“Wake up,” I whisper,
with open eyes
violently jamming a scrub brush down
thrift-store mugs so my cramped casita kitchen
can reflect the life of a clear-headed person
that flicker is drumming the stucco again
she keeps time
with me rushing between dish and thought
there are no bugs here, she knows that
tahini caked on every fork...annoying
drumming still
or perhaps she is knocking to call me out
the way low notes on a flute do, “yes,”
I whisper,
“wake up.”
I brew dandelion tea as a reward
clean kitchen, clear mind
except everything is stained in beet and turmeric
tidied messes of grocery bags and canned beans
sit in the corner
“too small in here,” I think,
burning my tongue on smoked root water
looking for the rubbery calm
in my Jade plant, pinching its plump leaves
the way people marvel at baby feet
and just need to feel them
I come back only to sip tea
my bitter portal into presence,
“wake up,” it whispers,
“wake up.”
Outside my window finches dive
and disappear into berry-less Juniper shrub
snug and comforted
I know that feeling well
of being little and weaving through a dense, spiky tree
climbing to the branch that will hold you
and stopping there
so high
consumed in dry pine needles
thick, flaky bark piercing thighs
uncomfortable but swallowed
in absolute silence
watching the sky from the middle of a tree
something happens in there
the finches know
something extracts you
from your body,
dematerializes crude matter
into essence, like tea leaves collapse into water,
releasing
and reabsorbed
into something far greater than before
I squeeze the last drops from my silken bag
over the mug and drop my tongue
into its warmth, its weedy bite
it tells me so much about stillness
about what it is to steep
about sitting in a place long enough
to let it bring you out
and let it wake you up.