Endless Summer

The leaves underfoot this morning give way to the fact that the endless moments of summer, are soon to come to a close. This is the time of year I always wish to turn back the hands of time from. The time I lay still and silent under the bedcovers in predawn light, as a slight chill creeps into my toes, just before they hit the floorboards.

It is the time my windows remain only half open, with air so cool and crisp drifting under my nose, that the feel of a hot coffee cup is all that will deliver warmth to my fingertips. 

I know now, as I have always known in my past, that this season of change is often my deepest season, my deepest reason for solitude pressed to my chest like an ice cube held to my sweat in mid July.

It is my season of bringing in rose petals, to savor their aroma and sweetness, a lastly hope that offers me forgiveness to the harshness of a life I still have flickers of. 

The leaves are the incurable reminder, that life changes, that seasons fade, and acceptance does not come easily to a girl who swaddles herself in the basking sun of summer, where warmth gives color and peace to her surroundings. It is the time that my bare feet, now, need covering.

life waters/ meditation/ yoga

How do we circumvent through the worst parts of life? The days we can barely breath without feeling a tidal wave of despair come over us. How do we move past what hurts, to reclaim enough earth beneath our feet, so that we are again, able to stand? How do we love, when the forgiving still has not surfaced from our soul? The days that the red sea parts, and swallows us whole, is that not the day that we find oneself, reinvent our path, and dare to have anyone cross in front of us? 

Why is acceptance the hardest word of all to grasp the definition of? Is our fate our own? Or has it been left to some mystical god none of us believe in? How do we get past the pain enough not to allow it to pull us into the mud? How do we let go? How do we learn all over again, what we never meant to forget?

I think you choose a life with only half a vision.....the second half of the vision then comes forth once you are in the life you are living. A life of default, perhaps! You move through it!

running / emotion / meditation

The one non emotional confident I tell all of my differences to, all of my solitudes and solace to, all of my biblical pain to, has grown a set of emotions of their own....my sneakers
Now what is a girl to do? They seem to answer me back, reason me out, place footing of their own needed choosing before me, methodically work me in the direction they want me to go.....they have become rude and abrupt, passionate and endearing, happy and sad, contrived and misconducted, simple and complicated, nurtured and grieving, panicked and pained, and all with my feet stuck inside of them with an Elmer's glue type of grip. The friction of it all has given risen to blisters!

Summer / solace / meditation / yoga

So, here it is, ending of August, and summer is fading fast. This is the time I get lost, want to stop the clock, stop fall from ever arriving at all. I am the summer girl, never have I ever been much more than that. In my teen years it meant pretty clothes, flowers, suntan lines, bikinis and salads. In my adult married years it meant the ending of yet another unforgiving winter spent in a house where the walls always shook with my husband's rage.

When the kids went off to college, it meant, them coming home again, or myself, driving to them. It meant writing and poetry, music and dancing, and the warmth of the sun rolling off of my back, as my painted red toenails played peek - a - boo amid the straps of my sandals.

 Even later on than that, it meant watching my roses bloom, morning glory vines draped across a self made fence, the quartz of rocks in my garden sparkling amid the midday sun. It meant peace, solace, solitude and comfort all in the same breath.

It meant sweat dripping down my arms, as my sneakers hit the pavement just at the cusp of dawn.  It meant yoga on my patio or deck, in undies, where always birds in flight gave a come hither look as they flew by.  I already miss the summer, and it has not even evaporated yet from my doorstep. I miss the simplicity it stands for, and the joy it brings to my life.

I miss the shells I have gathered, as they perch themselves on a shelf, waiting for their placement in a glass bowl they will soon call their own. I miss the blooming of flowers, that will soon draw themselves back and inward, dropping petals to the ground as a bed for the leaves soon to be falling atop of them. I miss the shelter of sun that drives my thoughts and my physical.

