Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for November, 2014

Yes, I Think I am Ready for That

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 30, 2014| 4 Comments »

Take off your hat. Take off
your smile. Take off anything
you put on to impress me.
Bring me your eyes. Bring me
your Sunday morning. Bring me your
open hands. Let us sit. It does
not matter much if we speak
or do not speak. What is there,
really, that must be said?
Outside the snow is melting.
We both know it will come again.
Outside whatever birds are still here
are not moving from tree to tree.
There is nothing moving, it seems,
but we both know that the world
is made of change. Give me
your weight. Give me your
light. Give me your fear
and your grays and your yes.
And here, here is my sunrise.
Here is my spiral. Here is my apple
tree, my brittle bones, my
deepest well, my empty glass.

Read Full Post »

Two Invitations and a Surrender Inspired by Rumi’s Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 30, 2014| 1 Comment »

too much furniture
in here for dancing said God
handing me the match

*

my shine could get more
bang for the buck said the sun if
you’d act more moon-ish

*

a ship you have made
of my soul with you the mast,
the current, the sail

(from Rumi’s Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, XVIII)

Read Full Post »

Black Friday

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 28, 2014| 2 Comments »

Oh America, get out of the mall.
Get out of the box stores, the boutiques
and fast food drive thrus. I don’t know
where else you might go … a forest,
perhaps, or over to your friend’s kitchen
where there is a cup of tea and an empty chair
near the window where, if you look
out into the snow-filled yard you might just see
how lovely that light is as it escapes
one more time, one more time.

Read Full Post »

For an Hour, at Least, on Thanksgiving

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 28, 2014| 1 Comment »

I hear America singing, varied carols I hear.
–Walt Whitman

After the mashed potatoes were passed
and after the wine was sipped from the glass
and after the children had left their plates
and before we were ready for pie and cake
we sat around the table and sang
Hotel California, Scarborough Fair,
Morning Has Broken, Walk the Line,
Blister in the Sun, Wild Mountain Thyme
Moon River and My Romance,
Blood on the Saddle, If I Were a Rich Man,
and the words we didn’t know we hummed
or we la-dee-dahed until we found
a phrase to lead us in again.
It’s so like music, gratitude,
the way it draws us closer in
and makes the world feel intimate,
as if anything could happen,
even peace, even love.

Read Full Post »

Finding Gratitude in the City

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 27, 2014| 3 Comments »

square of blue sky
I write your name on it then
fold it into a crane—
in the pocket above my heart
it flutters

Read Full Post »

This is What Fear is like

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 27, 2014| 2 Comments »

long after it’s gone
you still feel the place
where, for three seconds
it landed on your arm
that blue butterfly

Read Full Post »

He Wants to See My Photo ID

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 25, 2014| 1 Comment »

I do not tell him that the woman
in the photo, who looks just like me,
only 12 years younger, does not exist.
She is smiling in the way that only
a woman who has not yet had children
can smile. She knows nothing yet
of how desperate she will become,
how she will lie, how she’ll tell the truth,
how she’ll lose her sense of worth and
replace it with, well, it’s impossible to say.
So instead, when he says, “Is this you,”
I say, “Yes, travelling to Chicago today.”

Read Full Post »

Which Brings Me Back to Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

I didn’t mean to exit, actually,
but I couldn’t see the highway lines
beneath the snow, and by the time

I realized my error, I was already
partway down the exit ramp.

I have spent so many years
as the driver in this seat, thinking
I know just where I am going.

It is not hard to see that I
have also been the snow,

obscuring my own path,
though as we all know
there are infinite ways to get

to where we’re going.
Whatever that means.

And today, I see I am also
the exit ramp with its promise
of having arrived somewhere, and here

in fact, I am, though it is not where
I thought I would be, as it seldom is.

Read Full Post »

My Six-Year-Old Daughter and I Play a Game

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 22, 2014| 1 Comment »

Mama, she says, tickle me mercifully.
We both know that this means that when she says stop,
I stop. We begin. I plunder her sides, her ribs,
the tender spot above the knee—she writhes and giggles—
her feet, her belly, beneath her chin, oh such sweet
and terrible vulnerability. Stop! She shouts, and I stop.
But my pointer finger and thumb still bend at the knuckle tips,
ready to start up the game again.
It takes only seconds before she’s caught her breath,
and it’s squirm and wriggle, wriggle, twist,
I pause, I tickle her armpits, she thrashes
and struggles and giggles and squeals and says, Stop!

I think of times I have wanted to shout, Stop! for myself,
for others, for strangers, for friends, when the world goes too far
and the pain is too great. And the stones are thrown and the bodies
are burned and the borders are crossed and the cries
are unheard and where, where is the mercy?

Tickle me more, she says, when my fingers are quiet too long.
And I tickle her, tickle her mercilessly until she is done
with the game. And then it is over, except it is not,
as those of us know who have lived beyond
the times when we’ve said stop, and the world’s gone on.

Read Full Post »

Remembering to Look Up

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 22, 2014| 4 Comments »

Night unbuttons its coat
and all those stars fall out—
I feel no need
to name them
nor order them
nor to measure their distance,
to calculate their age.
I still cannot find
the lines that others use
to link one to another,
but sometimes I sense
the invisible ladders
that link the stars
to you, to me.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »