Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, letting go, poem, poetry on November 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
As summer leans into the fall,
as sunflowers that lose all
their petals—though it takes
some time. As rhyme
that slips toward normal speech.
As evening drifting toward the night.
And when you’re really sure
you’re right, let go as snow evaporates,
as puddles dry, as clouds
disperse, as waves unwave,
as light rehearses shadow.
And if you’re still sold
you are right, then practice
quietude. Like dirt. Like
bark. Like pearl. Like grass.
Like the moon, so dark, so new.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, opening, poem, poetry on November 7, 2018| 2 Comments »
my heart a red fist,
beating, intent on self-protection
when, despite itself,
it opens, astonished, to find
it’s a peony, a sunrise, a wing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Good news, luck, poem, poetry on November 6, 2018| 3 Comments »
after Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh
It happens, sometimes. Though rain was predicted,
the sun invites itself to your outdoor party.
And sometimes, though you were afraid
to say something difficult, you say it, and
the words turn to wine in your mouth.
And sometimes, as you run toward your dream,
you don’t trip and fall. In fact, the wind nearly
lifts you, supporting your back. Yes, it can happen,
you feel alone and a friend arrives. With a bottle of whiskey.
And another arrives with dark chocolate. And
another arrives with a poem full of water.
And another arrives with nothing but
her big, open heart. And sometimes
when you say a prayer for someone to heal,
they do. Sometimes, that someone is you.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, friendship, giving, leaves, love, poem, poetry on November 5, 2018| 7 Comments »
I watched it happen, the confrontation.
The one who was hurt and the one
with no inkling that harm had been done,
and my heart ached for both of them—
for all of us really—all of us fragile, all of us
witless, all of us longing to love, to be loved
for being ourselves.
Outside the window, the leaves
were brilliantly dying, burning auburn,
vermillion, a heart swelling show
of what it is we’ve come here to do—
to give our all and give some more,
to do it unreservedly.
It’s all a series of repetition, design—
the leaves, the fall, the hurt, the blame,
the confusion, the reconciliation.
It’s all a matter of pattern and letting
go, letting go of whatever we think we know
about how to give.
What I’m trying to say is if I have hurt you,
I’m sorry. I don’t understand my own thorns.
I think I am singing and it comes out crooked.
I think I’m supporting and it comes out cage.
There are so many mistakes in my blood,
all of them believing they’re butterflies.
My friend tells me the leaves in fall
are returning to their true colors—
how the necessary chlorophyll disguises
what’s really inside.
What I’m trying to say is look at the leaves
outside the window, see how vibrant they are?
I am trying to love like that,
every day, the colors more true.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, self acceptance, teenager on November 4, 2018| 2 Comments »
I was fourteen, Richard was eighteen,
and he was Romeo in the high school play.
He was Romeo and I was chorus, and
every song I sang, I sang for him.
Every song I sang, a love song.
I had never been taught any other,
I had never been taught to be hard,
I longed to give him everything,
I longed for him to want to kiss me,
to give me everything, and when
he kissed me, which he did, he gave
me mono. I was somehow proud,
was proud of getting sick because
he kissed me, as if it were a badge
that I was worthy of being kissed,
kissed by Richard, Richard Smith, who left me
shortly after, who left me crumpled, weeping
in the green cement block halls,
halls that rang back all my emptiness.
I didn’t know then love could end.
I was a girl who knew only beginnings,
a girl who trusted in happily evers,
a girl who wanted to be chosen. Years later
I’d learn there are many kinds of love,
how all of them depend on one thing.
Years later I’d learn to choose myself,
to show up at my own balcony,
roses and poems in hand.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, opposites, poem, poetry, thorn on November 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
You think it’s so much better to be petal,
pink flower, the perfumed bloom that lures
the bee. You with your flutter and blush.
Not all of us can be soft. Not all of us
can be beauty, and you have that role
all wrapped up. You with your tender buds,
your loveliness splayed. But I was not
made that way. Was made prick. Was
made barbed. Was made snappish
and piercing and sharp. Was made
fierce. Was made lance. Was made
to take no chances with survival.
There is glory in defense. Everything
that touches me remembers. I’m the one
that defines the scene. How would you know
your beauty without me?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged black, dark, night, painting, poem, poetry on November 2, 2018| 4 Comments »
in part a response to Ferlinghetti’s “Instructions to Painters and Poets”
Teach me to paint the dark, the infinite
shades of the infinite dark, the basis of all
the light that is, the origin, the ink bright spark
that leaps from the great black well,
the darkling spring, the raven luck, the mother
from which the big bang sprang, the womb
of dawn, the only cloak measureless enough
to hold everything, everything in its folds.
Teach me to paint the inner midnight,
the moonless rooms, the lavish corners,
the mighty dark inside the fist, the vastness
of limitless space that links
with no effort the everything that is,
the everything that ever was, the everything
that will ever be. Teach me the song of soil,
the song of deep winter, the pure dark song
of the sea. All the dark that’s been terrorized
by light, and all the dark that’s been pushed away
and all the dark that’s been feared,
teach me its valor, its ferocity, its kindness,
its gentleness, its blinding generosity.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, literacy, poem, poetry, reading, tree on November 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
The day is quiet and
the light is strong and I sit alone
in the V of the weeping willow
in a place where the sun can’t reach me
and no one can see me.
I pull off the bark in thick rough slabs,
and the day is drowsy and the light
is long and the bark feels rough
in my four-year-old hands,
but I flip it and find it is smooth
underneath where it touches the tree.
Yes, the bark is smooth, like my dress,
like me, and I move my fingers across
the soft side, surprised by the secret writings there—
meandering marks that slither and wriggle
in cursive spells, some language only
the tree can tell, that only I can read.
And the day is page and the light
is song and I am not at all alone,
perhaps there is writing inside me, too,
the bark thrilling in my hands.