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.
What Did the Euphemism Say to the Man?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged euphemism, men and women, misunderstanding, poem, poetry on March 22, 2014| 1 Comment »
I’m tired, she said, but she meant,
I wish you would make the dinner.
Oh, he said, and he made her a bed.
Thank you, she said, but she meant,
Why don’t you know how to read my mind?
You’re welcome, he said, and went off
to make the dinner.
*
It’s cold out, she said, but she meant,
I wish that you would hold me. I’ll get you
a sweater, he said. She said, Will you
please help me put it on? What
she meant was, I wish you would hold me.
He looked at her aslant. She said,
What are you looking at? What she meant
was I wish you would hold me.
What Icarus Knew
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desire, icarus, poem, poetry, self-destruction on March 21, 2014| 4 Comments »
Of course I know
what happens to wax
when a woman flies
too close to the sun.
It has been done,
been done before
and it will be done
again, because
the first thing to melt
is the will to stop
flying toward
the most beautiful thing
you have ever felt.
Request
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, song, spring on March 20, 2014| 3 Comments »
Sing me fifty-five songs, love.
I am starved for song. It’s been winter
so long, so long and my ears are full of blue.
Sing me fifty-five songs, love,
one for each finger and one for each toe,
one for each rib and twenty-three more to wish on.
Sing me fifty-five songs, love.
I don’t care if they are in tune. And if you forget
the words, I will build a nest in your hum.
Sing me fifty-five songs, love.
And I will tuck them into my hair and wrap
them around my shoulders bare and toss them into the wind.
Sing me fifty-five songs, love.
Start now but take your time. And I will weave jonquils
between the notes to blossom each time you breathe.
Sing me fifty-five songs, love.
And sing me fifty-five more. I am starved for song,
the winter’s been long, and singing is what spring is for.
To the Thinker Asking Why
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meaning of life, poem, poetry, why on March 19, 2014| 2 Comments »
Every time you say that word,
I can’t help but notice the way
your lips gather into the shape
of a kiss. As if to question the world
is just another way of making love
to everything we do not know.
Say why, and the mouth gathers
into a soft pucker. Say why long enough
and the word itself begins to unravel,
to unmean, to unknow, to become
nothing more than a vocal caress
and I am not so much interested
in the answer as I am in you
continuing to ask, perhaps next time
a little closer to my shoulder, my neck.
Tuesday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged life, poem, poetry, sadness on March 18, 2014| 2 Comments »
As it is, I would rather be
a something else today. A vine
or a wind or a crocus leaping
purple-ish and fragile out of the earth.
Or rather to be the bulb that did not
come up. No one to please and no one
to disappoint and keenly unaware
of so much misery. I am not suggesting
that today is not a blessing.
I do not mean to be ungrateful
for this precious, amazing life.
There are plenty of reasons to fall
in love with the world today, including
the wind, the crocus, the bulbs and the
hands that planted them, but I
am too tired for falling in love,
and my pockets are full of sadnesses.
Which is perhaps, another reason
to fall in love with the world,
the fact that I have pockets at all,
only it’s very quiet. And resembles
a bruise. And very not what
I thought love was. I would curl
into a corner, but no corner
is small enough. There is always
more space. And every wall
becomes a mirror. And every
sorrow seems to smile at me
with gentle eyes and say,
it isn’t what you thought
it was now, is it?
Five Fates
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, fate, life, poetry, short poem on March 17, 2014| 1 Comment »
watching them move,
those lips you haven’t
kissed me with
*
I am equal parts
delight and distraught—
the melting pond
*
on my inner thigh
impression of twisted sheets—
by noon all is lost
*
I am not the one
behind the bars, but her story
imprisons me
*
another day, another
day, another day I
haven’t died
In the Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged memory, poem, poetry, swing on March 15, 2014| 2 Comments »
no one sits
in the blue plastic swings—
still, some invisible hand
pushes those not sitting there
back and forth, back and forth
Ready to Learn Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridges, love, poem, poetry on March 14, 2014| 1 Comment »
Sitting beside the Platte on gray rocks,
Kathryn turns to me and says,
“I am learning a new way to love.”
She says it as matter of factly as if
she is telling me about what she ate for breakfast,
and it occurs to me that it could be this easy:
Learn a new way to love. It sounds somehow so possible.
Upstream, there is a bridge that spans the river.
It is low, and I happen to know how high the water gets.
Brown scraps of detritus hang in the willows along the banks
as high as my shoulders. What good is that low bridge then,
I think. The afternoon sun goes right through my skin,
not like teeth, but like sun. It feels so good to be warm to the core.
Love like that, I think. And then I think, what do I know about love?
I have been trying to build a better bridge to you,
but the spring runoff seems to come every day, even in winter,
and rip out the logs, the cross sticks, the lashings.
There was a time I could wade the distance. There was a time
I could swim. But the water is cold and it bites.
Only now as I write this I see—I’ve been building a bridge
not out of love, but out of fear. Something safe. Something
to make the journey easier. Enough. Perhaps I will be washed away.
And the cold, well, that’s part of it, dear. I am learning
a new way to love. I don’t know what it is. But spring
is almost here and the water, it’s already rising.