Silence knows the only
words worth speaking—
keeps them to itself.
Archive for March, 2012
But There’s So Much Coming Across Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, haiku, meditation, poems, poetry, silence on March 31, 2012| 2 Comments »
This Being Human
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged humanness, life, love, mortality, paradox, poems, poetry on March 31, 2012| 5 Comments »
A gift for you my heart would bring—the sweet release of everything, the breath I take before I sing…
—Jan Garret, JD Martin and Lisa Aschmann
This is what
we were born for—
the almost unbearable
softness of grass,
the sweet perfume
of blue weeds in spring,
listening to voices
that cannot be heard,
and reaching for that
which can never be held.
The popping sound
of the daffodil bloom,
Having our hearts
ripped open, and again
ripped open, ripped open,
still beating,
the weeping, the salt,
the communion of blood,
the awkwardness of it all—
and the grace.
The wanting and
the wanting to not want,
the roar of the river’s brown shush,
wings we don’t have,
the new leafing out
of the old, old cottonwood tree
and the long walk
to the cemetery
not long enough.
Oh this beautiful ache.
Ashes, we are not ashes
yet.
And What is Left
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, renewal, shedding on March 30, 2012| 2 Comments »
From the beginning, the key to renewal has been the casting off of old skin.
—Mark Nepo, “The Book of Awakening”
The way to the promised land is for the me to utterly fail.
—Jeannie Zandi, Telluride, 3/29/12
I saw myself
a broken thing
crumpled, bent,
weary to crying,
small and spent
and watching as
whatever self
she thought she knew
went spilling out
and sloughing off.
It’s amazing what love
gets away with.
Attempt
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, love, poetry, relationship, video poem on March 29, 2012| 2 Comments »
I can’t grasp it, but I am so very glad.
—Franz Wright, “A Word for Joy”
The weight of love,
it is sometimes,
to the ounce,
the weight of a man
as he rests
his body on yours.
Though if there is sorrow
or sickness in his thoughts,
the gravity can flatten you.
And sometimes it’s
heavier than that, the weight,
as if he first hems his pants
with lead and then
finds his way to your arms.
And sometimes it’s heavier
even than that, as if
the very air in his lungs
has millions of pockets,
all of them filled
with dull
gray stones.
And sometimes
the weight of love
is no weight at all,
is less than a blade
of orchard grass,
less than a note
hummed in quiet rooms,
less than a memory,
less than the scent
of lilac or rose,
more like the light
that lands on the hand
and makes it open
to hold what never
can be held.
At the Same Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, love, nest, not knowing, poems, poetry on March 27, 2012| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, haiku, life, obstacles, poems, poetry, radiance on March 26, 2012| 2 Comments »
Moonless
and still this
shining
*
I’m really getting to know it—
that big rock
in my path
*
dust storm
how many lives
did I just breathe
*
Even Blossoming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged balance, blossoming, Erika Gordon, friendship, growing, poems, poetry, potential, yoga on March 25, 2012| 5 Comments »
Erika on the red mat
tucks her right foot in her groin
and bends forward from the waist
then lowers till she’s hovering
above her left tippy toes.
If you can’t follow
what I’m saying, that’s
because her body’s twisted,
furled and folded as a body seldom is.
But full of grace,
she brings her hands
to meet in prayer in front of her
and for a minute poises there,
a compact bulb with five small roots
and a patient shoot waiting
to push up and through.
It’s beautiful to stand beside
Erika on the red mat
to feel more than see
the rising energy as like
a tulip in the spring
she reaches not just up
but into the quiet balance point
where anything can happen.
Love is Like This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, love, nest, poems, poetry, refuge, vulnerability on March 25, 2012| 5 Comments »
Wanting to Believe It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carwash, parenting, poem, poetry, vulnerability on March 24, 2012| 3 Comments »
It’s okay,
she croons to her doll,
and cradles it
in the small angle
of her arm. It’s okay,
and she holds the doll closer,
closer than that.
