Inspiration

Art Source: Julie Lauterstein

Hands touching places never touched.
Forearms with a river flowing between two bones.

Panning for the gold in your hands,
I find reflections of everyone you’ve been – 

the heavenly queen,
the knight whose armor shone in the sun,
the sleeping child with hands
like kittens on top of each other,
the serf whose shoulders bore the plow.

“Your feet, my dear,” he said, “are alphabetical.”
26 ways to say, “The earth is my home.”
A bone for each week of the year,
Phalangeal months,
Pedal astrology:
Leo meets the Longitudinal Arches
And Capricorns like hooves.

All the stars make waves everywhere inside of you.

It’s not enough to say,
This shoulder is beautiful,
And that hip leaves nothing to be desired.
The ball and socket speak
In an Oriental language of completeness and freedom,
Movement through the union of opposites.

Ribs float in the air,
Summer nights the boughs move
More gently in the breeze
And your breath persuades my heart to love.

It is impossible that hair is not tall grass,
Impossible that wind is not breath,
That your legs are not panther legs,
Your head not a falcon’s.

There are too many people in this world
Not to love them all.

Hands alight – 
Lotus petals 
On the abdomen

Words point to what we can not say,
What we can not speak of, we hope to touch.
Touch the world.

You call it therapy.
I call it love.