I want of a fairytale I have envisioned since childhood, where the lemonade keeps flowing and periwinkles keep rolling over my toes amid the crashing of the shoreline. I miss my flip-flops, the black, the pink, and the silver ones, that will soon be up on a shelf in darkness. Each year I almost forget how sad the ending of summer feels, until, once again, I am reminded, as it once again, draws near. I think we all have our particular season of life, a season we cherish for this reason or that, a season we flourish in, for this reason or that...watermelon was always my season...the season I thrived in...

running / meditation

The encroaching of leaves draped in last night's wetness brushed up against my skin as I ran past them. My sneakers thirst brought a salty precipice to skin already unfolding under August heat. Raindrops fell and mixed with sweat beads formed across my breastbone.  It was silent, it was solitude, it was almost perfect.... the humming of a lawnmower broke the barrier, shattering my thoughts to bits, each letter and vowel falling onto the dirt road, laces scrambling to attach themselves into structure.... the heave of my sneakers beginning at ground zero, to once again find their place of contentment, moments of pure inner dialogue, and nothing more...

running / erotic / yoga / lost

The man has all but swallowed her alive, as the feel of her flesh against his body part has the mouth of the rivers of their tongues swimming in a collision of tide, leaving them both now exhausted and breathless. Doused in sweat, belonging to one another, crossing leg over leg, arm over arm; until they are one frenzied body no longer separate human structures. The act more immense and powerful than either ever imagined. In a calm assertive voice, he gives direction, she takes it, slowly, fully, wrapping her hand around it. 

Sometimes, in running, you just get lost in salty thought, and you go with it....erotic thought emerges, as you squint towards the sun! 

Eyes/ Faces / Meditation

Sometimes we handle things well in life, and other times, we don't. Then there are the times; we find it even hard to breath, without choking back the tears. I do not think any of us are immune, but rather, some of us are better at the disguise. I think that faces are not real; you need to look way behind the eyes. The eyes always give way to the hurt, the pain, the sadness, the love, the joy, the holding back.

 I think we all hold back, because for most of us, life is too much to bear, in some moments of memory we simply disappear. It is easier for our thoughts to not be shared, so we hold them tightly to our chest, to keep from becoming too jaded or hurt. No matter what most say, I do believe that the 'art of life' is not without difficulty for any, and all of us. We compromise, just to hide that fact. Our struggles become our own, our nuances become very colored. I think burdens we hold, are usually more than each of us can withstand, and, yet, we do not ask for help, as the promoting of that such weakness would damn near kill us, so we think.

 If I walk down the street, you neither know me, nor do I know you, nor either of us know, what the other grieves for, or has been through. We just see faces, as we each fail to look behind and deeper into the eyes...

You / Love / Yoga / Surrendar

You are nestled
you see me not
I watch as you lay in slumber
I crawl in
your skin touches mine
your breath faint on the pillow
I look in amazement
at the scroll of your body
across the bed
your feet
touching mine
your hand
gentle and calm
I lay in stillness
in the awe of you
the emotion of tear
drips down my cheek
in disbelief
that love could feel so
peaceful, so silent,
so deliberate
as we lay in silence
unspoken words
written across our pillows
I turn off the light
close my eyes
and press myself to you
falling asleep, as one......surrendering to all emotion, raindrops fall from both my eyes....
CK
 

running / serenity / pure

Running in Sarasota/ Siesta Key Florida  for a few days. Waves and periwinkles rolling over my feet. The crush of the whitest beach sand under foot, Siesta Key is just this way. The white and black tiniest shells crunch as my feet place down between them....pearls I say, pearls in the sand.

 The greenest bluish water for as far as the eye can see, I love it I say. Serenity at the palm of my hand. My laces in wildest fantasy. My eyes in pure glory. Heaven I say. There is something simple and pure which I see in the Gulf of Mexico water I am so in love with. I watch as the waves roll in, and all of my worries roll out. In that water I see accomplished beauty, a work of art. My life, not in fragments, but as a whole story......my run, amazing!

