Though I did not understand
what the movements meant,
I followed him the best I could,
let my body move through the morning air
the way his body moved—
white cranes spreading our wings,
standing first on one leg and then on the other,
one hand moving further and faster than the other.
If someone had touched me, I would have collapsed,
but Mike, he was like the mountain
we were standing beside, perhaps
like a mountain with wings.
It was one of those moments
that we don’t know at the time
will be a moment we always return to—
but here I am again, October morning,
cold, dawn light, the sun still crouched
behind the mountain, one of a handful
of white cranes landed in Elks Park,
waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Archive for September, 2013
Practicing Tai Chi in Elks Park with Mike
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Mike Adams, poem, poetry, student, Tai Chi on September 30, 2013| 3 Comments »
The Unfilling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, emptiness, loss of self, poem, poetry, surrender on September 29, 2013| 5 Comments »
Gold, gold, gold, gone.
This is the season of surrender.
The time for release has come.
Aflame! Then emptiness.
It happens so fast.
I notice the no rising up
in my throat, and notice, too,
how it has no effect on what is.
How quickly the invitation to change
becomes the change.
Emptiness everywhere.
Again, I find myself
the student of yes.
I know I will learn
to find it beautiful, the emptiness.
Already, I feel it doing its slow
unselving work inside me.
Oh wind, do to me what you do
to the trees. Take me and shake me
and loosen my hold on whatever gold
I would grasp. Oh October, teach me
how this, too, is a beginning.
Hula Hooping Down the Sun
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cycle, goofy, hula hoop, poem on September 28, 2013| 2 Comments »
Hips.
I let them
swing as the world
goes in circles.
The sun
appears to set
as it always does,
but tonight
on the back
porch I sway
in the way
of the galaxy,
I whirl
in the swirl
of the planet Earth,
I move
with the
news of the
solar system—
everything
comes
around.
The Day After He Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, language, loss, love, Mike Adams, poem, poetry on September 27, 2013| 3 Comments »
—for Crazy Cloud
It is raining and sometimes
it is snow. In the gutter
outside my window the stones
are gray and rose, equal parts
dingy and glittersome.
Across the way, the spruce tree
is more blue than green.
Its trunk is crooked. Its boughs
uneven. On a day such as this
it is so human to want to seek warmth,
to want to lean whatever in us
is crooked and blue toward another’s
crooked blueness and find
some communion there. So human
to want to say something true,
perhaps about how fragile
this life is, perhaps about love,
but these truths are like
the simplest stones,
changing color each time
we try to describe them.
Easier to say it is raining
and sometimes it is snow.
Though already the clouds
are clearing. Already the spruce
gathers late morning sun
in fat droplets that hang
under needles. I am walking
around the things I do not wish
to say as much as those that I do.
Like he’s gone. Like it hurts.
Like it’s fragile, this life, though he was
strong. Like he was never ours.
The Afternoon that Never Ends
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, forever, poem, poetry on September 26, 2013| 1 Comment »
blue
the
dome
and
gold
the
leaves
and
fierce
the
wind
that
stirs
the
trees
and
black
the
basil
stung
by
frost
limp
proof
forever
never
was
and
yet
forever
in
the
way
the
gold
leaks
into
all
that
changes
leaf
and
child
and
bliss
and
loss
the
arc
of
black
bird
thrill
enough
Language of the Fantastic … Come Play with Words in Grand Junction October 11-13
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Language of the Fantastic, Rick Bass, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Western Colorado Writers Forum, Writing Workshops on September 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Check out this fantastic weekend of literary play … I will be the emcee on Friday night and then get to perform on Sunday morning with the phenomenal Native American flute player Tony Babbitt. So many super writers coming to do panels and presentations and workshops. Hope you can join us in Grand Junction.
Sometimes When We Least Expect It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, connection, love, poem, poetry, seeing on September 25, 2013| 5 Comments »
Sometimes the only thing we see
when we look at each other
is the other’s eyes—not so much
their color, nor their shape,
but the way they soften, the way
they seem to say, “I see you, I see
all of you, and there is no reason
for you to hide.” And for us who have
spent so much time hiding,
it can be shocking to be seen.
In our dreams, perhaps, we
allow it. But to be seen awake,
to be seen when we are messy
and messier than that, to be seen
when we are tired and hurt
and not sure where we stand?
In that moment, to be seen
by eyes that say without a blink,
“Here I am,” that seeing is a window we
can climb right through and land
in a field of light. This is what
the soul remembers—how to love
without judgment, how to love without
should, how to live with the defenses
down. This is the gift we can
give to each other. This softening.
This tenderness. This allowing
each other to stop looking for a cure
for being who we are and to simply be
ourselves, masks off no matter what,
to know ourselves as love.
Three Windows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, window on September 24, 2013| 1 Comment »
how did it enter,
this thought
wearing bells
*
scraping morning frost—
sometimes it takes so little
to clearly see
*
shuttering
the pane—still something
slips through
Asking the Waves
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, loss of the self, poem, poetry, surrender, wave on September 23, 2013| 1 Comment »
Again, the wave.
The softening. The scrubbing
away of whoever I think I am.
It does no good to wish
it would stop. Everything returns.
Erosion is not a curse.
It is the way the world works.
We build ourselves up
only to lose what we build.
There is no real loss in this.
The sandstone returns
to sand before returning
again to stone. All the grains
are accounted for.
There is no thrill in counting.
We break down until
the breaking down is done.
I try to not plan the rebuild.
For now, grace in the breaking,
grace in the way the waves
of loss move across me
until I am smooth, until
I can move with the waves
and let myself be led, until
there is nothing left to do,
even the wishing gone.
Strange Answers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged constant, experiment, nothing, poem, poetry, variable on September 22, 2013| 1 Comment »
In this experiment,
longing is the constant
and the independent variable
is a many purple petalled thing
and the dependent variable
is song. No. That’s not it.
Perhaps the constant
is blue. And the independent
variable has something to do
with rain, and the dependent variable
is this terrible pain in my leg.
God, I could beg. I will beg,
just make the pain
go away and let the constant be
something more like
the way the sun caught
in the clouds this morning,
which is to say something
not at all constant, not
one bit controlled. This
is the proof, I suppose,
of nothing, the way
it shifts, the way
it constantly changes everything,
even the woman
conducting experiments,
writing conclusions
in chalk on the pavement,
laughing in great waves
as the independent
rain starts again to fall.