Power in the Blood

These are the things that will make you bleed.
A nail that you step on.
          It will gush out of your sandal like spilled paint, spreading quickly.
The angry thorn of a rose bush.
          A tiny red dot that grows into a shiny globe
          before you get it to the warm comfort of your mouth.
A slap across the face that catches your nose just so.
          The metallic, salty taste dripping down to your lip so you'll lick it.
          Look in the mirror as pitifully as you feel.
The gravel driveway when it rises up to meet you.
          Cities of grit embedded in ravines of meat on your knees
           must be flooded by bubbling white peroxide.
A nightmare that makes you roll out of bed and bang your head.
          Then it is spurting in little pulses by your eye.
          You will need stitches. There will be a scar.
A rock thrown straight up to the Heavens will come straight back down
           and cut your head, your hair, your skull will show.
           You must glue your flesh back together.

Cruel words, hateful and stinging, open deep wounds that don't show.
Untold violations, confusing and frightening, make every vessel in your body leak.
Measuring yourself, your friends, the world, by any reasonable standard
is a fountain of crimson, accusing and convicting all of us of wrong.

Even the very center of you can open up a spring - always during class - smearing your chair, staining your clothes, and the shame seeps through you and you are sure you're red from head to toe. The tide of blood pulls at you. The undertow threatens to drag you under.

You find pins that prick
The gleaming fascination of kitchen knives
The slanted crotch of scissors to pinch your papery skin
And finally, the holy razor blade.
It opens up an eye in your wrist.
Then another. And another.
Surely you can see into the Spirit World now
with all these eyes
in tidy, bleeding rows,
surgical and straight
covered up to heal
then opened again with precision.
You control the bleeding.
You control the pain.
You have a secret that you chose yourself.
Whatever makes you bleed has power,
So you will claim that power.

The agonized sweat of Jesus
came in great drops of blood.
And he surrendered to it.
And he overcame by rising from the dead.

(c) Tasha Cheney 2018

“Heir”

You have always been bigger than me.
You were born an old man,
Strong-featured like your fore-fathers,
Your great cries straight from your heart.
I held you in the rocker, attempting to
Mother and nurture you, taken
Aback as you held a tiny finger to
My lips, commanding “No,” to my song.
Your curls were clipped too soon.
You were one year old and eating
A man’s dinner, with two desserts.
Your tiny body saw no contradiction.
Skipping the toddling all together,
You climbed, slid, shot and leapt
Over every obstacle, each landscape
Posed not even a hesitation.
You never knew you were small, because
You were always the King of China,
The ruler of your realm,
The biggest fish in the pond.
When you show me that you’ve outgrown me
I’m not surprised. You have grown into
That boldness you were born with.
You have always been bigger than me.

Tasha Cheney © 2017

Contraction and Rebirth

These babes of my heart
Growing rapidly out of my reach
My control
I must hold you
Retain the moments
That slink through back doors every time I'm busy.

I packed you into a car and ran for it
Fleeing the engulfing vastness of life.
I have to get you out of its reach
If I am to keep you.
I drove like mad
Through unknown country
And came out in a place
That could scare the ticking time out of you
It was bigger than all of us
Bigger than time

Yosemite
With its great looming
Mounts of granite
Grey domes of rock
Giant knuckles of agelessness.
The trees were monstrous, and gentle
The bears looked you right in the eye.
The water fell in sheets
And pounded in syncopated rhythm with my heart.
This place was mighty.

But when I looked to see its affect on you,
There you all were,
Bigger than ever.
You had crushes
And your vocabulary was shocking
And you built fires
And read maps.
I had to keep going.
I knew one more place.

Bigger than the halls of the Titans.
My mother.
My home
Womb of my heart
She calls to my guts
And reminds me I am a tiny thing.
She will slow your aging.

Pacific
Vast and eternal
Roaring and raging
Noisy voice of ageless whooshing
Home of leviathan
Blue whale
Trenches miles deep
Covering the earth
Swallowing sailors
Erasing history
Slowly, steadily, endlessly.

And here I sit on a rock
Hypnotized by her.
We walked hours and miles on her shores
And forgot where we started.
I watch my babies playing in her surf
And they are giggling, cooing little ones.
They have shrunken to their proper stature.
They have surrendered.

Thank you Ocean Mother
For slowing their growth
For bathing them in your purity again
For delivering me three sleepy, happy, tiny, humble babies
Who I can calmly drive home again
Amid sandy seashells
And salty smiles.

