Sometimes I would rather not know love.
I would rather not know that the pearl
is born of an irritation. I tell myself
I do not want iridescence. I do not need
one more beautiful thing to collect
on a string. I make love so small. But love
arrives anyway, less pearl and more current,
more tide, more sea. Immeasurable, though I try
to measure. Unknowable, though I want
to know. It is full of dark and cold and deep
deep places where I will likely never go.
It is only the surface that knows the light.
Is it so wrong to be afraid? Sometimes
I would rather not know love. Damn this day of tears.
But that is when the invitation is most clear.
There is a wrestling inside, love versus pride,
a match I must be willing to enter, even though
I know the only way to win is to lose.
Archive for March, 2014
And the Winner Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, ocean, poem, poetry on March 31, 2014| 1 Comment »
Perhaps It’s Not Too Late
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bells, Lorca, love, poem, poetry, poets on March 30, 2014| 1 Comment »
The bells are lost, the bells
are lost, oh Lorca, the bells,
the bells are lost. Let us
make of our bodies, then, the bells
that chime of old green fruit
and cinder and the raven’s yellow
eye. Let us be the bells that clang
for the clouds that can
travel across any sky, let us
be the bells that ding love,
love, love, oh Lorca, here,
hear the bells? Spiraling
ding and listen, oh bing,
let us dance then, oh ohm
the poets are come, oh awe.
Step by Step by Step
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mountains, poem, poetry, road on March 30, 2014| 1 Comment »
It’s a dead end, the road.
But that is only the road.
At the end is a trail
that will lead you past
the waterfall, up through
the larkspur, waist high,
up past the turquoise
glacial lakes. And then
it ends, the trail. But
that is only the trail.
The mountains do not
end. There is the scree field
to scramble on. Clamber
up to the ridge, and then there
is over the ridge, but it is not
over, this journey. Were you
hoping that it was done?
Looking for a reason to turn
around, retrace your steps,
go home? Look. No
matter which direction
you go, you are already home.
One Fool
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged human nature, poem, poetry, wishing on March 29, 2014| 1 Comment »
standing beneath
the wide blue sky already missing
the wide blue sky
Habit
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, love, parenting, poem, poetry on March 27, 2014| 2 Comments »
Sometimes I hold my own hand,
knowing it is not yours, but
it is the closest that I can come
to holding yours, and I squeeze it.
I know that it’s my own hand
I am squeezing, but I like to believe
that in some strange, miraculous way
we are one body and you can feel
not only the squeeze but the love
that rose up like a river in spring,
the love that is here even when
you are not, the love that then lets
the hand go. It is perhaps, just for me,
this little ritual, and I laugh to think
that perhaps it is as much control
as love, though I like to believe
that somewhere in another room
you look down at your empty hands
and wonder at how they feel
so suddenly warm, so surprisingly full.
Wild Rose Fills in the Blank
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alter ego, blank, poem, poetry, willfulness on March 26, 2014| 1 Comment »
In permanent black marker,
no less. But first
she rewrites the question.
Join Me at the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival this Weekend in Carbondale
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art Goodtimes, Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on March 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
In honor of one of Colorado’s most generous, gifted poets, the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival invites anyone and everyone to come share in the joy and communion of poetry. Both intimate and exuberant, the festival events just might inspire you, might make you fall deeper in love with the world.
I’ll be co-teaching a class on William Stafford and Dolores LaChapelle with Art Goodtimes at 10 a.m. on Saturday, plus attending other incredible workshops and performances. Let’s play!
Finding the Way
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged holding on, letting go, love, poem, poetry on March 25, 2014| 3 Comments »
With every breath today
I let you go. I don’t mean this
lightly. And with every inhale
today, I let you back in.
Softly. All day like this. Flopping.
Flopping and falling. Oh
the ridiculous failure of it all.
And the wonder. Shit.
If this is awe, I am sick of it.
Just in the last nine lines
I have let you go another nine times.
And ten times opened to you again.
I am too tired to fix anything.
The dress hem. The headphone
cord that one of the children chewed.
Our hearts. I have stopped believing in lack.
And then I believe it again.
What I know: Here we are.
I let you in. I let you go.
Through the skylight,
I watch a robin land
on a branch too thin,
watch it fly away.
Before Work
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling, mother, physics, poem, poetry, son on March 24, 2014| 2 Comments »
So Mom, he says, If you’re ever falling on a platform
toward the ocean, let’s say from the edge of the space, and
you’re falling so fast that the impact would kill you, here is what you do.
We are eating buttered bagels with jam. The small silver table
reflects the long slant rays of early morning sun. I take a bite,
and look at him with eyes that say, Go on.
Well just before you hit the waves, he says, you jump.
You have to get off the platform, because once in the air
you become your own force. And it still might hurt, but you’ll live.
I do not recall enough of physics to be certain he is right.
But it sounds as if it could be true. And I stare at him
until he stares back, his mouth rimmed with poppy seeds.
It’s possible that it could work on land, too, he says,
though chances are it would hurt a lot more.
I wonder when he learned to say things such as, “Chances are.”
I do not tell him I have fallen, fallen from the edge of known.
I do not tell him there was no platform for me to jump from.
I do not tell him I was scared.
I say, That is very good advice. I’ll remember that next time
I fall. And we eat our bagels in the morning sun. And I fall in love
with the boy, with forces I don’t understand, and with the feeling of falling
right through the sunlit room, right through the breakfast chair,
right through the platform that might someday save me.
The dust sparkles like surf in the air.
Uprising
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, language, love, poem, poetry, silence on March 23, 2014| 9 Comments »
Speak to me soft
in a voice so low that I lean in,
and speak to me in idioms
of night. Let’s lose any lens
that condemns. Let’s forget
any tongues that speak in
blades or claws. Speak awe.
Speak yes. Speak song. Translate
my fear into tenderness.
Converse in amber.
Converse in ice melt clear.
Speak quietly. Speak near
in tones that I more feel
than hear. Speak broken.
Speak wing. Let’s mislay our will
to judge. Let us be uncaged, untethered,
let us be light, fluent in warmth
in greening, in spring. And let
us be lighter than that. And lighter.
Speak in nothing. In the morning,
let’s give everything away.