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Archive for September, 2011

Perhaps I, Too, Am Changing

Posted in Uncategorized on September 11, 2011| 1 Comment »


All prickle
and cripple
dry
and dead
the thistle
erupts

it has lost
any visible
memory
of its bright
purple song
in exchange

for a softer,
wintrier tongue,
casting a spell for
what comes,
oh flurry of tiny
white wands.

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And a Sweet Scent, Too

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 9, 2011| 3 Comments »


Oh Rumi, already
I have forgotten

your words from
this morning, I heard

them as though through
a hundred white veils.

It was something
about sweetness

and scattering, and
it feels like a loss

to not remember
exactly what was said.

Your words
were like, I don’t know,

a breeze moving over
my body, rearranging me

as if I were sand so
that what remains is

more art of the beloved and
something less of me.

Perhaps this is part
of the emptying—

letting go of words,
even lovely ones,

as the body releases
a breath. The lungs

do not lament the air
that so marvelously

filled them up.
How difficult I make it

sometimes. Like today,
for nearly an hour

I plum forgot to smile.
By grace I remembered

to soften the face
and let myself be smiled.

How wonderful it’s been
since then, the veils

rippling around me,
openings appearing

in the current of folds.

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09 08 20 11 02 12

Posted in Uncategorized on September 9, 2011| 1 Comment »

“There will always be delightful
mysteries in your life,”
says the small white slip.
“11 19 37 87 69 02”
And I wonder who at
the Peking Noodle Company
thought to insert the word
“delightful.” I have carried
this scrap in my wallet for years,
most likely because of that word.
Tucked next to it in text of red:
“YOUR LOVE LIFE WILL BE
HAPPY AND HARMONIOUS
08 11 12 15 34 37”
They both agree on 11.
I do not know what I would
write in the fortune cookie
I would eat tonight. Perhaps,
“Smile often and see what
happens,” as I read one time
in Chinatown. Or perhaps,
“So much pleasure from
one small vase. Don’t forget
to praise the larkspur.”
But it is no time for prophecy
or for knowing much at all
except that the larkspur
really is very beautiful—so
delicate, so delightfully blue.

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Humbled

Posted in Uncategorized on September 7, 2011| 1 Comment »

There is always
more opening to do,
especially beside the river

when the sun is low,
or especially in the kitchen
when the hum of the fridge

ohms through the ache
that rides the belly,
or when speaking

of love the voice breaks
and the heart breaks
and more love pours in.

There is always more
opening, especially now
when I am no longer a thin green shoot.

Grace, says my friend,
grace and nature, that
is all there is, and I

could not explain to you
what she meant, but
I knew sure as the luminous

moon that I will never reach,
sure as a morning glory
opens to the sun

that it was true.

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Accordion Tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 7, 2011| 2 Comments »

was it this morning
or six years ago
the little boy
asking with both arms
for me to carry him

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Bare Soled

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 6, 2011| 1 Comment »

oh mountain
that I have tried
to climb for years, is that you
in the silt of this river
where I am wading?

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Hearth Breaking

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on September 4, 2011| 1 Comment »

I share again
the wild yeast
given to me

each loaf
a new revelation

so many lives fed
by one
living
bread

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Nothing but the Whole Wide World to Gain, Nothing, Nothing

Posted in Uncategorized on September 3, 2011| 3 Comments »


What is going on inside me I cannot tell. In the sky a thousand stars are magnetized and I am glued by the swing of the planet to the sand.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I heard of a man
who, after walking for weeks
through dunes on his way
to the Sea of Cortez,
could see stars through
the blue of the day.
Hearing it as possible,
I have tried to do the same,
wanting to see through the veils
into the vaster universe.
This morning, nearer the eye,
not one bird has found wings
in the sky. No clouds putter
nor bloom into prime.
The night and its empire
of shine is lost to me.
I close my eyes a while, awake.
Inside, an infinity of stars
scintillate, the lines
linking them into constellations
not yet drawn.

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An Inkling

Posted in Uncategorized on September 2, 2011| 1 Comment »


Acceptance, when it comes, arrives in waves.
—Augusten Burroughs

Every word,
every flinch,
every tear,
every touch,
every bruise,
every kiss,
every road,
every grasp,
every moonless
room,
every bump,
every loss,
every lie,
every love
a river
to god.

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Lunch in September

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 2, 2011| 3 Comments »

Inside the woman
who slices
the apple
is the girl
who fell
in love
with fall
because
of that
white
scent

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