Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comfort, death, poem, poetry on October 12, 2017| 2 Comments »
You want to say,
She was old, she had a good life.
You want to say,
She was treated well.
You want to believe
that death can be tender,
a blessing, a dark and beautiful flower,
and maybe you do say these things,
and all the while
your heart sags, wails,
curls like a cat into itself,
longs to be held
in some great, warm arms
even as you hold out
your own unsteady arms
to hold what can never
be held.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged frost, inner beauty, poem, poetry, shine on October 11, 2017| 3 Comments »
all this glimmer
seems to have come
from nothing
sometimes it takes
the cold to make
invisible beauty visible
all day I look
into others, trying to find
the sky inside us
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, imagination, java, poem, poetry, stranger on October 10, 2017| 4 Comments »
for Tomàs
The candle is not there to illuminate itself.
—Jan-Fishan Khan
It will only take five minutes, he said,
and so, though I’d not spoken with him before
and though I was about to teach a class,
I followed him outside the library door
to the dirt lot where his truck was parked
and from the open pick up bed
he pulled with flourish a rolled-up rug
and spread it between the rabbit brush
and milk thistle, then hoisted
two flat wooden seats he’d fashioned
out of pine, arranged them on the rug,
and swung a bench-like table from the bed
and placed it in the center.
And I expected, what, well, not
what happened next. It’s your canoe,
he said, and from his truck he plucked
a long and knobby stick. And here’s your oar,
he offered, with a slight bow of his head.
I took it up and kicked my shoes off, stepped
onto the rug, then leapt up to table top
and began to paddle the air.
Where are we going then, I said,
my eyes on the horizon.
To Java, he said, and I paddled harder,
eager to reach its shores. I’ve always
wanted to go to Java, I said, pulling
through currents of air. And look, he said,
there’s a farmer there on the banks
saying his morning prayers.
And he pulled from the truck a large
straw hat that he set upon his head
and a simple white scarf he let
slip through his fingers in a ritual
of silk. And when my boat came near,
he stepped beside it, met me
with a bowl-shaped bell, and circled
the small canoe, baptizing the air
with its one-note song. I closed my eyes,
and felt the tone open inside me,
and when I let my lids fly up,
he was standing right in front of me
with a vial of dark oil that smelled of vanilla
and evergreen. And he anointed me,
touching the oil to my head with his finger.
I knew I had arrived. I jumped down and hugged
the farmer, then searched the ground
for a smooth white stone to give him in return.
And as I journeyed back to the library,
somehow now only steps away, I took with me
the scent of pine, the smile of the native man,
the joy that comes when all the lines
we thought we knew have been erased,
and our inner map wildly rearranged.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flourishing, poem, poetry, rabbit brush on October 9, 2017| 2 Comments »
first snow
and fields of rabbit brush
reveal their gold—
live like that, heart, I say,
unapologetic and flourishing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged peace, poem, poetry on October 9, 2017| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized on October 9, 2017| Leave a Comment »
But if you were, that darn bubble
would always show up above your head,
the kind with the empty circles that shows
the rest of the world what you’re thinking
and not saying. Imagine how those bubbles
would float above you in the meeting
when the manager is lying, or in the kitchen
when no one says thank you for the dinner
you spent an hour making, or in line
at the grocery store where the woman
cuts in front of you.
Perhaps you could, from time to time,
look up and read what the bubble says
when even you, yourself, are unsure
what you are thinking. There would be,
perhaps, an untranslatable squiggle,
or a series of exclamation points, asterisks,
semi colons and question marks,
and you’d have to wait for the next frame
in which, miraculously, the bubble over your head
corresponds with the words you are saying.
Still, you’d know that somewhere inside
that three by three inch square, inside
that two dimensional, black and white image
there’s more to be said, something
no one else can read, not even yourself—
yes, you, too are waiting to step
through the vertical black line
into the next frame to be drawn
when all will be revealed.
*title based on a title by Jack Ridl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged citizen, poem, poetry, United States of America on October 9, 2017| 1 Comment »
In a time of national crisis, what our country really needs is a good poem.
—Herbert Hoover
This is the time when we must say to the stranger,
the other, sit here. Notice how difficult it can be
to even come to the same table, how hard
to look the other in the eye. Something in us screams,
“Right, I am right.” And it is hard to hear the voice
beneath that scream, a whisper of a gospel that says
nothing at all.
This is the time when we must say to ourselves,
I am also the stranger, when we must look
in the mirror and not know who it is we see—
someone capable of being more courageous,
more compassionate, more devoted, more
astonishingly vulnerable and connected
than we ever knew ourselves to be. Who
is that stranger in the mirror, we must ask,
and vow to never let her down.
This is the time when we must write the poems
our country needs, the poem that builds the bridge
from truth to truth and never touches the river
of lies. The poem that allows our country
to fall in love with itself again, the poem
with enough places set at its table
that everyone knows they have a place to sit
and the rest of us know when that person is missing
because their chair is empty.
This is the time for the beauty that passes
all understanding, a testament of goodness
that cannot be contained, a congress of delight.
This is the time to pick up your pen
and with your most tender, beautiful self
fight.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, poem, poetry, softness on October 5, 2017| 6 Comments »
Again this morning
the invitation to be soft,
to notice how when we wake,
the cage of thorns that sprang up
yesterday is not now here.
It takes only just one thought of blame
or righteousness, and the thorns
return in all their ferocity
and brandish their barbs,
and flaunt their hooks,
but there is this moment
when we can simply notice
how soft we are, how vulnerable,
and choose to stay that way,
and a moment later, choose again,
oh, the morning, it smells like freedom.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, may you be happy, metta, poem, poetry, wind on October 4, 2017| 4 Comments »
There are monks who sing
for the laity—May you be happy,
and today I sing it, too,
though I have not been
anointed and have no special
sway, but I stitch my song
into the morning’s ferocious wind
and send it everywhere,
May you be well.
The wind rips the words
from my lips. I sing them
again. This is all
we have in this world,
the way we choose
to meet it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kindness, parenting, poem, poetry on October 2, 2017| 2 Comments »
the wind tugs the leaves
off the aspen trees, many
before they’re golden—
children, I say, I love you,
and kiss their green ears
their green heads as I send
them to school,
tell them to go
do beautiful things