While driving west
through the dark
toward home, she looks
out the window and says,
Hey, Mom, a wishing star,
and I fight the urge
to correct her and say,
It’s a planet. Instead,
I tell her, Tonight
there are unlimited
wishes. She is silent
for a long, long time,
and at last she says,
There, now that’s a good one.
Meantime, I find myself wishing
for the days when Vivian
took great delight in whispering
to me her wishes.
Archive for October, 2013
What Vivian Didn’t Say
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parenting, poem, poetry, star, surrender, wish on October 31, 2013| 1 Comment »
Four Warmings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poetry, short poems, snow on October 31, 2013| 1 Comment »
for no reason
for every reason
falling deeper in love
*
a whole day of snow
a whole day for our tongues
to get lucky
*
feeling blue skied
though the weatherman says
big, big storm
*
this list of shoulds
these lips
which would you rather kiss
Who’s There
Posted in Uncategorized on October 29, 2013| 2 Comments »
The knock of fall is not so exuberant
as the rousing knock of spring.
More hollow, more halo, more vacant, less
green. Barren and sterile and stark
and gray, it has taken many years
to even hear the knocking, knocking
on doors I never even knew were here.
And here they are, doors to rooms inside
full of nothing and vaster nothing.
Layers of nothing and veils of nothing
and there are no words that will do for nothing.
And still I try. Why? A man I know tells me
he no longer writes. No need to, he says.
Nothing to say. And part of me
envies him the quiet. And part of me
thrills in just hearing the knock,
delights in knocking back.
Rumi in Ridgway Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Rumi, video poem on October 28, 2013| 1 Comment »
What if, while wandering the park feeling sorry for yourself, you met a Sufi mystic on the merry go round? A video poem.
Rumi at the Ridgway Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, letting go, poem, poetry, Rumi on October 27, 2013| 4 Comments »
with a quote from “On Letting Go,” by Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 323
Translation by Nader Khalili
They’re all brown now,
the leaves that last week
rained soft gold. Brown.
No, there is nothing soft
about the way they crunch
and crackle underneath my feet
as I weave inconsistent paths
around the park.
I find me wishing impossible things,
a longing for the way things were,
such soft gold leaves, the warmth, the light,
and feel some queer delight in wanting
the impossible. “Fall in love with the agony
of love,” says Rumi. “Not the ecstasy.”
He is circling on the merry go round,
his head flung back to the sky.
“Really,” I say.
“Yeah, really,” he says.
“Shit,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “I knew that’s what you’d say.”
Shit. I think to myself. He smiles.
The sky turns darker gray.
“But,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Rumi. “I knew you’d say that, too.”
Inside me, I notice something brown.
Something crackling toward dust.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” he says.
And we say nothing for a long, long time.
The naked trees show no impatience.
The leaves show no remorse.
He offers me an empty swing.
I take it. I know this isn’t really flying.
But for a moment, I feel perhaps
what the leaves feel, the small thrill of falling,
the rush of what comes next as part of me
lets go, even as my hands grip
tighter on the chains.
Very, Very Quietly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, blessing, bliss, poem, poetry, sky on October 26, 2013| 3 Comments »
I did not choose
awe today, but the big
pink sky chose me
and steeped me
in fantastic joy—
a drenching of miracle,
an overdose of amazement,
a wild indulgence of bliss—
oh such pink! layers
of rose and deeper rose,
and I did not earn it,
did not first prove my worthiness,
did not beg nor kneel nor fast
nor renounce my name
nor pull the strings
of the lyre nor sing,
all I had to do
was step outside
out of my own way
and open my eyes
and let myself
be gifted.
Letter to F. C.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged building, change, poem, poetry, rabbit brush on October 25, 2013| 8 Comments »
I had not known
to call the rabbit brush
chamisa. I wonder now how
this might have changed things,
knowing how the right name
can sometimes soften a woman.
It would be harder to say the word as a curse,
chamisa, chamisa. Today it is easy to enjoy
the way it hums in the center,
then slips off the lips at the end.
And could the tall, fragrant brush have
slipped like those syllables through my
weeding hands? All those years of ripping it up.
I laugh about it now, how I thought I needed an enemy.
And why? Some sense of hierarchy?
Some sense of control?
You are right to notice how I have built
a new kind of shrine, how sadness has
done what sadness does, made me
more open to praising how many shades of gray
are at play in a single moment. It is easier to see them
when I am not so distracted by gold and by blue.
But I have no need to weed out the sadness
as I surely tried to years ago. Perhaps
because I gave it a softer name. Surrender.
