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Archive for December, 2019

Too Close to the Light

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 31, 2019| 3 Comments »

 

 

Just for a moment

my hair was on fire

and just for a moment

orange flames

rose from me

and just for a moment

I knew what it was

to be candle—

even now I can see it

beside my face,

how before I was afraid

I thought, how beautiful.

 

 

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Always Becoming: Dream & Poetry Workshop on January 8, Telluride

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »

"So love, love, love." Hafiz, This Sky Where We Live

 

Poetry and dream work walk hand in hand in the most creative and inspiring ways. In this workshop, dream practitioner Corinne Platt and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will work with students to explore the landscape of dreams. We’ll use symbols, images, metaphors and feelings to leap into language, writing poems that walk the line between certainty and uncertainty, dream and reality, the irrational and the true. Through dreams and poetry we will navigate the tides of becoming—the continual, miraculous unfolding of life. No previous experience with dream work or poetry necessary.

For more information, visit The Ah Haa School

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One Lucky

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

sky so blue

forgetting everything

but blue

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Gratitude List with Eyes Continuously Closing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

Easy today to praise the snow

a sparkling settled on all the world,

and easy to praise the oranges

that arrived bringing sunshine

from far away.

Easy to praise the sky as it clears

and easy to praise the wind

as it blows the storm away.

 

Less easy to praise the moment

between night and dawn

when I would rather be sleeping

than praising.

 

Less easy to praise the song

that insists on replaying

inside my head.

 

Less easy still to praise

the sorrow, though

its roots are in great love.

 

But bless the poem

for offering the chance

to discover praise.

And bless the praise,

for showing up despite

sorrow, despite fear.

 

Praise the longing

to praise, may it ever

insist on itself, like

grasses that poke

through the snow in the field,

like the sunshine

inside the clementine,

like a poem past midnight

that refuses to let me sleep.

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Missing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 28, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

Hope is, perhaps, a quantum thing,

a paradox, like Schrödinger’s cat,

simultaneously alive and dead.

 

Today, I wandered the snowy field

and the icy banks and the shadowed wood,

calling the name of my sweet gray cat.

 

If I could find her now, I’d see

she’s either alive or dead.

But in this moment of uncertainty,

 

she’s both alive and dead to me.

I’m tugged by both possibilities as I wade

through tall dry grass. Oh damn that hope,

 

and bless it, too, how just a candle-measure

opposes a whole tower of unfounded certainty,

sends me out into the blizzard

 

calling her name, listening.

 

 

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The Second Night the Cat Doesn’t Come Home

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

catching sight

of where she isn’t—

in the dark behind the window

I see only

my own searching

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One Present

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

no ribbons, no bows,

no fancy wrapping, no box—

you, the very gift

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Into Your Stocking

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 25, 2019| 6 Comments »

 

 

 

I slipped some magic markers

for coloring the world—

the leaves, the river, the moon.

You can write messages

in the sky and the wind

will blow them where

they need to go.

You can color thoughts—

give them stripes or polka dots.

You can change the hue

of a mood with a few broad strokes.

There’s one that will make you

invisible. Some markers I

don’t know what they do.

One is the color of laughter.

Another the color of forgiveness.

Don’t be surprised if other people

can’t see them. Don’t be

surprised when they graffiti

the walls around your heart.

Don’t be surprised when

you start to think in color—

when you start to believe

every idea, every word,

every dream can change

the shade of the world.

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One Sideways Conversation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

blurting out thorns

when for weeks I practiced

how to speak in rose

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The Question

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2019| 10 Comments »

 

            for Jude Jordan Kalush, who asked the question

 

All day, I replay these words:

Is this the path of love?

I think of them as I rise, as

I wake my children, as I wash dishes,

as I drive too close behind the slow

blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?

Think of these words as I stand in line

at the grocery store,

think of them as I sit on the couch

with my daughter. Amazing how

quickly six words become compass,

the new lens through which to see myself

in the world. I notice what the question is not.

Not, “Is this right?” Not,

“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know

how the action of existence

links us to the path of love.

And is it this? Is it this? All day,

I let myself be led by the question.

All day I let myself not be too certain

of the answer. Is it this?

Is this the path of love? I ask 

as I wait for the next word to come.

*

this poem is published in The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection & Joy, edited by James Crews (Storey Publishing, 2022)

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