Cheryl Murfin

BUZZ

Last night I heard a buzz

In my head

A hum, deep and resonant

Like music

Like waves

Like the wings on a hummingbird

A whirring

Like the motion of not moving

Or the restless linger of sitting still

Of trying to listen

Of trying to hear

The sound of not thinking

I heard a buzz

And rather than analyze

Rather than question

Rather than concoct or consider or fear

The likelihood of brain cancer

I let it ride

As

if I were a gentle blue whale

Moving through the ocean of myself

As if I were a bird

Flying too close to my own ear

As if I were human

Feeling, just feeling,

The sound.

Last night I heard a buzz

In my head

A tickly invitation

To swim free of past and future

To fly high within the here and now

To get lost in the wideness of this moment

Judging nothing

Wishing nothing

Missing nothing

Holding onto nothing

But the generosity

Of that hum

~ Cheryl Murfin

Chemical peel

I think my face will explode

With age

Or with the battery acid

That I paid to have

Smoothed on my face

Which seems

Counter-intuitive

My cheeks burn

Is it shame, embarrassment

At the fast-reddening sunburn

Or just the fire

Of oldish skin being cauterized

Dying

Sloughing off into

Oblivion

My face, when it's smooth again,

Will tell

The story of my life

It's many happy years, and the harder ones too

But mostly, wrinkles resisted,

The easy tale

Of my vanity

Fall up

Cllimb up

Climb up

Onto the ledge

And, yes

Look down

Into the bottom

Of your fear

And fall

Fall down

Fall up

Just fall

And forget

That once you thought

That someone

Needed to catch you

Look down

Look down

Into that beautiful void

That crazy

Maybe only

Chance to be free

And fall

Life

How can it be that your life today is diluted down to this

Drop, drop, drop

A thin, yellow liquid

A thick white one

And in the hardest moments

The times when we feel you slipping away

The deep maroon of donated life

Drop, drop, drop.

Falling in a line that zigs and zags among the sheets and blankets

Caught up in your tossing arms

A line from this precious color -

This red or yellow or white -

Into you

Precious child

Your life

Your aliveness

You living

You saved from what we most fear