these darkest days
teach me
the light of you
Archive for December, 2020
One Devotion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, friendship, light, solstice on December 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Concurrent
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, nature, praise, snow, wound on December 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
On a morning
when the snow
falls and drapes
everything in shine,
it is not that I don’t
feel the wounds—
raw and throbbing—
it’s just that it’s
so beautiful,
this tender world,
that I want
to praise it
forever.
One Cultivating Compassion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, renaming, shame on December 11, 2020| 1 Comment »
Bald Eagle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bald eagle, long relationship, love on December 10, 2020| 3 Comments »
In less than ten seconds
I fell in love with the eagle
before it rounded the corner
and disappeared.
Sometimes,
it’s easier to love
that which moves quickly
through our lives.
Harder to love
what stays long enough
to disappoint, to hurt, to betray—
harder to feel disenchanted
and love anyway.
I’ve seen an eagle
carry prey that weighs
more than it does.
Makes me want to believe
I, too, can carry more—
like a love bigger than I am.
Like forgiveness beyond
what my thoughts can think.
Like willingness to keep loving
long after I’d rather rest my wings.
A Little Pep Talk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged endings, heart, letting go, transformation on December 9, 2020| 2 Comments »
The swirling ash
doesn’t try
to be become
log again.
The flying leaves
don’t attempt
to return
to the tree.
The girl
can’t untwist
her genome
back into
separate strands.
The flour
in the bread
can’t return
to the sack,
can’t undo
the kneading
of hands.
In all things
lives a memory
of letting go
and the chance
to transform
into what
it can’t know.
What do you say
to that, heart?
Good self,
what do you say
to that?
When the Interviewer Asked Me What I Most Wish for the World
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, light, wish on December 8, 2020| 2 Comments »
“We have a lot of things we are in the midst of. What do you think this moment is inviting us to understand? Where would you like to be in spring? Where would you like to see us as a world be?”
—Kara Johnstad, Voice Rising Host, Om Times Radio
For a sliver
of a moment
I cradled
the whole world
in my thoughts—
every president,
peasant, seamstress,
beggar, businessman,
acrobat, child—
every one of us
a vessel
and I knew
in that instant
the power
of a wish—
as if hope
has a foothold
in reality,
as if a slim glimmer
is inevitable
foreshadowing
of unstoppable radiance.
With quiet clarity
I knew exactly
what I wish
for each of us—
I told her, too—
but I will refrain
from telling you.
Instead, I’ll hand you
the question
so you, too,
might make a wish,
so that you, too,
might glimmer,
might beacon.
Interview on Om Times Radio
Posted in Uncategorized on December 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It was so fun conversing with Kara Johnstad on Om Times Radio in her wonderful show Voice Rising. She asked such insightful questions about how poetry might help us meet the world (and ourselves), and I loved the wide-angled lens she uses. We read poems from my latest book, Hush, and talked about daily life/poetry life, yesness, generosity, the gift of constraint, the dance of silence and voice, and the impossibility of writing a poem about ticks.
Here’s the first poem I shared:
Urgency
Again the urge
to bring gauze
to the broken world—
and medicine
and a plaster cast.
Again the urge
to fix things,
to heal them,
to make them right.
Again the chance
to do the work,
which is to look in,
to touch the pain
but not become it,
to see the world
exactly as it is
and still write it
a love letter,
to meet what is cracked
with clarity,
to mirror and grow
whatever beauty
we find.
Spell for Ending Well
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ending, silence, spell on December 7, 2020| 5 Comments »
Who’s ever heard
of a silent spell?
Isn’t it supposed to rhyme?
Shouldn’t it contain
the eye of something,
the tail of something else,
some leaves, some poison,
a cauldron, a fire,
and a whole lot of stirring?
But this spell can’t be manufactured.
All it wants is your attention.
All it wants is for you to feel
how it feels to end.
It wants you to lean
into loss and let it do
its slow work on you.
It doesn’t offer a magic word—
no word is magic enough
to do what must be done.
Which is to trust
the vanishing nature of things.
Which is to let the body
grasp and grasp and grasp
until at last it is ready
to release. Any spell
for ending well
knows its own uselessness.
It knows the importance
of silence. It knows
that anyone who would look up
a spell for ending well
already has exactly what they need.
Endings for Beginners
Posted in Uncategorized on December 6, 2020| 4 Comments »
With a punch line, of course.
Or an invitation.
With a twist. Or a kiss.
Or an unanswerable question.
By circling back to the beginning.
Or with a bang. Or a whimper.
With a call to action.
With a five-course dinner.
With a clincher,
or a cliffhanger,
but not with a preposition.
Endings feel best
when of your own volition.
End with a flourish,
or a touch of cream.
On a high note. With a strong quote.
By making a scene.
End with a period.
Or end with a handshake.
End with an exclamation point.
Or end with heartbreak.
It’s okay to tie,
or to end in a draw,
but don’t end with ellipses
that just make things go on …
and on …
and on.
End in a fiasco.
Or end with a song.
End with a reversal.
End with a bell.
End with a cry
that all is well.
End with purpose
or allegory.
Every bit of our lives
is made of stories,
stories that end
so new stories begin,
so end well, end well.
Then start again.
Getting Messy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, embodiment, face, verbs on December 5, 2020| 2 Comments »
I like when
your eyes haze
with mystery
so I know myself
more sculpturally
and remember
how to brow,
how to jowl,
how to cheek.
I like when
we lip,
more smear
less line,
when we belief
less tidy,
more smudge
more shine.
I love when we
smile through
shadowy mess—
when we face
less certain,
more suggest.