Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry on December 9, 2013| 1 Comment »
without a pencil
I use my breath to write you
love letters
*
crazy woman
inviting the scorpion into the boat
without a second thought
*
I am here because
I heard the crow sing, though now
the sky is empty
*
darling, if I can’t
have you forever, I’ll take
half of forever
*
coming to know
the Self as a pearl inside
a dying clam
*
writing of love
does not make a kiss—given
a choice, choose lips
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, stories on December 8, 2013| 3 Comments »
oh foolish woman
still trying to build a castle
out of thoughts
*
add this to
the list of gratitudes,
another perfect sunrise
*
all this time
I thought I was blindfolded
my eyes were closed
*
when the glass slipper
does not fit, learning
the joy of bare feet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged are we there yet, arrival, kids, parenting, questions, short poem on December 7, 2013| 1 Comment »
long after we arrive
still the question
are we there yet?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Knockout, news, poem, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Tips for Jesus on December 7, 2013| 1 Comment »
What do you get when you mix a snowstorm, Tips for Jesus and Knockout?
Today, New Verse News published this poem that pulls them all together. Thanks James Penha. If you click on the day before, there is a great poem by my friend David Feela on the death of Nelson Mandela.
http://newversenews.blogspot.com/2013/12/between-headlines.html
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry on December 6, 2013| 1 Comment »
although the cold
leaks through
this window in our room
the sun also
finds my skin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choosing, love, poem, relationship on December 6, 2013| 3 Comments »
terrified to tiptoe
another inch closer to you,
I run to you instead
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, ekphrasis, gratitude, life, poem, poetry on December 4, 2013| 4 Comments »
Notice, says the docent,
how the slash of flesh
creates a diagonal across the canvas.
This creates movement,
he explains, makes the painting
dynamic, more alive.
The slash is Jesus. His naked body
is clearly not alive. His blood
has stilled inside the pale skin.
The people around him
wear the pink stain of anguish,
behind them the sky skews toward black.
After forty four years,
I have never seen a dead body
unaltered by a mortician.
This is a fact aided by luck,
a small family, and a national obsession
with pushing death away.
Every hour, 6,319 people die.
Every minute, 105. Every second,
1.8. Excluding natural disasters.
Though it would be more polite
to say that 1.8 people passed.
Or 1.8 people breathed their last.
Or that 1.8 people departed.
Though since you started to read
this poem, over 60 people have
died, no matter what we call it.
All this perhaps explains why today
I noticed so many things
on the diagonal. The mountains,
of course. The sloping bangs
on the face of the girl. The tilt
of your voice as you greeted me.
The wine as it agreed with the angle
of the tipping glass. I noticed them because
I only this week learned have learned to notice the angle
of things, and perhaps because I am learning, too,
to notice the false guarantees.
On days such as these, I wake
and think, my god, what a gift to wake up,
what a windfall, this cold floor,
this dark of the morning
before the sun leans through the dark
to slant its faraway light into our room.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, love, poem, poetry, self acceptance, story on December 2, 2013| 1 Comment »
Forgive me.
I was hurt
you did not
seem to care
about the story
of me. Ha.
The story of me.
It is not
so grand a thing.
This living, now
living is grand.
This living is
everything. But
the story? It
is just marketing.
Something I tell
myself and others
to believe
I am important.
Special. As if
it could be
any other way.
Every one of us
telling each other’s stories
every time
we open our mouths.
In the end,
which is to say now,
it does not matter
if you read
a single poem
I write. It does not
matter if you
never hear about
the silver wig
I ordered today
for the show
next week I
bought you a ticket for
so you might
be there with me.
Isn’t that funny,
after all these years,
I still long
for you to see me.
As if that act
of witness would fulfill
some mysterious
math in which
one and one
make something blissful
I dream is possible—
the way I try
sometimes (impossibly)
to be that mysterious
integer for you.
With this slight remove
of space and time,
I see it does
not matter if you
hear my story
or miss the show.
But it matters
if I can sit with you tonight
and know in my every breath
that I am enough.
That I have no lack
that you could ever fill.
I am empty for now
of once upon a times,
including the story that says
I need your forgiveness.
Here are two chairs.
They are side by side.
My darling. Here we are.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged charades, honesty, parenting, poem, poetry, vulnerability on December 1, 2013| 2 Comments »
Mommy, she says, walking up
to me and my son as we gesture
and guess and giggle,
Mommy, she says, I feel
like I want to hurt someone
right now. And she lays down
between my son and me, and
offers me her eyes. I think how
brave she is to identify
a feeling and stare it straight on.
It’s not hard to uncover
she feels left out of the game
and wants to join in. Oh give
me such candor, such willingness
to say what I mean and lay myself
down to rest in the middle of things
with such (one word, five syllables,
fifth syllable sounds like plea)
vulnerability.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, building, construction, destruction, love, poem, poetry on December 1, 2013| 3 Comments »
First, love builds
a house. It shields
you from rain.
It guards you
from wind. It
makes altars
for your most prized
possessions. Then,
and quite some time might pass,
love razes the house to the ground.
Tornado, perhaps, or
termites. It doesn’t much
matter how slow or fast.
It’s gone. The house
is gone. And then,
in the rubble, the silence,
the eternity
before you move
to refashion the scraps,
love whispers, and only
some will hear,
No darling, you
don’t need the house.
And then love is everywhere.