the sun will go down anyway
will go down soon
regardless, I move
across the street
one last stroke of warmth
Archive for November, 2011
can’t have it but can’t live without it tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged sun, tanka on November 29, 2011| 1 Comment »
Losing the Self
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lost tooth, mothering, poem on November 29, 2011| 1 Comment »
The boy tugs
on the tooth,
it hangs
by the root,
I hang
on his joy
oh gaping
beamish budding
boy.
The Skate Skier Talks to the Coyote Willows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged focus, poem, skiing, willows on November 27, 2011| 2 Comments »
You will remember how two weeks ago
I skied into you, right through the tall center
of your many red stems. How I fell.
I was transfixed by you at the base of the hill.
I forgot everything but willow. But
today I remember to train my eye
to corduroy snow, to follow its parallel
grooves through the gulley.
See how I slide up the other side with no effort.
It is not that I did not notice you,
your whispers, your slight bend
in the almost breeze, your tips waving
like sirens, your long slendernesses,
how easily you rise from snow toward sky.
I noticed and then curled my body into the curve,
looked ahead, became drift, became wind, became
current and passed you, slipping myself into
the next moment which is always, always passing.
Reluctant Student Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, nothing, stillness, tanka on November 26, 2011| 1 Comment »
Be still.
—Lama Surya Das
It would be easier
to walk ten hundred miles
through swamps
than to do what you ask of me:
nothing.
Love is Like That Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, tanka, train on November 26, 2011| 1 Comment »
Vast though it is tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, immensity, odds, tanka on November 25, 2011| 1 Comment »
Because
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, poem, thanksgiving on November 23, 2011| 2 Comments »
Running south beside Mission Bay,
one comes to the place where the city
has stenciled, Courtesy Please,
only it looks to me as if it says
Curtsy Please, and so I do, to the whole
majestic world, and to the joy of mistakes,
and find myself overwhelmed by the wish
to bless everything in sight, and so
with the power in me—inherent
and equal to the power in everything else—
I bless the short man with one good eye
and the pelican as it keels then dives,
and I bless the fish it catches. I bless
the sky above me and the worn concrete
below me, the old men walking slowly
and the beautiful beautiful women.
I bless the ones who built the pavilion,
utilitarian and new. And I bless the short grass,
the playgound equipment, the water,
the mallard ducks, too. I bless each thing
for the pleasure of blessing, imagining
everyone else doing the same,
all of us blessing each other, ourselves,
one elation, indivisible, slivers of god,
with hilarity and just us for all.
Note to Self
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged night, nothing, poem, sitting still, words, writing on November 22, 2011| 1 Comment »
Even night is not night enough.
—Franz Kafka, in a letter to Felice, his fiancé, 1913.
When even the night
is not night enough
nor does salt seem
salt enough, and the hole
in the looming who am I
is enormous,
but not enormous enough
to gulp down the damn ego whole,
perhaps that is the time
to sit very still
and forget about writing.
There is nothing,
nothing the words
can do then except
not enough because
nothing is enough,
which is to say
only nothing
is enough, and perhaps
in that inadequate night
we are sufficiently vulnerable
to really know nothing.
go ahead tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ocean, perspective, tanka on November 21, 2011| 1 Comment »
chicka chicka chicka tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged silence, tanka, train on November 21, 2011| 2 Comments »
and the train
trundles through
the darkness
leaving in its wake
the most amazing silence
Winter Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, winter on November 18, 2011| 2 Comments »
The seasons always change. And life will find a way.
—Sara Bareilles,
Cracked, the sidewalk,
and snapped, the branches,
and bent the dead weeds
with their shriveled leaves
weary like prayer flags spent.
Even the rocks are chipped
and the smell of decay
weaves into the breeze.
There is nothing on this
late autumn walk
that seems whole, which is to say
everything is broken together—
me, the weeds, the sad concrete—
even so this odd heart,
ripening out of season,
chooses to fall deeper in love
with the world, though the forecast
is for cold and getting colder.
Dear Death,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, gratitude, letter, poem on November 18, 2011| 2 Comments »
I know you’ve been coming around a lot lately.
Must be so much to do. I’m sorry I didn’t say hi
when I passed you on Columbia Avenue last week.
I felt busy, too. Actually, when I saw you,
I crossed the street, afraid you’d want to talk—
I had so much to do that day—and I didn’t
want to be late to pick up the kids. You understand?
