before I could ask
if you could kiss
even the blackest
part of me,
you did.
Archive for May, 2011
Thank You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged tanka on May 31, 2011| 1 Comment »
Because Tomorrow Might Not Come
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carpe diem, love, tanka on May 31, 2011| 1 Comment »
despite the wind,
hail, chill,
it blossoms now
oh yellow rose
made of my heart
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.
Dark Night Still Life with Rumi
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged tanka sequence 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
Answer He Brings to His Mom and Dad in the Kitchen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, parenting 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.
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.
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.
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.
Off the Wall
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged spirituality, spoken word, walls on May 24, 2011| 1 Comment »
Stigma
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged spirituality, tanka sequence 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
Beyond Enlightenment
Posted in Uncategorized on May 22, 2011| 1 Comment »
Though the science
of it is too much for me tonight …
photomorphogenesis
and protocholorphyllide a.,
this evening I take
comfort in knowing
that plants grow also
in the dark.
And the Words Changed
Posted in Uncategorized on May 21, 2011| 1 Comment »
I shape arguments
in my mouth,
and just before
they come out
I see through
the window
how clear
the rain
Blessing
Posted in Uncategorized on May 20, 2011| 1 Comment »
In our every room,
a window.
In the window,
a single lily.
In the lily,
an unfolding.
In the unfolding,
I meet you.
She Can Always be Serious Again Later
Posted in Uncategorized on May 19, 2011| 1 Comment »
Wild Rose decides its time
to stop this endless picking away
at her own liver and dance.
She runs out the door
into the rain and barefootly spins,
and my god, the new leaves
on the trees, how they glisten.
Is It Any Wonder I Have Trouble Letting Go?
Posted in Uncategorized on May 18, 2011| 1 Comment »
If the boat tipped
in white water,
I learned to hold on
to my paddle.
If my feet slipped
while climbing the wall,
I learned to hang on
to the rope.
I learned to cling
to the covers
when sleeping
with a restless lover.
And lost in the cliffs
as the sun went down
I learned to hold on
to instinct and hope.
All my life, I have learned
to hold on. To cradle
my children when they cry.
To grab the wheel when
the car veers on ice.
But I Would Not Catch Them Again
Posted in Uncategorized on May 18, 2011| 1 Comment »
After reading Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, May 17
Unspeakable things
flutter inside my chest,
black butterfly wings.
It is not until long after
I let them go
I notice
they might be beautiful
Sacrament
Posted in Uncategorized on May 16, 2011| 1 Comment »
This space between us,
I bless it. Though I have
wanted to hold you tight,
and tighter than that,
though I have pressed
my naked weight into
your nakedness, though
I have wanted to go deeper
than that, to penetrate
into the very core of you
and feel you inside me, too,
though I long to join you
completely, I bless this space.
I bless the fear that enters me
when you leave, wondering
if you will return. I bless the
loneliness that grows in me
like a child that will not be born.
I bless the chill of the lonely bed
that holds the space for your warmth.
And I bless the struggle of reaching
for you—how vulnerable it is
to let the arms open, to open
the hands, to hold them open
wide and wider, though they long
to cradle this very body that
misses you instead. It is
scary to love you this way,
by letting you go again
and again, not just when you
leave, but letting you go
even in the moments
when I’m pressing my lips
into your neck, feeling your
hands splay across my back.
And I’m letting you go
with my blessings, blessing
the space between us
and how it invites a crossing.
On How She Is Being Retaught
Posted in Uncategorized on May 16, 2011| 1 Comment »
“for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness”
—Galway Kinnell, “St. Francis and the Sow”
Deepest scarlet,
the claret cup
blooms in the desert,
flouting drought, flouting
heat. It does not need
anyone to think it
is beautiful. So simple,
so simple. It blooms.
It blooms because.
It blooms despite.
It blooms and loses
its blooms so soon
and does not grieve the loss.
It opens. It opens regardless.
It opens and blesses
itself with its opening.
This is marvel
enough to send someone
into her own wild desert,
to see what she might do.
Tucked In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84 on May 14, 2011| 1 Comment »
When I say I love you,
eight other words
I do not say:
my heart is expanding
(and)
sometimes I am afraid.
Underneath
Posted in Uncategorized on May 13, 2011| 2 Comments »
I do not remember the day
I vowed to myself
that I would never be seen.
Was I being kicked by the boys
on the long walk home?
Or caught cheating in math class?
Or lying beneath a man I did
not love? I don’t know where
or when, but there was a day
I chose to wear a skin
inside my skin, something akin
to gloves, so that in every moment,
I could control how I was touched.
For years, I wondered why no one knew me.
And I wondered why I felt so alone.
Oh little girl, oh woman now, oh
years of covering up. Oh loneliness
and secrecy I chose instead of love—
I see me and do not judge myself.
I see me as I am. But there is
this second deadened skin
that’s ready to be shed. And here
is the chill of the late spring snow
as it seeps now through to the bones.
And the cold feels good because I feel it.
And I do not want to hide.
And there is this new way of touching
with my tenderest lips, my most sensitive skin,
inhaling musk, so familiar,
so singular. There is this inviting love in.