On God, Life, the Universe, Gender, the Heart, Comfort and Futility

I climbed this peak to try to hear from God.
Or to listen to my heart.
Or to get an answer from the Universe.
Not sure if the Universe is capable of answering.
I know that Life answers. Eventually.
Are Life and the Universe the same thing?
I know they aren't God.
I fully believe in God.
Not that he always answers, but he does speak.
I'm saying He although I believe God to be genderless.
Can't call God It can I?
In this world nothing worth respect is without gender.
And only men are given real respect.
Though they deserve it much less often than they're given it.
And they take it for granted.
So how to refer to God?
Is there a pronoun worthy of the Divine Creator?
I'd ask, but I've already referenced the more or less futility of that.
But hear I am.
Listening.
My heart has chanted the same phrases to me for a very long time.
I don't think it's to be trusted.
It's full of deceit and desperately wicked.
I'm sure I don't know it at all.
It is a discouraging organ.
And it seems its supplies of cortisol never run low.
It is heartache this and heartsick that.
My heart is always broken -
Which God calls blessed, for I will be comforted.
But my heart quit waiting for the fulfillment of that promise a long time ago.
I don't think I even know what comfort really is.
I used to think it was a total cleansing of the hurt.
A purging of pain and suffering.
The ability to forget it all...or at least, to understand the reasons for it.
Or maybe it was tied to another promise from God -
He will give you the desires of your heart..
Is that comfort?
To get what you wish for?
I wouldn't know.
I waited too long for that too.
My heart wants Everything and is too used to settling for whatever it can get.
I just turn it off at a certain point.
There's no use in nurturing these unattainable yearnings.
Still, sometimes I put out little feelers in the great unknown.
I tattoo "WISH FOR EVERYTHING" on my arm.
I pray.
I climb to the top of the world and wait.
Wait for the sky to open up.
For lightning to strike me.
For a moment of clarity.
I am Cool Hand Luke standing powerless in a storm.
And I am left with thoughts, silence and blank pages to try and fill.

(c) Tasha Cheney 2015

Pledge

Come home to me
let me be your home
your haven
a safe harbor
in your storms
your place
of solace and refuge
come home to me.

Be at home with me.
Feel that you belong
where I am
In these arms
An empty space
in the shape of you
where you are meant to be
 Be at home with me.

I'd do for you
Whatever I have to do
Fight battles
Wait years
Sail oceans of tears
I would kill
I would steal, I would do
Anything for you.

Walk next to me
through the night
and the day
hold my hand
all the way
if you get stuck
I'll stay till you
can walk next to me.

I swear to you
I'd prove it if I could
I'd cut out my heart
and nail it to yours
I'd burn up with the stars
I am yours. I am
yours. I am yours.
I swear to you.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2013

Belewe Mone

The Moon is blue
She looks at us
From far above
And she is yearning.

Blue Moon shining
Pulling at my veins
Singing a whale song
To the Earth.

What if the Moon loves?
How can she say it
Out there in the cold
She floats, alienated.

She glows and hums
Resonant light
Loving reflector
Mooning for Oceans.

The Moon, like a woman,
Floats in orbit
Draws us closer
But never close enough.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2013 

A Dream

In my dream, 
we walk amid sidewalks
and talk of dreams.
Our dream-life is reality
and I can dream yours 
and you see mine clearly.
And the sleeping fish 
we walk past,
with their vulnerable bellies,
don't mind us
we are only dangerous
on the inside,
the dream side.
We thrill and excite
over seeming nonsense
and you feel my heart race
and I know what you're thinking.
And I can sing to you,
and you remember something 
I said fifteen years ago,
and you do your silly tricks
and my eyes dance
waiting for your finales
and your punch lines.
And I would never 
wake up in the morning
and find that you'd
stopped dreaming.
I would never have
to wake up and try
to live this dreamless
fish bowl
nothing.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2013

Offering

 
Take this prayer
Take this prayer
Take this silence.
This voiceless morning
These thoughts
These breaths
     Read them
     Know me through them
     They are for you.

Take these looks
Take these looks
Take this watching
The sighs
The smiles as
I notice what you've done
     Join me
     Delight with me
     In beauty.

Take this song
Take this song
Take my worship
It wells up inside
Take the hums
The whistles
     The words 
     I sing
     or whisper.

Take my heart
Take my heart
Take my searching
My intention
My desire
That sought you here
     I need you
     I'm calling
     I love you.

(C) 2013 Tasha Chinnock

Moony

Lately I've been hypnotized by clouds.
I go through too much of my day
Distracted and burdened,
Looking down,
Looking within.

Last week at the carnival, 
there was a chance in the hectic heat
for me to strap in to elastic ropes
and soar into the sky.
I jumped higher and higher,
Looking straight up
into clouds that opened up
like a door.

I felt out of my head,
rising without falling.
I lost focus and remained. 
Perhaps I took a quiet nap
Up in that blue retreat.