Nothing personal. Oh, yeah. I know I didn’t invite you
to the birthday party. Sorry. There were so many folks
coming already. Um, yeah, I saw you behind me
in the car today, so close on my bumper. What
was the deal? But it did make me realize,
looking out the windows at the willows beside the highway,
how very beautiful the frost—all glitter
and shine—and how seeing you there in the rearview
mirror my whole world seemed so very,
well, not mine.
Ode to the Willows at the Bottom of the Hill
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, out of control, poem, skiing on November 17, 2011| 4 Comments »
Let’s say the skier
is out of control
as she careens down the hill
and let’s say that she sees
the tall red willows
from a distance
and thinks to herself
I am not going to hit
those willows.
Tilted and lurching
she is too loudly laughing,
afraid of the speed
and equally thrilled with it,
gripped with conviction
that she is not is not
is not going to hit
those willows, those red willows,
those tall red willows
those willows the only
thing that she sees
as she skis right into
the tallest of the tall red willows
at the base of the hill
those willows
she gave
all her attention.
Not a Destination, a Verb
Posted in Uncategorized on November 15, 2011| 1 Comment »
We imagine a stasis that can never exist.
–Barry Spacks
and she named
the stasis
Open
dreamed it
a place she might arrive
one day
meanwhile
she forgot
the path
No Hurry to Find Out
Posted in Uncategorized on November 15, 2011| 4 Comments »
Joan asks me what happens after we die,
and I don’t know, but I do know
how to stand beside the river
and see a shrine in every rock I find,
which is how I spent the day yesterday.
And I know that walking today
in the snow, every step felt like
a prayer, which is to say
I feel so very lucky to be alive,
even though I don’t know who
the prayer is to—nor what the point
of praying is—except that on days like today
I overspill with gratitude
and it feels so good to say thank you
for this life that happens before we know
what happens after we die.
Continue
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, continuing, cycles, moon, poem, trust on November 13, 2011| 2 Comments »
Not one leaf left,
not one green thing.
Even the algal pools
beside the river
hinge toward brown.
The grass, brown.
The empty tomato vines,
brown. Even the bindweed
on the fence. Dead
and brittle and brown.
There is still a moon,
though, and it shines
when it isn’t in hiding.
Like tonight. The moon hasn’t yet risen
but I can look east
where it’s just as black
as the west, as the north and south,
and I know for certain
it’s not about prayer or hope,
it’s just a question of time.
13 Ways of Looking at the Rocks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 13 ways, dreams, gilgamesh, holding on, letting go, rocks on November 13, 2011| 1 Comment »
Gilgamesh, too, found rocks
in his path. They were like crumbs
for Hansel and Gretel, like
Ariadne’s red fleece thread.
It’s so hard, sometimes,
to see how we are being led.
We think we know the path.
We think we know something.
*
In a dream, I say,
It’s the rocks
that I just can’t let go of.
*
By the river, all the rocks
are softened, tumbled and smooth.
They are nearly impossible
to balance, to stack—
but possible it is.
*
So on the path
Gilgamesh, in his urgency,
smashed the rocks.
*
The ice
is thin.
The rocks,
flung underhand,
make such
satisfying holes.
Why is it satisfying?
The sound of shattering.
The sksksksksksk of pond ice resettling.
The hole.
*
Inside the stone,
it is dark.
Not like a shadow.
Like dark.
*
He broke everything
he needed
to find his way.
*
I do not know
why I break
what I need,
why I repel
what I love,
why I hold on
to rocks in a dream.
*
It’s not a path,
says my teacher,
it’s a beckoning.
*
By the continual
creeping of ants
a stone
will wear
away.
*
A stone
thrown into the pond
will not move
for many, many, many years.
A stone
thrown into the pond
is not lost.
*
There is no permanence.
*
My son says, Mom,
they’re all so beautiful,
every one of these rocks.
We toss them,
rock by rock,
into the river.
“Because Mom, He’s Still Making Music”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, boys, music, tanka on November 11, 2011| 1 Comment »
When you are older
I wish you the same tug
you felt tonight—how when
we left the concert
you whimpered to go back
The Process
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged couplets, lace, letting go, process, soul, tetrameter on November 11, 2011| 2 Comments »
Soul, you are the empty space
honored by the maker of lace,
you the holes that are always there,
and we the threads that frame the air.
You the gap, the empty, the naught,
and we the ones cutting away the cloth
to arrive at the nothing that links us all,
unweaving, unbraiding, elated, enthralled.