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Archive for May, 2011

Thank You

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on May 31, 2011| 1 Comment »

before I could ask
if you could kiss
even the blackest
part of me,
you did.

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Because Tomorrow Might Not Come

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 31, 2011| 1 Comment »

despite the wind,
hail, chill,
it blossoms now
oh yellow rose
made of my heart

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Beginning as the Day is Ending

Posted in Uncategorized on May 29, 2011| 1 Comment »

Night comes closer,
and the world is sand-
whipped and dry
and the elm trees bow
to the verge of breaking.
I am shedding skins
as desert things do,
and despite violent wind,
despite heat, despite
spines and barbs and
things that prick,
my edges are soft.

Above the river,
dozens of dark
winged bank swallows
dart and make praise
of the evening air
and the wild roses
spill their pink perfume—
the scent of miracle
is everywhere
and I, too,
bow to breaking.

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Dark Night Still Life with Rumi

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on May 28, 2011| 1 Comment »

silence.
silence.
a howling hurt.
silence. silence.
silence.

*

outside, the crickets
continue to sing,
though they would
never think of it
as singing

*

and Rumi says
to me,
how could we
know what a
dark night is?

*

again I see
I do not know.
I don’t know,
and the moon
hides.

*

but darn it! I want to know
where we are going.
Rumi says,
you are torturing
your soul.

*

inside, still no moon.
but there is a broken
open place.
I am learning
to sing from there.

*With quotes in italics from “Moving Water” and “Not Here” translated by Coleman Barks

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Answer He Brings to His Mom and Dad in the Kitchen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

The six-year-old boy
does not know
the question,

but in blue pen
on a paper scrap
he writes,

It Is Love.

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Before the Stars Arrived

Posted in Uncategorized on May 26, 2011| 1 Comment »

And then one day
it was not safer to be numb

and I walked into the field
and lay me down in the shining grass

and opened myself to the sky.
And all my petals fell.

For a while I did not think
that I would survive

the loss. A great bird
circled my bones.

And then the wind
came and I became wind.

And the darkness came
and I became darkness.

And the earth
reached up

with its terrible gravity
and I became the earth.

And I asked who is
the one who believes

she is lost?
And in the asking

I felt her disappear.

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Returning to the Vastness that is Always There

Posted in Uncategorized on May 25, 2011| 2 Comments »

Above the river
on the trestle bridge
I wept and I wept
and I threw my head back
and I wept and the tears
became two small
amber beads that strung
between my eyes
and the waves and
the tears became two
tiny amber birds
that flew between
me and the sky, and
one tear became
a silver heart
filled with flowers
that left a deep groove
on my cheek. I am
being erased,
I am being eroded,
I am losing all my lines.
The scent of roses
surrounds me, I
am becoming less skin,
less woman, more
river, more sky, l
am disappearing
one tear at a time.

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Because It Hurts to See You Hurting

Posted in Uncategorized on May 25, 2011| 2 Comments »

Forgive me. I have tried
to fix you. To be salve,
or more practically, glue.

As if you were not a man
but a leaky bucket
beneath the rain spout.

Or a cattail with its soft
creamy seeds spewing out.
I’ve abandoned my box

of tools. I no longer believe
in fixing you. My love,
the world is falling.

My love, nothing
is for sure. We
are rain water

in leaky buckets.
We are slowly
spilling seed.

My new practice—
to be here with you
as the field accepts

both rain and sun,
as the tree leaves
meet the wind.

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Off the Wall

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 24, 2011| 1 Comment »

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Stigma

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 24, 2011| 2 Comments »

so ready
to receive
what arrives in the air
the lily pistil
weeps

*

I, too,
want to
be joined
by something
invisible

*

it hangs, one clear drop,
and it hangs
and it hangs
and it hangs
and I watch

*

while I try to explain
what it means,
spirituality,
behind your back
lily petals splay

*

O lily!
the whole
world
becomes
flower

*

standing beside
the lily
I have
no names
worth knowing

*

ardent and sweet—
there is
no corner
of the room
not wearing perfume

*

what blooms
today tomorrow
withers
I tell myself
it is the same

*

there is still
too much
of me here
o lily, o lily
o lily

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