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Archive for July, 2020

Parting Gift

Parting Gift

Friends, I will be your blooper girl,

your end-of-the-credits buffoon.

You can film me as I fall, as I fail, as I flop,

as I drop the tray of glasses,

as my strapless top slips.

I’ll make it easy on you.

At least twenty times a day

I forget my lines.

At least ninety times a day,

I trip on my certainty.

Yes, I will be the one

who will flub most every punch line.

I’ll be the poster child

for sincere ineptitude.

I know, my outtakes

are better than my A roll.

But dang, the path of failure

has always served me.

And man, most of the time

I can laugh as I blunder,

laugh until you wonder why

I am still laughing,

laugh because what else

can a woman do when

gaffes are her saving grace?

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In Times of Great Darkness

I want to do for you

what the sun does for me—

coax you to come

outside, to breathe in

the golden air.

I want to warm you

and enter you,

fill you with brilliance,

make your muscles melt,

make your mind shush.

I want to prepare for you

luminous paths

that span across deep space,

thaw any part of you

that feels frozen,

find any cracks

and slip shine into them.

I want to intensify your shadow

so you might better know

your own shape.

I want to encourage you

to open, wider, wider,

want to teach you

to write your own name

in light.

Find this poem published in the amazing ONE ART POETRY

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Unheard Of

While listening is the core of most of our communications … most people stink at it.

—Scientific American, “Now Hear This: Most People Stink at Listening!” by  Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson, May 3, 2013

Perhaps they lisp like tiny orange tongues,

each slender calendula petal

as it escapes from the bud

And dust, as it settles, I imagine it sighs.

I would love to hear the lulling of shadows

as they melt into dusk.

Do they shush the grating of crickets,

the buzzing of this body before I lay me

down to steep in night?

I have wondered about the spiny sound

that pinecones make when they grow

their prickles. And the tune of bones

when nothing hurts. And the blood in the heart

when we say goodbye—does it scrape?

Or shriek? Or mewl?

It is one thing to forget. It’s another

to never even know—to miss out on

the bluster of dandelion seeds,

the honeyed pitch of sunrise,

the hush inside the temple of the gourd.

It makes me want to listen

more closely to the world,

to clean out the ears of my heart.

To sit rapt with the stone that remembers

when it was red and molten. To attend

to the stretching of the root,

to the prayer of the sprout,

to the dew as it disappears.  

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The way, of course.

Your mind, your head,

your hope, your heart.

Face. Your footing. Virginity.

Shirt buttons. Coat buttons.

Breath. Bearings.

Balance. Your deposit.

Your dignity.

Respect. Perspective.

Quarters and pens

between the car seats.

Your accent. Your appetite.

My trust. Baby teeth.

Your innocence. Sunglasses.

Your job. Your cool.

Your shirt. Your gut.

Your grip. Your hair.

The key to the house.

The key to your car.

The key to staying calm

when something crucial is lost.

Like time. Like memories—

the ones in which we had no clue

just how much we had to lose.

Like our nerve. Like our fear.

Like this day, our only chance

to show up. Like this now,

our next chance to let go.

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Setting

In every conversation

there is a table made of listening.

Sometimes the tables are beautiful,

solid, clean—the kind

that can support anything

you put on them.

Sometimes, they’re like

the tv dinner trays

of my childhood—

a little rickety, but they’ll do

if what’s put on them is light.

Sometimes they’re so cluttered

that whatever’s placed on their surface

is almost immediately lost.

Let tonight’s table have a small vase of flowers

and a candle perhaps, nothing else.

May it be small enough we might

see each other’s eyes, might notice

every nuance of breath. Whomever

I am most nervous to invite,

may I invite them. And though

the tea is just a metaphor,

may I offer. May they accept.

Find this poem published in the amazing ONE ART POETRY

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Learning

Today the shadows

teach me to love

what is dim,

the sweet respite

of obscurity

when the sun

is too much

and a tree

yields its shape

so that I might slip

my clumsy heat

out of the bounds

of the vertical world

and find instead

a cool dark pool

on the ground,

as if I’m a boat

that has discovered

at last

a slim calm eddy

in which I might rest.

This is perhaps

the way we start

to meet our deaths—

sliding into the relief

of these dark, quiet

channels.

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asked to rate my satisfaction

from one to five stars—

trying to submit the milky way

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All summer it’s been twisting and winding,

twining around sunflowers,

stretching across pathways,

climbing the pea vines and the tall wire fence.

If there is a fairy godmother of flowers,

she must have said to the bindweed,

“I bless you with tenacity.” And forever since,

it has lived up to her generosity.

Why do I curse it for its persistence,

when I, myself, have made a life out of stubbornness?

Oh foolish woman who longs for beauty,

but pulls the bindweed before it is beautiful,

before its pale pink flowers open to morning

delicate as certainty.

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One Capitulation

walking in the drizzle—

even my longing to stay dry

shines in the rain

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Family Woman

Such awkward dance partners,

this longing to follow my own pursuits,

this longing to be ever available to you.

Both want to lead.

They step on each other’s feet.

One waltzes, though the other

has put on rock and roll.

One loves eye contact, the other

loves closed eyes to better feel the music.

And yet they whirl and two step every day,

taking turns swinging and dipping and bowing.

I used to think they were rivals.

Now I know neither wants to dance alone.

Even now, they’re pushing back the furniture,

rolling up the rug. There’s gonna be a real

fine hoedown tonight.

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