  Truth and breath come like the wind and I need to let them change direction and change me, too.

Turn right both ways.

*

Here Kitty kitty

Litter training the lynx seems like a good idea

until it is accomplished

and all concerned are less for the accomplishment.

Domesticity is a transparent cage,

which has a presence felt by all

whether loved or hated.

The air is changed and the cat stifles,

everyone is safer, so it is said,

but what are we safer from?

And what is a broken lynx,

certainly not a house cat?

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

The Bag

January 5

THE BAG

I saw a bag at the top of a tall tree.  Full of air, the wind pushing it; it rocked back and forth, held by the stub of a branch.  It is so beautiful, so lucky, so blessed.

My sponsor frowns.  “Beautiful, yes,” she says.  “Lucky and blessed?  Convince me.”

“The bag is lucky; it could be on my doorknob, holding garbage.  Blessed?  It’s free, not a care in the world, supported aloft by the strength of the tree. 

“Inside your house, it’s warm.  Holding garbage is useful. Lucky to be out in the cold, no purpose, no one needing your help?  Blessed?  Caught on a tree, trapped, sharp twigs everywhere ready to shred you, beaten by the wind?”

“You're playing devil's advocate.”

“ I do it well.  What are you playing?  You want to be free.  What is free?  You want to know for sure you’re on the right path.  You think the bag knows?”

“If I were the bag, I might be mad.  I might condemn the forces filling me so full I can only feel the force itself.  I might be exhilarated, overtaken, free from responsibility.  I might feel isolated, unstable 40 feet in the air. I might feel punished, abandoned, dismissed. I could feel a thousand different things.”

“And on the days the wind doesn’t blow?”

“Oh.”

Imitate all the animal calls you know

*

Time’s Temperament

Bubbling tides of white water,

time roils past me and my protests go unheard.

Physic feedback loops revisits raw moments

to me with inopportune exactitude.

The beautiful droplets of dawn rain down

then evaporate leaving another day’s timeline

to fan out before me.

The alternating fury and jubilation

of passing intervals leaves a challenge,

first a question of bend or break,

second a call to forecast.

Can I flex or will I live in pieces?

Shall I look at patterns

and strive for harmonious waltz

or turn my face from the calendar dreading each trice?

Bully or benefactor time rolls.

I can go with it or be under it that choice is mine.

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life