What would you have me hide under silk?
—Mahadeviyakka
In aisle 8,
she asks,
How are you?
Eviscerated.
Untethered.
Endarkened.
Alive.
You tell her,
Great.
Archive for May, 2011
And It’s Also True
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84 on May 13, 2011| 1 Comment »
After Years of Turning Away
Posted in Uncategorized on May 11, 2011| 1 Comment »
Lotus pollen wakes up in the heart’s center—
the bright flower is free from mud.
—Kambala
It’s not only the cream-petalled lotus
or tiny peach blossom
that invites me to wake,
not only the moon
that illuminates.
Grime. Thick grubs.
Fear that gnaws in the gut.
The blade that empties
me out. These are also
my teachers now.
No real difference
in the stars, the sludge,
the moon, the muck.
It’s all the same summons,
show up.
Footing
Posted in Uncategorized on May 11, 2011| 1 Comment »
When I walked out of the closet
in big brown leather boots
with thick clunky heels
and rugged zig zag treads,
Rumi laughed out loud
and from the couch he said,
“You don’t need to wear those.”
“But my therapist told me to,”
I said. “For too long
I’ve been wearing
soft pink slippers so that I
could better tiptoe.”
“My dear,” said Rumi,
“You sound like a thudding
elephant. Is that really
what you want?”
“Well, no,” I said. “But I need
something sturdy and tough
to get me through all this muck.”
Rumi looked around the room.
“I don’t see any muck,” he said.
The wooden floors wore a glassy shine.
“Where’d it go?” I said, looking around
for the mess I’d skirted for years.
I must have looked disappointed.
As if I’d finally bought
the right shoes for the path,
but the path was no longer there.
At least not in the way I had seen.
Rumi smiled. “My dear, you look so sweet to me.
Go ahead. Wear the boots. Wear them
till your feet blister and ache,
till your toes are cramped
and your arches scream. Then take off
the boots, and take off your socks, and barefoot,
come again to me.”
After a Hundred Veils Had Already Fallen
Posted in Uncategorized on May 10, 2011| 1 Comment »
I had not noticed these inner veils,
perhaps because for so long
I have worn them like skin
and in their silken familiarity
I’d mistaken them for home.
But last night, with the moon
and sky and pond as witness,
light began to leak in. By dawn,
the tear in the fabric was clear,
and I could no longer linger
in this thin cocoon where for forty
years I have kept secret my anger,
my fear, my hurt. Come morning,
the rain with its sweet perfume
and insistent hands rubbed off
most of the remnant threads.
And by noon, a relentless wind
shredded whatever of the veils was left.
I am naked again, only more
so, even more exposed
than when we stood in the cold,
dark night and held our hands
to each other’s hearts and offered
each other everything.
It’s unsettling, love, not to know
what words might leap from my heart
to my lips to your ears. I’m afraid
of the messes I might make. But
here I am, old me, trembling
on the edge of what is new.
The perch so high. My wings still wet.
To My Children and Husband at the End of Mother’s Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged time 84 on May 8, 2011| 1 Comment »
At 11:43, I know
three things.
One: I love you.
Two: It is 11:43.
Three: I am still
learning how to love.
Evensong
Posted in Uncategorized on May 7, 2011| 2 Comments »
Tonight all I want is to hold you
and let the language of our skin
be language enough. Could you
smell on me the scent of devotion,
the gray perfume of sorrow,
the musk of I am yours? All the words,
they jumble, they fall off the tongue
and fall to ground in lumps.
I am tired of words. I am tired
of wishing they could work magic.
I want to rest them for now
and with my eyes ask to hold you.
The crickets are singing the song
they know best. Hush, lips, hush.
Bigger Picture
Posted in Uncategorized on May 6, 2011| 1 Comment »
With the dandelion crayon,
I fill in the speckled back
of the tree-frog. I do not
know what color he should be,
but my daughter has handed
me this crayon, and it doesn’t
really matter. Dandelion? Red?
Robin’s egg blue? The point
is to color with my daughter
on my lap, both of us slowly
moving our hands, breathing
together, and quiet. How simple
it is. The pleasure. The act.
The letting go of how things
should be. How easy it is
in this moment to make the frog
yellow—color of warmth, color
of weeds. What is true is that
I am holding her. What is true
is that she’s holding me. What
is true is that we do not get to hold on,
not really, to anything. Not to the girl.
Not to our thoughts. Not to our doubts.
Not our shoulds. Not our certainty.
And the feet, I make them gray.
And the sky I line with green.
And my girl scribbles pink
on the frog’s slender back.
There’s something freeing
and wonderful about not bowing
to the way that things should be—
like the color of the tree frog’s
bulging eyes. Or, if it is not
obvious yet, I am thinking
all morning of you and me.
The Woman Standing on the Cliff
Posted in Uncategorized on May 5, 2011| 1 Comment »
She only looks
as if she’s standing.
She has been falling,
waving to the walls
as she plummets past—
no moorings, no handholds
nowhere to rest
but today she notices
how gravity shifts
and she is not falling
but flying.
I prayed to be scoured clean
Posted in Uncategorized on May 4, 2011| 1 Comment »
and the days dutifully came
with their scythes, rasping
and scraping away all the stories
I’ve told myself about
who I am and who you are
and who does what to whom,
and now, on the back road
that leads to more back roads,
walking in the morning sun,
I meet you, not the stories
of you, but the real you
with your fear, your light,
walking beside me,
and beside us the rising,
rushing creek, and above us,
the spring delirious birds,
and inside me a growing emptiness—
how I used to be so frightened
of not being full—
but now when you speak
your voice rings in me
like a silver bell
whatever is true—
This moment. This woman.
This road. This you.
Really? Is this What it has to Take?
Posted in Uncategorized on May 3, 2011| 3 Comments »
Some of us,
apparently, need
to break.
I lug a wagon
full of lead
across the sand.
Attach anchors
to my wings
and then jump
from the fourth story.
I built a whole
city of lies
and then lived
in it. Paved
its streets
with reasons why.
I line the hems
of my every dress
with uprooted
stumps and pour
oil across the floor—
it glistens slickly between
the front door
and wherever else
we want to go—
all in an effort
to hide from
these six words,
we are ready
for real love.