(C) 2013 Tasha Chinnock

The Deep Greenness of Early Spring

Child, a crooned lyric
She began as a boon
A pot of pure honey
A map of nearby stars

Her tan, bare feet
Ran on a lark
Kicked and giggled
Her youth song into the air

Storm clouds rolled in
Darkening that clear blue
That velvet ocean
Stifling her very atmosphere

A contrary garden sprouted up
Overnight she was a jungle
Roots white as worms
Nubby stalks of nettle

Milk-weed dripping
Leaves purple-tipped like bruises
What monsoon song is this?
Twirled by whirlwinds and swirling pools

I spurn gloves for this work
Her thorns deserve my blood
And what pruning or weeding
Can I claim any right to?

I'm blessed by her scent
A dab of nectar
A visit to the honeycomb
Which flourishes within her now

Her primroses enclose a secret
Still-budding bird of paradise
Flaming orange
Shouting angry verses with its spiked tongue

Crying and pounding paths
Untamed and unfinished
She will burst the gates
She will break out in full regalia.

But a bell still rings
A tinkling there in the trees
A hum and buzz
Among the blossoms

Yet she gazes up at starlight
Feels dusty ground underfoot
Still sweetens my tea
With her honeysuckle voice.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2013

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Myself

I am an impatient sinner
Swearing more artfully than a sailor,
And then apologizing
in an endless cycle -
“I fall down, I get up, I keep on dancing” -
My heart spends penitent eons
face-down in worship
of a mighty, holy God,
baffled that he loves me
In spite of my vices.

I am a turtle-loving,
literature-shoveling,
artist-in-training,
Internet-dweller, with little freedom
for friendships in real life.
I am a compulsive
lesson-planner
list-maker,
ex-slacker, exhausted
from striving to succeed,
pushing myself ever forward
for the sake of three
who depend on me.

I am a homework-helper
Staying up late to have time
with my own kids
Responsible by necessity
Training myself to do it all
Early riser, bill wrangler,
housework hustler, mistress of car maintenance,
natural remedy distributing
Doctor of Motherhood
Specializing in selfless love.

I am a song-singing, story-telling
Hand-motion choreographer.
I am an eye-popping
Knowledge dropping
Guide to seventeen 5-year-olds
The Pudding Whisperer
Apronless painter
Science experimenting, air guitar rocking
Second mom to a school full
Of runny-nosed angels.

I am a solitary diamond
Too elegant for a mate.
Sleep alone, rise alone,
pray alone, wait.
I am not in a hurry
I don’t need to know
my future – the how or when -
I know the One in control.
My God is great.
I can wait.

I am harmless
I am fierce
I am silly
I am smart
I believe life is an art.
Not a science
Or a dogma
Or even a test.
I live each new day thankfully
I do my best.
And over and over
I am abundantly blessed.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2013

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Feet In the Stream

This is real
Purity, natural
calm and serene
This is where you are
surrounding us
in your creation
Not in the cities and towns
busy and noisy
carnal and carnivorous
But this quiet
simplicity
Moving, breathing Earth
You are here.
In the heights of the trees
in the call of squirrels
and crickets and birds
In the endless song of the water
a song of communion
with you
Nature's best friend
constant companion here
It's true you are everywhere
But sometimes, though I seek, 
I can't find you there.
I find worry and trouble
and selfish flesh
I find need and priority
And every high thing that exalts itself
above a knowledge of you.
Nature exalts you,
not itself.
And when I sit here -
in natural silence -
Your voice is clear,
your presence obvious,
your love astounding,
your joy contagious.
Let me take it with me
when I leave this home.

(c) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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Eyes Downcast

We go out walking
explorers and navigators
Adventurers
But with the first discovery
a colorful stone - 
a bug on a branch -
We become something else.
Our research takes over
There is no more landscape
no vast, blue sky
no far off mountain
Only this square meter where we stand,
Eyes downcast,
scanning for a treasure.
We take small steps,
carefully placing our feet 
on a spot we have already checked.
Methodical finders
prayerful monks
A vow of silence
not as necessary
as a vow to see everything
a fossil
an arrowhead
the archaeologist in us
will carefully unearth
a slightly exposed bit of white
bone or basalt?
Everyone come look
a funnel spider!
And we are each entomologists
A traveling lab
Mentally documenting our discoveries
Sometimes even with a camera
Geologists, anthropologists
theorizing about 
what happened here?
who lived here?
Did the flood do this?
Animal trackers
wildlife experts,
and survivalists.
Moving slowly
getting the entire hike into a specimen jar
carrying the Great Outdoors home 
in pockets, backpacks and lunchboxes.
A shell, a seed pod, a pellet.
here a bullet casing - proof of human life!
An old indian beer can
a smooth skipping stone.
These expeditions make us
doctors
truth seekers
history keepers
creation lovers.
And we go home with the 
backs of our necks tired and red.
 