Run / Freedom / Peace / Yoga

 I wanted to finally run through fields, and just be happy.
 I wanted everything,
 and then,
 I wanted nothing at all.

 I may have wanted you, but, really, I needed me most of all.

You must have forgotten my number
I must have missed all of your calls

Life happens that way, and you move on.....
~CK

I ran five miles today. Got lost in the comfort of my sneakers, the arc of my sweat. The influence and remnants of concentrated peace, has lingered long after I untied my laces...

seduction / yoga / grace / pose / glass

my latest creation on glass

It's thoughts that beg for description, as the transparency of the muted glass runs a collision course with grace and pose. Drenched in texture and sensation, it will seduce you, with eyes wide open.

renderings/ poetry / yoga / running

the drops on my eyelashes, are broken promises from another time and place. A place so desperate, I no longer allow the drops to fall. They sit as ice, never quite evaporating, even in summer's heat. The ice begins to melt, begins a slow progression towards the tip of each lash, I catch it from the fall. Holding each ice sculpture as a portrait on the tip of each lash, a time and place I run from. I am building an ice garden, an exhibit I choose not to see. Hoping summer melts the pieces, and waters my roses...pinks, purples, crimson..........the colors, are all that I bleed...

 

raindrops/ meditation / yoga

Mirrored in the rain, looking out the study window, drops cascading down the glass, in each one, a memory held, so isolated they make their own little island on the window pane. Feeling myself cohere around one droplet, eyes fixed, dramatic, it reaches out to me in a kiss. The flood now, as the kiss runs the length of the glass down the windowsill, running until it runs out of breath, where glass and raindrop now barely touch. It disappears, like many others lovers, and I am left peering out the wet glass into the stillness of the barest tree, as it diagrams an entrance into my heart.

 My body, just a cover for my soul, my flesh keeping the passion contained, as my eyes fixate on the bareness of the tree. The stillness, something shifts inside of me, scoops past my chin, my neck, further down, until I am holding the tree's bareness in the palm of my hand. Falling into my instant escape, the world a million miles away, the rain now a cobweb for my writing. The slow tap of rain music, a slow methodical beat, as my face profiles in the glistening of  the wetness. 

tap, tap ,tap, tap of my keyboard, as another chapter of life completes and ends, and a new one meanders along.....I call it progress!

poetry / rendering / loss / yoga

Lost in a moment

Right in the center of the teardrop

Where the wet of you clings to my eyelash

I blink

Just to hold back the river..
CK

 

nude / meditation/ running/ yoga

     Emphatic trees reach down their limbs in a lover's torment towards me. Creeping through the darkness at my peril, sweat drips, as a wall of paint licks my shoulder blade. Plum velvet of my circulatory fades to folds of beige on my flesh. In a dark unspoken urge I think a deer throws me a kiss, in majestic complacency, as the intimacy lends forebode of a past lover. Sneakers skim and float on this sea of pleasure.

I am naked, you are not, and that is why, I run. I will continue to run in all of my nudity, until, you catch me. Countable beads of sweat now scattered on my breasts, drifting into formless intentions, unspoken sensations. Merging my sneakers into my bareness, drifting further along, without my loincloth...meditation is a wonderful tonic....

running / heat / breath / yoga / meditation

Waterfalls cascading from my brow, crawl down the curvature of body parts, pooling in vibrations throughout my soul. Lushness of early morning silence echoes from each rose petal. Succulent beads of dew hang suspended above each thorn.

 The scent of heat so thick it latches onto my breath, as my sneakers peer out from a black frame of pavement. Breath so ensconced in mornings cocktail, that toxic drips of humidity taste upon my lips.

