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.
After Talking to Michelle, I Think of Dynamic Systems
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged butterfly effect, chaos theory, dynamic systems, future, Lorenz, poem, poetry on September 21, 2013| 1 Comment »
Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?
—Edward Lorenz, title of a paper presented at the 139th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (29 Dec 1979), in Essence of Chaos (1995)
Let’s say the rainbow
lands in a field. The woman
watching it knows her treasure
is elsewhere. Still, she takes it
as a sign. Sure, there are other signs.
The beetle in the screen door. Two
white feathers. A cloud in the shape
of a shoe. Everything means
what she wants it to. She remembers
the words of Edward Lorenz: how the present
determines the future, but
the approximate present does not
approximately determine the future.
In the field, there are no butterflies
present, at least none that she can see.
Sensitivity to initial conditions,
she whispers under her breath,
wondering if just that tiny puff
of memory is enough to create
the next storm. There are rainbows
everywhere, she says to herself.
Where will the next one land?
In Susan’s Backyard
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boys, fruit, plum, poem, poetry on September 20, 2013| 1 Comment »
Spryly
highly
yesly
mumly
Aiden
climbs the
laden
plum tree
smiley
wily
sparkling
eye-ly
Aiden
tosses
ripe plums
highly
through
the air
my hands
are there
sweet boy
who lives
so me
oh my-ly.
Late Night with Susan, We Consider Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, Susan Smilanic on September 20, 2013| 3 Comments »
And the Forecast is for More
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, fear, parenting, poem, poetry, storm, thunder on September 18, 2013| 3 Comments »
Though there is not a thing I can do
to calm the heart-stilling fat slam of thunder,
my daughter clings to me and whimpers.
Immense tides of rumble shudder the sky.
Another. Another. We huddle. I whisper into
her ear, “I am here.” It is the truest thing
I know to say. In a great storm, we do
what we can. Stay close to each other.
Get quiet. Quieter. Gasp as if gasping might turn
fear to awe. Keep our eyes very, very open.
Liederkreis, Opus 24
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Liederkreis, music, piano, poem, poetry, Schumann, singing, song on September 17, 2013| 1 Comment »
Cosi e’, se vi pare
(That’s the way it is, if it seems that way to you)
—Italian saying
Under my fingers,
the chords are familiar,
allegretto, in 2/4 time.
I lean into the ritardandos,
swelling the passing tensions,
failing to remember to exhale.
The lyrics, perhaps because
they are in German,
are beautiful. I can forget
that they speak of sleepless
nights and helplessness,
and dreams that languish
unfulfilled. My voice drifts
into the rafters. What
do I know of dreams?
There is so much I do not know.
Even this life I call my own.
What do I know of it?
Who taught them to sing,
the birds in autumn?
Who taught them to dance,
the leaves? Tonight, I do not see them,
the shadows my voice moves through
as I follow the staffs in front of me.
Nor do I think of translation. Nor
do I think of who is listening,
nor of who is not. For now,
there is Schumann and Heine,
there is this voice that is borrowing me,
there is this song that says
it must be sung.
For the Hungry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, unlearning on September 15, 2013| 1 Comment »
it bends
the dark
and sweetens
loss
it holds
the daughter
as
she coughs
it rides
on buses
slips
on tongues
it begs
to be
unlearned
undone
and when
the swagger
turns
to swoon
and when
the clock
has ticked
too soon
and when
the rain
keeps raining
long
it finds
the spaces
in the song
where all
the words
you thought
you knew
are different
now
it leaks
somehow
this love
this mmm
this empty
spoon
Nine Reframings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, lens, poem, reframe on September 14, 2013| 1 Comment »
a chest
full of flowers—
open me
*
my thumb hurts, I say,
my dad’s favorite fix—drop
a rock on your foot
*
only a sip
and already I’m drunk—
desert after rain
*
my knee hurts, I say
and the world
breaks my heart
*
puddle, puddle,
puddle, puddle, puddle,
tear
*
why so serious
says the leaf
already gold
*
such a blessing
to be thirsty in a season
of rain
*
my heart hurts, I say,
and the old poet says
live by breaking
*
using a thread
to climb to heaven, the angels
toss me a rope
Wordsharks Resurface: A Dangerous Poetry Event, Join Us If You Dare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art Goodtimes, David Feela, Dolores, poetry performance, poetry reading, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Sideshow Emporium on September 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Sideshow Emporium and Gallery presents
Word Sharks Resurface
on Thursday, October 3rd at 7 pm,
ending only after the tide recedes.
Regional writers Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Art Goodtimes, and David Feela
will lead the reading frenzy with some choice selections from their own writing.
The public is encouraged to bring their own words or favorite pieces by published writers
to share at the end of the evening.
Please join us for this celebration of Word Sharks–
powerful words read by a toothsome trio in an intruiging event space.
Sideshow is located in Dolores at 411 Central, Dolores.
Help us promote this event by responding on Facebook and by forwarding this email…
Young people aged 13 plus are welcome. This is a free event (that welcomes donations).
Books by our featured authors will be available for sale.
Refreshments will be available, or BYO.
Read on and click the links for more details on our featured authors…
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has served as San Miguel County’s first poet laureate, authoring and editing thirteen books, including her most recent publication, The Less I Hold. Editor Uche Ogbuji describes Rosemerry as “always looking for the threads from the intimate to the transcendent…poems [that] are full of the restless energy needed to caress a child or a spouse in the one moment, and in the next to expand into the spheres of the night sky.” She has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and won the Colorado Independent Press Association poetry award. Rosemerry’s writing has appeared on back alley fences, in her children’s lunchboxes, and on rocks she leaves around town. She also leads writing workshops for hospice, recovery programs, women’s groups, teachers and people who think they hate poetry.
Art Goodtimes is a performance poet & Western Slope Poet Laureate, and newspaper columnist, among many other things. He is legendary along the Southern Rockies as poet, performer, ritualist, Rainbow Tribe member, and Green Party activist. In her introduction, “deep ecologist” Dolores LaChapelle describes him as part of the bardic tradition “which shows us how nature and human consciousness are but different aspects of one consciousness. Bards put mind and body together within the whole of nature.” In his poetry collection, As if the World Really Mattered, we find poems that joyfully expound on
the natural world and our relationship to it.
David Feela is a poet, free-lance writer, writing instructor, and book collector. His work has appeared in the Utne Reader, High Country News, Mountain Gazette, The Four Corners Free Press, the Denver Post, the Durango Telegraph and the former Inside/Outside Southwest, among other regional and national publications. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments (Maverick Press), won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas, appeared in 2009. His collection of essays, How Delicate These Arches, was selected as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in the category of Creative Nonfiction.
We look forward to seeing you at Word Sharks Resurface early next month on Thursday Oct 3 !
Heather Narwid
Sideshow Emporium&Gallery
411 Central, Dolores
970-739-4646
Open: THUR thru MON 11a-6p (SUN 12p-5p)
Closed/ by appt only on TUE & WED
Eight Failings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged failure, love, poem, poetry, wonder on September 13, 2013| 3 Comments »
But remember,
it is by failures that lovers
stay aware of how they are loved.
Failure is the key
to the kingdom within. Your prayer should be, “Break the legs
of what I want to happen. Humiliate
my desire. Eat me like candy.
It’s spring and finally
I have no will.”
—Rumi, Mathnawi, III, 4391 – 4472)
both legs broken—
still this desire to crawl
on my hands
*
wanting to send
a dozen long-stemmed
dreams
*
thrown into the ring
wrestling
myself
*
walking five paths
never taking
a single step
*
pulling back
the veils of the heart—
your footprint
*
not looking
for an answer—
so she said
*
beside the sunflowers
naked except
this strand of what ifs
*
sweet failure
loving
you
Four Runnings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, running on September 13, 2013| 1 Comment »
in the field
everywhere
a starting line
*
one step,
one more step,
one, one, one
*
watching the bird
watch me watching
the bird
*
bouquet of rain
every breath
a baptism