It’s the wing inside the empty room,
the wing inside the shiver,
the sprightly wing inside the ash,
the wing inside the lover.
The wing inside of silence
before the impossible words.
The wing that flutters moonlessly.
The wings inside the shards.
And a thousand thousand tiny wings
flutter inside each breath—
and I forget the wings are here,
until I meet an edge—
Archive for October, 2021
Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged trust on October 31, 2021| 5 Comments »
One Boy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, ghosts, loss, mother, son on October 30, 2021| 9 Comments »
Today the heart is full of ghosts—
one doing backflips and one
eating ice cream and one throwing
rocks in the river. One drops
a camera into a lily pond while trying
to take a picture. One peels apples
and one rides on my hip and one
sings country songs. One lights a candle
and one blows it out and one spends hours
arguing about which of the ghosts is most right.
And one is never satisfied. And one
has a thousand dull gray eyes. And one,
one whispers, I’ve got this, Mom.
And I turn to them all, one at a time,
and say welcome, you’re all welcome here.
Even the ghost who slams the door.
Even the ghost who bristles, who swears.
Ghost playing drums. Ghost aiming
nerf guns. Ghost wearing button down shirts.
Ghost with a brain made for zeros and ones.
Ghost with hands in the dirt.
And the heart expands to hold them all—
or were its corridors already stretched?
Straight A ghost. Red canoe ghost. Ghost
of the man I’ll never know. Ghost
who sits beside me at the table,
who says nothing, sipping sweet tea.
Ghost who tucks me into bed, then
slips into my dreams.
Collaboration with Molly Venter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collaboration, Molly Venter on October 28, 2021| 6 Comments »
I am a collaboration junkie–and I just LOVE what happened when musician Molly Venter (aka Goodnight Moonshine) took one of my poems and set it to a gorgeous and haunting minor-key melody. And her voice! Listen to the collaboration HERE, and subscribe to the Youtube channel if you like. Also, you can FOLLOW her duo “Goodnight Music” on Spotify, and/or check out her weekly recordings & blog at Patreon.com/mollyventer.com. Molly lives in New Haven, CT, with her husband & musical partner Eben Pariser and their three young children.
Here’s the original poem, published in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems (Grayson Books, 2017)
Still Life at Dusk
It happens surprisingly fast,
the way your shadow leaves you.
All day you’ve been linked by
the light, but now that darkness
gathers the world in a great black tide,
your shadow joins
the sea of all other shadows.
If you stand here long enough,
you, too, will forget your lines
and merge with the tall grass and
old trees, with the crows and the
flooding river—all these pieces
of the world that daylight has broken
into objects of singular loneliness.
It happens surprisingly fast, the drawing in
of your shadow, and standing
in the field, you become the field,
and standing in the night, you
are gathered by night. Invisible
birds sing to the memory of light
but then even those separate songs fade,
tiny drops of ink in an infinite spilling.
These Days When the Veils Are Thin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, death, grief, mother, son, stars, vision on October 28, 2021| 5 Comments »
Leaning into the vastness
of the star drunk sky,
my heart a vehicle,
to my surprise
I heard a small click,
like the sound of a car door
opening,
and your voice,
Mom, hop in.
Let’s take a spin.
I startle, as if
waking from a dream,
heart pounding,
astonished to find you
in the driver’s seat
as you love to be, and me
just one yes away
from a joy ride
through the universe,
if only I can find
the door.
Missing You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, love on October 28, 2021| 8 Comments »
Today, missing you
is like missing my own name,
like missing my arms,
like missing my skin.
The house too small
to hold it all,
I run outside
to feel cold, to feel
sun on my face, to
feel wind, to feel the day.
I want to remember this—
how I cannot live for one minute
without loving you.
I want to remember
how every street in our town,
every room in our home,
every cell of my body
is resonant with where you have been.
This morning, holding your sister,
I wanted to take all her pain away,
then thought how I would not want such erasure
for myself. Would never want to take away
for her that you were here. Would never want
to erase any of her love for you.
Whatever part of you was miracle and light
when you were here
is no less miracle, no less light.
And so this terrible invitation
to love what we love,
knowing it leads to loss.
Oh these awe-full sharp-edged days,
how they scrape, how they eviscerate.
Don’t let time make them soft.
I want to remember.
Things to Know When Waking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, love, morning, pep talk on October 27, 2021| 4 Comments »
There will be weather.
There will be some measure of light.
The earth will not pause, will not stop
in its spinning. The morning
will stretch into night.
And whatever I feel,
I won’t feel it forever.
And whatever I love
will someday be lost—
no matter how well I love it,
no matter my hopes,
no matter how tightly I grasp.
But the love itself, love
can continue to grow
in ways that defy
what I think I know—
if only I tend it, meet it.
And the mountains around me
are falling down.
Somewhere else,
mountains are being made.
Our Milky Way Galaxy,
sure in its course, will collide
with Andromeda Galaxy someday.
That someday will not be today.
Today there will be thousands of chances
to choose to be generous.
I am what I give.
I have a love light to carry.
Gravity wins.
Today is the day to live.
Surprise Visit
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, gift, grief, love on October 25, 2021| 10 Comments »
She arrived with a small box of gifts—
two tree-ripened avocados, crispy kale
she’d roasted with spicy tahin,
a bar of dark chocolate laced with salt,
and a paperback book of koans.
I received them all with raw gratitude,
knowing what was really in that box
was devotion, compassion, integrity, hope.
But it was her arms that saved me
that day, her arms and the quiet song
of her breath, the way she held me
until I felt known—the way a shore
holds a lake, the way empty branches
hold sky, the way love holds us all.
Why I Take Deep Breaths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, breathing, grief, ocean, swimming on October 25, 2021| 6 Comments »
In this deep sea of grief,
it is hard to trust
my own buoyancy—
great waves break on me,
take my breath away,
I’m submerged by loss,
yet with so little effort
I rise. Just by being alive,
I rise. So I splutter.
So I’m graceless.
So I cannot see the shore.
But my friend reminds me,
there’s no way
that I can do this wrong.
So I let myself be carried
by currents unknown,
and each time I breathe—
I feel myself rise.
With so little effort,
I rise.
I Will Always Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, grief, love on October 24, 2021| 6 Comments »
And when I could not stand—
when the weight of life
was more than I could hold alone—
my brother held me in his big arms
and said in my ear, I’ve got you.
Though grief expanded
and increased inside me
like a terrible mutinous bloom,
I’ve got you, he said.
Though it swelled and threatened
to swamp us, he wrapped me
in a tenderness equally vast.
I’ve got you, he said, as I wept.
I’ve got you, he said, infusing me
with a love so robust I knew
I could fall into even the deepest sorrow
and still he would catch me,
would catch me, would hold me,
would hold me as long as he had arms.
When I was most afraid to be alone,
I was not alone. I’ve got you, he said,
and I fell and I fell, the world a dark rush,
and he caught me, my brother,
and held me as all around us
what I thought I knew of the world
slipped away, slipped further away.
Getting to Yes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, yes on October 23, 2021| 9 Comments »
Today yes is letting
my hands hang limp—
though it’s less
that I choose to not use them,
more that life insists.
Yes has lost its leaves.
Yes wears no shoes.
Yes is a winding road
with no guard rails,
no pull outs, no passing lane.
Yes feels like one leg extended
over a high desert cliff,
the other about to join it midair.
It tastes like black tea
steeped too long
with no milk.
It tastes like the meal
I didn’t order,
but was served
and told to eat.
Yes is the song
with a one-word lyric
that now I can only hum.
And if yes is a drum,
I stumble along.
And if yes says
Square your shoulders,
the best I can do today is be cloud.
The best I can do today is rain.