Thai Tea

I give thanks and praises as I brew the tea—

tea leaves and spices from distant lands

their journey long, their origins far

How fortunate we are to hold such gifts

how blessed I am to prepare this warmth

for the ones who fill this house with love

I never curse the dirty dishes

the endless rhythm of cooking and cleaning.

For there are those who would give anything

anything at all, to hear laughter echo again

to feel the weight of a shared meal

to set a table for more than one

It is always sudden, even when planned—

the silence that settles like dust

The kettle boils for no one but you now

a lone cup sits idle on the counter

And the kitchen, once alive with purpose

becomes a quiet place of learning:

how to cook for one, how to live alone

The tea is bittersweet as it cools in my hands.

~ Pretty Thunder

Cool Water Tonight

It’s after midnight here. I just turned on the water to wash my hands and it’s ice cold. I bent down and drank from the pipe and am so grateful. Images pass through my mind of times water was so scarce. Toting water deep in the bush in Wassembo. There was a narrow dirt path in the village. One had to carry a Bamboo pole about 12 to 15 feet long, with a bucket at the end of it. Once at the water source, you had to put it down the hole, catch water and bring it back up. Then walk back to the village.

~Pretty Thunder

Grateful for Sweet Potatoes

I don’t really have deep thoughts these days, if I do, I don’t know that they’re deep. Tonight, standing in the kitchen, peeling and chopping sweet potatoes. I’m so grateful. I often think about the women working hard in remote villages that I’ve traveled to. How they process their provisions, how they process their cassava. Backbreaking work with very little tools. Fufu drying in the compound. My young friend walking down a dusty dirt road to get the cassava for dinner. Grateful for the small pieces of meat. Greens, tomatoes and ground nuts. I search for the fat in my bowl. #smallthoughts #grateful

Vigil 3

Don’t speak

send me the arts

music poetry photography paintings Offer me magic and the West horizon Offer me incantations and prayers that require singing Bring me 8,000 candles and wood to burn mesquite piñon palo santo red cedar Bring me ceanothus root bring me chaparral for my tools set alight the resins breuzinho white copal and ghost pine i toil day and night searching for a place where’s he’s not gone from this world i do not rest i do not sleep i do not eat Bring me psilocybin DMT and iboga Bury me far beneath the Mourning Ground Send the Pointer and Shepard away Wrap me in my colors of annihilation

the colors of hurricanes and the endless road Wrap me in brown Wrap me in burlap

i have surrendered all my names and my foot print has changed

feed me small pieces of raw liver and salt Feed me the morning star

feed me glass from the collision at the crossroads

see me in the shaking earth

see me in the descending wren

see me walk among all that composts

summon me with your endless silence

summon me with your long gaze

you too are this

you too are oblivion

you too Are me closing the roads

Vigil 1

this grief has me equipped for war

my eyes have no more tears yet still i cry Is this how deserts bloom?

i am plowing my little acre with a buffalo horn Season of violets and lupins salute me as i drive through the vineyards Pills tucked under each nail Hashish lined up like soldiers Tulips tired in my bedroom bend towards the sun How could i not simply dissolve and sink into the earth