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Under the Hood

These days, you know,
I'm hardly more than
a grinding clockworks
a shoddy transmission
ready to seize.
I churn on
I scree like a terrible locomotive
halting on the tracks
A dry tank
A friction machine and
a stripped out thread.

Those old contraptions -
ones referred to in a feminine
personal "she" -
require more intuition
to operate
More subtle artistry -
It's all in the wrist.

She must be spoken to lovingly
shifted and maneuvered
with a gentle touch
Oil and chamois at the ready
and easy, easy with the clutch.
And she will drive you where
you need to go.
Her engine will sing and purr
with the deep, low, hum that comes
from really knowing her.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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Utility

An umbrella gently
bounced down the sidewalk,
dwarfing the small frame
that sloshed beneath it.
Wet wellies kicking spray,
forming tiny wakes
that rippled softly and
once again spread over the concrete.

It was navy blue,
not bright and ostentatious.
It absorbed the light.
It defied notice -
a mere shield -
a little pitched tent.
It glided along,
bobbing and swaying,

Growing smaller down the way.
No gust of wind
disturbed the pace.
The gait I counted
down the walk:
one, two, one, two.
The roof-like tarp
steadily took the patches of block
until at the corner
it escaped my view.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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Wager

I dare you, days,
To try and outlive me.
I was built to last.
I'm cast in brass.
I carry on.
On my knees,
I'll just get stronger.
Lonely and sad
Convince me to wait.
Angry and scared
Keep me breathing.
Hungry and tired
Are a challenge, a dare.
They remind me to care.
Feed love, starve hate.
Music and rhythm
Are always right here,
Singing and pounding
My heart to a prayer.
There isn't a secret
Or a darkness so deep
That it can stop me
From taking my next step.
I keep getting up.
I'll never retreat.
Competition with life itself.
I'm a finisher.
That's how you win -
You just don't give in.
So, let the world turn.
Let the sun burn.
Let the wind and water
Grind and persist.
Time is only a measured thing.
It was made to run out.
It falls short of eternity.
Eternal me will outlive Time.
Outlive the aching
and the inadequacy
of weekdays and weakness.
I plan to be around
To see the Plenty when it comes down.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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Metanoia

It is true I never loved
the way that love was meant to be
I loved with fickle, selfish stuff
and all centered on me.

And yet it was a greater love
than ever I'd felt before
A willingness to die to self
and live for something more.

But in my flesh such passive love,
Inadequate at best,
You felt like a nagging wound.
It never let you rest.

I love you still, but selfish love
Is forever gone from me.
I learned too late that all is lost
If I put me before thee.

And yet I plead with God above
Fill me, O Lord, with perfect love!
Give me what lacked in all those years
I've paid for love with all my tears!

Now see, I'm still here looking out
at a world of unknown fear
And I will face that world again,
side by side with you, my dear.

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Conflict

My heart and my body
don't understand my spirit.
They are all fighting for me
but at war with each other.
Like life-long friends
engaged in a constant cat fight.
My body fights for its needs
the cravings,
biological demands
of my humanhood.
My heart fights for its desires
My hopes and dreams.
It tells me they are my right
It drives me forward.
My spirit fights for my freedom.
It reminds me who I am
in the eyes of heaven.
It whispers the promises
that can't be broken.
It calms my body,
It soothes my heart.
It chants to me
Peace, peace, peace,
Be still.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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What is a Man?

What is a man?
He is put together
of muscle and hormone
and other hard, hard stuff.
He is instinct and reflex
and all for self.
A man will bury the bones
of all his past sins
in the soil of your heart.
A man will hold tightly
to his dreams, unaware
that they are choking the life
out of everyone around him.
A man won't wake up
and see you.
He is basic and static.
A man is an island of disregard.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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Idolatry

I have always carried around
in my raggedy heart
Your pains and worries.
I have allowed all your burdens
to be my own.
You didn't deserve my love
any more than you deserve God's love.
I just gave it to you.
A whole lump sum.
I poured out myself
And became a vessel of only you.
I walked and talked and ate and slept
as unto you.
I allowed you to be a god to me.
Some would argue
you weren't all-powerful.
But you had power
that you didn't even recognize.
You had so much at your beck and call
I would have done it all.
Killer, sinner, beggar, slave -
your fool. Your willing fool.
You are still here.
Carried on my back.
A burden I cannot loose.

(C) Tasha Chinnock 2012

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