Then she raises
her voice above the roar
of the vortex dry
and says to me,
Mommy, she’s scared
of the noise.
And in the back seat
the two girls
snuggle against
the clatter and blast.
It’s okay, it’s okay,
it’s okay.
And it’s quiet,
so quiet,
later that night
when she calls to me
from her bed.
Mommy, it’s so dark,
she says.
And we curl
our softnesses together
and I whisper to her
the words
I most want to hear.
It’s okay,
it’s okay
I say.
No Wonder We’re Smiling So Wide
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, one heart, one love, poem, poetry, radiance, unity on March 23, 2012| 5 Comments »
It rhymes,
this light
that shines
in me
each time
I shed
the shuck
of self,
rhymes with
this light
in you
And Again and Again and Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, relationship, show up, true self on March 23, 2012| 3 Comments »
All I want
is to show up
without
my wrapping,
without a song
I have already sung,
without any words
that I’ve rehearsed,
without this suitcase
of shoulds that for years
I have lugged everywhere.
And when the masks
and clever scripts
and weight come back,
I want to lose them again.
The Deeper Lesson
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged doors, non-doing noticing, patience, poems, poetry on March 21, 2012| 5 Comments »
Somewhere a door
is hinging—open and
less open and not
at all open and open.
All day I feel it.
All day, I know
there is not a thing
I can do about that swinging
except notice how the light
changes, notice how soft
the breeze, and how cold,
notice how the urge
to do something about
that door rises and
and passes, notice
how the sun breaks through.
And They Slip By, Slip By
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, blossom, forever, poems, poetry, radiance, spring, the moment, video on March 20, 2012| 2 Comments »
Look what happens
given warmth
given light—
deep fields of shining bloom
and every moment
is
forever
One Track Mind Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged one track mind, petals, poem, poetry, sensuousness, spring, surrender, tanka on March 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
petals, petals, petals
petals, petals, petals, petals,
petals, petals petals
cover me in petals, petals
petals, petals, petals petals
Storm’s Edge: A Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged live in the moment, poems, poetry, presence, spring, tanka, video, wind on March 18, 2012| 11 Comments »
Almost spring
and the wind makes wild music
out of everything—
though someday I’ll forget it
tonight there is nothing else.
Featherless but Flying Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, darkness, haiku, joy, poem, poetry, singing on March 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
I guess I’d make
a crummy bird … here I am
singing in the darkness.
Bouquet: Six Spring Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bouquet, flowers, haiku, Leukemia, poems, poetry, presence, shadow on March 16, 2012| 8 Comments »
March sun so warm
I almost believe those yellow flowers
are real.
*
Apricot trees
in first bloom, white and white,
but that is somewhere else.
*
I wish I had
no occasion to send tulips
to room 109.
*
Under microscopes
mutant cells blossom
forget me nots
*
She hands me
a dandelion—an hour later
gold still in my hand.
*
Scent of spring—
even the shadows
grow buds.
Bet You’re Marked, Too
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, lily, love, planets, poems, poetry, tanka sequence on March 14, 2012| 2 Comments »
Open those eyes … the ones that were born in your own skull. —Hsu Yun
I sniffed the lily—
such perfume!—
too closely
and now I wear
its stain.
*
Jupiter and Venus
almost touch in the west—
O rising thrill
to see two objects so far
so near.
*
I took my heart
for a ski today—
one look
at that diamond field
and it let fall all its clothes.
*
It is no lovelier
the scent of the lily,
up close
or across
the room.
*
See these scars
on my heart, these new bruises,
it’s not that I have been
unlucky at love, it’s that
I love.
Two Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, ego, haiku, poem, poetry on March 14, 2012| 6 Comments »
I want to write
my way out of this feeling.
The feeling wears its best leaden shoes.
*
Though she is a breath
made of stone, she notices
how yellow the jonquils.
Though It Seems Crazy to Wish for It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, blessings, breaking open, life, poems, poetry, radiance, video poem on March 13, 2012| 8 Comments »
After we break
we learn there is always
more to break
and
O
the more
we break the more
our light radiates