 In the hurried of the morning's heat, my sneakers succumb to a greater force of nature...sweat and heat, become the tightly wrapped shawl which cuts off my breath...

naked / train / wandering / lust / yoga

I woke early, felt the folds of my flesh in the shower, and then stood in awe of my own elongated nakedness in the bathroom mirror. The heat today, somewhat subdued, not as decrepitly punishing as yesterday. The humidity has dropped; taking comfort in the coolness of the cream I apply to my newly shaved legs. Tracing the outline of my abdomen, I apply more cream liberally upward from my navel. I worry about my shoes, flats or heels, as I make no headway in decision, pausing to look at the wan slender ghost of my face in the mirror. My skirt sits high above my knee, teasing the tan lines of my thigh. My thick silver bangle drapes my wrist in a seductive code of armor. Flats it is, as I am already late for my train, so a run it will now need to be, not a meandering sway of my hips. I would like to say that I am reading a very proper French intellectual book, but alas, Shades of Grey peeks from my shoulder briefcase. The avant-garde of my breasts is cold as they collide with the air conditioning of the train. I wrap my shawl, and drape it downward, covering my two pointed soldiers. I now look very casual chic; time has been kind to me, as my actual age is greater than the equivalent that I appear. I watch as the man next to me raises his long blunt fingers to hand the conductor his ticket. I imagine these same fingers to have probably touched some women in all kinds of tempest ways. Self - conscious enough to think that we get too old for sex, I linger in the thought of what could happen on a hot summer afternoon. Am I the only one on the train with such devil's thought? The man on the other side of me is adjusting his tie, and although it is not the more demanding "grey" one, it is a strikingly bold blue, which brings out the color of his eyes. I am self-reassured that I cannot possibly be the only woman on the train whom takes in and harbors such knowledge of thought. Without discussion or exchanging of ideas, the same abstraction is readable on many a commuter's face. Making association between my thoughts and a visual image, I begin to pant, as he begins to take notice. Further I process my theory that, the color of the tie makes little difference, a tie will always act the part of a tie, when in the presence of a skirt.

love affair / tragedy / suffering / yoga

An Ending:

The silence in the elevator had her taking the stairs, as unthinking, a quick tear begins to start. The tear, working its way out of her consciousness over time, soon dries up on the marble floor of the office building, fighting to hold on, yet fighting to let go. Walking down the hallway as if it is the most traumatic walk of her life. The time has really come to say "goodbye", as a powerful Amazing Grace plays inside her head. Covering her tear deep under the dirt of the corridor, feeling the echo of trumpets of a love affair now over. She will miss the dimples in his cheeks, and the soft feel of his lips on hers. His hands now only a memory of how they crossed over her body, playing music on her breasts.

      Looking out from the tenth floor window, from the leather burgundy chair he was so accustomed to be being serviced in, as he watches the sands of time continue to fall. His now trembling hand fumbling at his zipper, pants, as he gets dressed, he is no longer able to turn the hourglass over. She is gone. Gone from his zipper, his office, his life, the silence she left is the most powerful scream he has ever heard. Pouring a glass from the bottle of Jameson he kept on the shelf, staring out the window with nothing but hope, crying with everything but his tears. It is over, she is gone, and nothing can now conquer his loss. She, herself, peers up at his window, walking along the avenue, seeking the comfort to her loss in the clouds above. Tragic death of a love affair, as they suffer together, as their organs weep, as they move away from one another.

KC~~

running / poetry / motion/ yoga

How does hell become so close to our bones, that heaven is not seen in our eyes? How do we move past what harms us, in order to hold the things we never want to forget? 

Sometimes the heart belongs in a body bag, and other times, the sandbags are meant to save us. Leaving behind the twinkling stars of night, as moon shifts to daylight. Standing in this place, no words needed to speak, quiet is all I need. I swore I would ask the birds, but words just don't come easily. How to part the clouds, to find the silver lining, a poet in paint, as I float along the road.

I keep putting one foot in front of the other, very determined to finally arrive, at the place I was always meant to be.