Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, opening, poem, poetry on May 31, 2016| 2 Comments »
Who knew the heart
had so many doors,
most of them invisible
until the very moment
the hand brushes the knob,
and out of habit, perhaps,
the wrist makes a turn
and suddenly
there is an opening
where moments before
there was only wall.
There are thresholds
beyond our dreaming
right here within
the lives we live.
They have been here
all along.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, growth, nourishment, poem, poetry on May 30, 2016| 2 Comments »
The garden rows are visible now,
the slender shoots of carrots,
the succulent leaves of calendula,
the curly beginnings of kale—
after many years these first green shapes
feel like old friends.
I greet them as I walk the rows,
tell them they are doing fine.
And then there are the gaps
between the sprouts, the places
where I can only guess about
why the seeds don’t grow.
A lack of water? Planted too deep?
A shadow? A dud of a seed? A slug?
Of course I take it personally
and wonder what else I should have done.
And then I pull out the extra seeds
and fill in the spots where there is no green.
There is no use in blaming. Just plant the seed
where nothing is growing. It’s so simple,
the task, so lacking in blame.
There are gardens in me begging
for me to do the same—to notice
where there is failure to thrive,
and to seed again, then bring water,
bring nourishment, wait.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, nest, poem, poetry on May 29, 2016| 3 Comments »
The heart is like
this small brown bird
who finds in the lawn
a bit of dead grass
and flies it away
to build her nest—
sometimes it takes
so little to build
something beautiful.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, path, poem, poetry, wall on May 28, 2016| 4 Comments »
Walls will only crush you when they fall.
—Ray La Montagne, “Be Here Now”
So when
a wall forms
between us
let’s
reuse each
brick as cobblestone
we’ll build
our own path
as we go.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged champagne, glass half full, poem, poetry on May 27, 2016| 5 Comments »
It happens, sometimes,
the waiter notices
that your glass
is half empty
and so he walks over
with the bottle of champagne
and fills it again, and then
when it’s half empty
he fills it again,
and again,
and a whole morning
can pass just like this
sitting in the window
on a generous sofa
across from a friend—
outside the snow falls
on the newly green leaves
and inside,
though we plumb
the layers
of fear and loss,
it’s increasingly
hard to believe
in a glass ever being
half empty.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, poem, poetry on May 26, 2016| 1 Comment »
not all gifts are gifts we want
this one, perhaps, leave unopened
the day itself gift enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, time on May 25, 2016| 3 Comments »
What if it’s not an hourglass?
What if our time here
is more like sand
in a six million
mile an hour
wind
?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged language, mothering, poem, poetry on May 24, 2016| 7 Comments »
We sometimes slip into w-wanguage,
a tongue my son invented, though no longer speaks.
My daughter and I are the two sole speakers
and we often find ourselves saying
What wa wabulous way, or
Womma, wan wi wease wave wore wapples?
The rules are simple.
We break them anyway,
forgetting to w or tripping over
our own expectations of how a word should sound.
In the end, the desire to speak clearly
and to be understood always wins.
Other times we’ll speak in nonsense syllables,
long strings of babble bellowed or crooned.
We’ll wave our hands, as if there is something
really at stake—like the desire to be understood.
Perhaps this is why whatever syllables
she utters, I will eventually echo them back,
stroking her hair, looking her right in the eye,
letting her know for certain
I know exactly what she means.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, poem, poetry, present on May 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, poem, poetry, self acceptance on May 21, 2016| 10 Comments »
I no longer have the shiny black shoes
with metal taps on the bottoms—
though if I did, they would perhaps sit
in the back of the closet along with the wigs,
the boas, the long black gloves.
How I used to love the sounds they made—
fa-lap, fa-lap, fa-lap ball change—
such a shiny, happy silver sound
that used my own heart as a metronome.
I was never much good, but I didn’t care,
I held out my arms with wrists upturned just so
and shuffled and clicked and smiled
for no one but myself. I think of that
today as I dance in the office alone,
it’s a quiet affair without the right shoes,
and I am clumsy with lack of practice,
but laughter makes a fine music
for everything inside me dancing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry on May 20, 2016| 1 Comment »
I’ve cursed it,
this body
for being
more earthen
than gold,
but look how
with its dust
and its dead things
and its darkling
softness
something
even love
might grow
again.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry on May 19, 2016| 4 Comments »
What does that do to the old blood moving through its channels?
—Naomi Shihab Nye, Fresh
So much we do not need—
the old t-shirts at the back
of the closet, the secret
ingredient in Aunt Jean’s
tuna casserole, the pity
of strangers, the growing stack
of journals we promise
ourselves we will someday read,
the memorized jingles
from TV commercials
we sang when we were young.
.
And then there’s the list of what
we cannot do without—
the willingness to blossom
out of our own detritus,
the capacity to laugh a real
unguarded laugh, a joy
in unlearning whatever we
think we know, and
the grace to let our story
re-write itself even as we
fear turning the page.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hunger, loneliness, poem, poetry on May 18, 2016| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, poem, poetry on May 17, 2016| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence on May 16, 2016| 3 Comments »
Our noisy outer world is but a reflection of the noise inside: our incessant need to be occupied, to be doing something.
—Three Types of Laziness, Tenzin Palmo
Sit with me. Let’s say nothing at all.
There is nothing that must be said.
The impulse to comment on weather,
we’ll feel it rise and melt away.
The weather will do what the weather does,
will rain, will shine, will hail.
Perhaps we will feel the need
to comment on the light or to wonder
when things will be different than they are now
or to worry about all the problems
that we will never be able to fix.
Urgency only lasts so long before
it disappears. How did we ever
believe we belonged anywhere
but here? Though the rain
is gone, the scent of rain persists.
If we are quiet long enough,
it will say everything that must be said.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, poem, poetry on May 15, 2016| 3 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged literary burlesque, poem, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on May 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Ever feel as if you’re stuck?? That will be the first act of the 3rd annual Literary Burlesque …
this year’s theme is Oh Sister, Where Art Thou. Craig Childs will be the preacher, and I will be joined by writers Kierstin Bridger, Samantha Tisdel Wright, Erika Gordon, Amy Irvine McHarg and Corinne Platt, plus singers Judyth Kohin, Suzan Beraza and Daiva Chesonis … it will be unveiling as you’ve never seen it before… oh, and I didn’t mention the church ladies … quite the cast this year. Hope you can join us … this revolution will NOT be televised. Not even photographed. Have to show up. Disco rapture after … for more info, visit here.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, origami, poem, poetry on May 14, 2016| 4 Comments »
I folded myself
into an origami rose.
The heart, like paper,
never forgets
the ways it’s been touched.
The creases
are part of me now.
Still, I ask you
to unfold me—
to open and smooth me,
to new me, re-know me,
unlearn me and show me
what patient, loving
hands can do.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emergence, poem, spring on May 14, 2016| 3 Comments »
from empty branches
the orange breasted song of the oriole—
a leaf, straining against the bud scales,
this heart still in winter
begins to believe in green