Surrender. It rolls around in the back of the mouth
before I swallow the sound. It is beautiful growing
out there in the field where before I only
could tolerate bright mounds of happinesses.
I smile that you say I am still building. I like to say
that I am unbuilding whatever it is I think I know.
But that, of course, is just a new way of knowing,
a new way of building. I had to sleep with the words before I knew
how true they were. Fortress or cathedral, you say.
I say, sometimes I hang up a welcome sign
and then, quickly, quietly, close the iron gate.
I would like to build a church to brokenness,
though perhaps brokenness is just another word
for whole. They are equally lovely to say,
one cracking open in the center,
one chiming with ohm.
Already I have said too much. What I wanted to say
was thank you. For showing me what I could not see.
For the call to listen to my heart. And for this line,
the dignity of consequences. I am learning
to feel the blessings, which is, perhaps,
just a beautiful word for “what is.”
Blessings. Blessings. Among many, you
are one of the easiest to see.
On the Day I Tripped on the Curb and Threw the Latte into My Hair
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grace, poem, poetry on October 24, 2013| 1 Comment »
Anything else
I can help you find
says the man
in the pharmacy.
Well,
I say,
I could use
some grace.
Any for sale?
He looks
at me
with uncertainty.
No, he says
at last.
Rats,
I say,
browsing
the band aids,
the rows
of antibiotic
creams.
I don’t
even bother
to ask
about
dignity.
While Not Sleeping
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, poem, poetry, space on October 23, 2013| 4 Comments »
All night the river
touched my body,
not with its long dark
tongues of chill but with
its thousand thousand
thousand audible waves
all lapping without stopping
rearranging me. Perhaps it
is always this way. Perhaps
we are always being
changed, only we are too busy
to notice it. In the morning mirror
I looked the same, but I knew
different. Perhaps you
have felt it, too, this
absence moving through,
the space it leaves
in its wake.
Drawing You a Map to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cartography, love, poem, poetry on October 22, 2013| 1 Comment »
Here, darling, there is no x
to mark it, and the path has been
erased so many times the paper
has worn thin, but perhaps you
will recognize here in the crease
the stand of trees where once we sat
beneath the vacant aspen and said
the truest words we knew.
You were on track then, my heart
emptying into your palm as you
pressed it into my skin. To the north,
a window with blue neon blinking Yes, Yes,
Yes, Yes, and to the south a book with
unfilled pages and to the east, of course,
the sun as it rises and rises again and the west
is apparently off the map, but I am here,
darling, cursing the map myself, noticing
the scale is inconsistent and the markers
so cryptic. Who made this map, anyway?
But here I am, here I am, closer to you
than your own hand. It is a marvel
we manage to miss each other, but
here I am, love, here I am.
And When October Goes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, change, leaves, letting go, poem, poetry on October 21, 2013| 1 Comment »
Not only all around us
are the leaves letting go,
but inside us, too, so much
is falling. All those fluttersome
dreams we thought would last
forever. Imagine that. There
was a time we believed
that summer would never end.
We truly believed it. No one
could have convinced us then
of a thing called autumn.
And here it is. For hours
today I could have grieved
the leaves as they released—
gold and more gold and innumerable
shades of brown. But I did not.
Funny how the world goes on
despite all this falling. Funny
how beautiful it is to me now,
the empty branches, the adamant wind, the dank
scent of the world as it changes.
Migration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, birds, fall, poem, poetry on October 20, 2013| 1 Comment »
the bird inside me
migrated
I miss its song—
this morning was so quiet
watching frost melt
on the fallen leaves
*
did I, too, forget
how to sing?
did I also
fly away
from myself?
*
my hands
do not need to be asked—
they move unbidden
to touch the places
on my body
where the pain
unfolds
*
and here
and here
and here—
touch me here
and here
and here
*
what use is a tongue?
what use is song?
what use these hands?
what use silence?
*
who is the one
who thinks of the world
in terms of usefulness?
*
it was a long time
before I heard
the leaves had a song
of their own
but only
when
I moved
*
the nest
is still here
inside—when
you’re not looking
I fold up my
silence, my
hands, my
wants
and hide
*
is it
so wrong
sometimes
I pretend
I am
gone
Taking Photographs in a Dying Town
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, detachment, entropy, photography, poem, poetry, tetrameter on October 19, 2013| 1 Comment »
A thin blue line. One paler blue.
A gray rectangle. Six brown squares.
Four cylinders of cream. Thin smears
of white. And many, many clear
isosceles. It’s easier
to take the story this way: parts.
Forget that it’s a shattered window,
broken door outlined in blue,
a fallen roof, the beams collapsed.
The house belonged to no one you
knew. Find the angle, click the shutter.
Tell yourself you’re interested
in how things fall apart. It’s not
catastrophe this way. It’s art.
Long Night in Abiquiu
Posted in Uncategorized on October 18, 2013| 5 Comments »
All night, they wrestled
inside me, the angel
who pulls you in closer
and the angel who shoves
you away. They tussled
and grappled and pushed back
my stomach, my spleen, my gallbladder
to make enough space
for the brawl. What could
I do but lie there, moaning,
not even recalling which one
I was rooting for, just longing
for them to stop. In the morning,
they were both exhausted,
having rearranged each others
ribs. Each conceded the other
had a compelling case and
went out for coffee, leaning
on each other’s shoulders
as they left, leaving me
with an emptiness so great
a whole flock of ravens
flew through.
While Listening to Gregory Botts Discuss Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, connection, love, opposites, poem, poetry on October 18, 2013| 1 Comment »
bringing the far
in close,
a reconciliation
of opposites,
that is what he said
he was doing
the white cloud,
the dark branch
connected on canvas,
a meeting of what tumbles
and what rises, though
everything eventually falls
and then rises,
how could I not
think of you and me
a far and a close
still searching
for the frame that
can hold us both
Trying to Put Humpty Together Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, humpty dumpty, poem, poetry, wholeness on October 16, 2013| 3 Comments »
He cracks himself up. –Julie Cummings
Glue, of course.
Super and Elmer’s
and rubber cement.
Rubber bands.
Scotch tape.
Chicken wire.
String.
A full body cast.
A balancing act.
Affirmations
and hypnotizing.
They told him stories
of how whole he was.
Then offered
St. John’s Wort.
Sublingual B-12.
Calcium citrate
with Vitamin D.
Weeks of physical
therapy. Until
in the end,
Humpty laughed
at them all
and said,
“What a gift
it is to fall.
I love being broken,
it lets in
the light.
See this gold?”
He said,
and then gave it
away.
F Equals
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceleration, laws, physics, poem, poetry, unknowing on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »
At the campfire, Sam’s father
tells me that Newton’s Second Law
is not always true. I add it to
my growing list of rules to not
depend on. Let’s say in this equation,
the woman is the mass. This is,
of course, a private joke, and
she can laugh about how inconsistent
the mass might be. Fix her to a moment, then,
say that Sunday morning when her kitchen
smelled of apples simmering whitely on the stove,
the steam of the giant canning pot filled
the room with warmth. Let’s say the force
is the voice of the man as he says
the words he knows she hates to hear.
The force is soft spoken and low. Then a equals
the increasing rate at which the woman’s heart races
then runs from the room, though her body still stands
behind the green counter, stirring the simmering fruit.
And a is the increasing rate at which her tears fall.
And a is the rate of the wind as it moves the storm closer
to the walls of the house where the kitchen is warming.
And a is the rate at which the mass learns yet again
that she must be her own bliss.
And what has happened to value m? There is less
of her now than the equation might suggest.
I believe you, I say to Sam’s dad. The fire
snaps between us. The leaves rustle
in the wind. In a perfect world, I could
measure them. In a perfect world, I wonder
what happens to the force.
One Beat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged intimacy, love, mask, poem, poetry on October 14, 2013| 4 Comments »
Take
it off.
The hat.
The jeans.
The shoes.
The shirt.
The missing
rings.
Take off
the watch.
Let down
the hair.
Remove
the public
sparkle
from
the eyes.
Let slip
the beaded
shawl
of shoulds,
the tired
scarves
of worry.
Lonesome
glove
of shame
that still
remains,
thin gloss
of why,
let’s
lose them.
Almost
naked
now my
love, please
touch me
slow
before
we put
it all
back
on.
Least Likely
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apocalypse, poem, poetry on October 13, 2013| 1 Comment »
Her finger had already
pushed the red button
beneath the raised letters
on the gray steel panel: APOCALYPSE.
The button had been glowing, warm
to her touch, and her finger
traced slow circles on it
before she said out loud
to herself, “Let’s play.”
She had always been
such a good little girl.
The button gave no resistance.
She felt no regret.
The destruction wasn’t real yet.
In fact, right here
in this sweet remove, before
the crumbling, before
the mess, before the weeping,
the loss, the ash, my god
she had never felt so very alive.