Oilgraph on canvas // 32" x 42”

Created in live performance at the 2005 Emergent Conference, San Diego

"Can you lift me up?

Lift me with wings that you spoke of
once when I was a child?

Can you see through the eyes that
witness the dark
and the ruining away of all that seemed to matter?
And not just to me
but for ones I never had a chance to name
or love
or hold

Through these hands you’ve healed
and felt back the pain of those who
never had a better chance
and yet their dreams caught within me…
the choking smoke of burning hearts
the sound I can still here sometimes at night
that pitted the sheets
to smolder under my stained pillow …

When the sickness of those rivers came
like I knew it would
it melted the bones of these hands
like bitter honey
and the weight of the hot summer air
became even a burden too heavy to bear

Is that where you leave me?
Paper boned
and a womb of ash?


But somewhere in an unseen book
a chapter turns

For a trusting not of what I see
but know in the waking eye of my soul
comes to lift with better hands
and tonight in the painted dark
I hear your page turn

4:30 AM
the dark horizon spreads like blue hope…
and I know you have not forgotten"