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.
Ambush
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, grief, mother, orange juice, shopping, son on October 21, 2021| 6 Comments »
It was the orange juice aisle that did it.
I stood there staring at cartons
I knew I wouldn’t buy because you
are gone. My son, I stumble on you
everywhere you are not. Which is everywhere.
The only way to learn how to meet
your absence is by meeting it.
In the car. At the table. In the yard.
On the phone. At the school.
And there in the orange juice aisle
where I stared at the cartons on the shelf
then walked on, the cart still empty.
The Gift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, food, fruit, grief, love, mother, pomegranate, ripening, son on October 21, 2021| 6 Comments »
It still had its leaves on it,
the pomegranate she handed me.
And holding that smooth red sphere
in my palm, I felt not only
the jeweled weight of each bright seed,
but also the weight of the many nights
the fruit had hung on the tree,
felt how the nights had slowed the growth
so the fruit could develop more sugar.
Not all things get to ripen.
Oh, this small gift of sweetness.
How it opened in me such red tenderness—
the memory of a boy learning how
to open and eat a pomegranate,
scarlet juice trickling down his chin.
And now. I hold it in awe,
this beautiful thick-skinned globe,
hold it less like a fruit,
hold it more like a love
I was just beginning to know.
Porosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, dream, life, porous, soil on October 19, 2021| 10 Comments »
And so I learn I am porous—
learn I am not just dust,
but soil. Everything
moves through me.
I am not the container
I believed myself to be,
but a portion of earth
more other than self.
In a dream, I was told,
The body is permeable
to life and to death.
I want to remember
that voice. I want to remember
how it feels to be earth,
to know the self as both living
and dead.
I want to remember how absence
has never felt more holy,
how its sacredness is rivaled
only by the holiness of what’s here.
No separation, said the voice.
Remember.
I want to remember
the infinite dark inside
each infinite moment,
how both soil and time
are planted with stars.
Oh sweet teachings
that I cannot understand,
how they spiral out
like galaxies inside me,
how they slip
like loose soil through my hands.
Meeting It All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, surrender on October 18, 2021| 4 Comments »
Even the roses today
are limp with surrender.
They nod as if it’s too plum hard
to keep their stems upright.
Can sunlight itself be drab?
It stretches flat into the room
like a tired cat that would rather
not be bothered.
And the vine ripened tomato
has lost its sharp red thrill,
is merely mush in the mouth.
Some hours, grief is so heavy
in me that even the chair
seems unwilling to bear me,
suggests I lie on the ground.
Yes, I feel the whorls of love
that swirl around me like
a thousand tender hands.
I feel them. And I need them.
Because today, the truest thing
is the loss that whispers, Hush, darling,
don’t move. Don’t admire. Don’t
reach. Don’t do. Just lie here.
Just lie here. I’ll hold you.
How the Healing Happens
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, book, friendship, gift, grief, healing on October 16, 2021| 6 Comments »
for Paul Fericano and so many others
I turn first to the chapter
on techniques for broken wings.
I learn of contour splints and anchor tape
and reasons why most broken wings
should not be completely immobilized.
I am not so unlike an injured bird.
Struck down by grief, I too, am unable to fly.
Even walking, I find I’m off balance.
I’m best treated without an audience.
I heal best with absolute calm.
I was unsure at first why my friend
would have sent me—along with tea,
chocolate, crackers and sweet biscuits—
a book on “kitchen healing:”
how to treat injured wildlife at home.
But there beneath the image
of a simple wing break, I read,
a sentence like a prophecy:
“Nature starts the healing process
almost as soon as the injury occurs.”
And I feel, to my surprise,
the tender places where the bones
of my wings no longer protrude.
And though my joints are rigid,
with supports, I’m recovering.
And I am thankful for all the hands of friends—
unskilled, untrained, yet willing to try.
Hands that send letters and blankets
and feathers and books. Calm hands
that help heal these fractures until I can fly.
*Quote from Care of the Wild Feathered & Furred: A Guide to Wildlife Handling & Care by Mae Hickman and Maxine Guy (Unity Press, 1973)
Thank You, Gary Paulsen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books, daughter, forest, Gary Paulsen, loss, reading on October 14, 2021| 12 Comments »
You are your most valuable asset. Don’t forget that. You are the best thing you have.
—from Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, (May 17, 1939-October 14, 2021)
How many children went down in that plane, Gary?
How many children fell out of the sky alone
and learned they could live
for months in the woods
with only a hatchet for help?
How many kids learned
that tough conditions were a bidding
to bring their best self?
My daughter was nine or ten
when she first drew your book from the shelf
and found herself stranded in the northern woods.
Then she went there on purpose again and again.
Now, three years later, she wanders a forest of loss,
and in so many ways she’s alone.
Gary, you gave her a story to believe in
in which young people survive, find their way home.
Your story’s a sharp tool my daughter can wield
to make sparks in these darkened days.
I thank you for teaching her
how she might rise from a crash,
how in these woods of sorrow,
though I would build her a fire if I could,
she is the best thing she has.
*In case you are unfamiliar with Gary Paulsen, you can read more here. As he says, “Name the book that made the biggest impression on you. I bet you read it before you hit puberty.”
No Trophy, But
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged competition, loss, love on October 14, 2021| 6 Comments »
Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly
feel more love than I do,
today, the heart beats its own record—
falls in love with my daughter
singing Disney in the car.
In love with my husband
heating water for my tea.
In love with the leaves as they spread
golden praise through the yard.
In love with the sacred mess.
In love with each person who
meets another with kindness.
I fall in love with cats and candles,
the hill as I climb it,
the wind as it chills me,
and sunflowers that bloom despite snow.
And the raw me who aches, I love her, too.
And the naked me who weeps—
what else is she supposed to do?
And the quiet that comes
when I lean in to listen to what is most true.
It wasn’t a love contest today,
and yet, inside me, love continued to grow.
Last week, I felt emptied, scoured,
scraped clean, prepared for something—
I knew not what.
Perhaps I was being prepared for more love.
Love for the emptiness. Love for the scouring.
Love for the being scraped clean. Love
that expands despite heartache, because heartache.
Love that asks nothing. And gives it all.
And keeps giving.
Delivering on a Promise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, death, IOU, letter, postcard, promise, sister on October 12, 2021| 7 Comments »
Perhaps three years ago
my son gave me three paper slips,
each one an IOU with his name and phone number
and the promise to do whatever I asked him to do.
I saved the slips in my bathroom drawer
where they mingled with hair ties
and toothpaste tubes,
until a month ago, when I wrote on one
in small blue cursive,
Please send a sign to your sister you love her.
And today, two months after his death,
a single postcard came, addressed to my daughter,
a postcard sent from Minnesota
but written in his hand.
It doesn’t say I love you. It’s a photo
of an old marketplace in Cusco,
a city he visited one week before he died.
He tells her about it, says it’s a place he enjoys.
And there, on the four-by-six cardstock,
unfurling between his handwritten words
is the unsaid message she seldom heard—
You’re important to me.
I love you. I miss you.
I’m grateful you’re in my life.
Consider this poem a thank you letter
addressed to what I can’t understand.
Thank you for finding a way to say
the words that couldn’t be said.
Thank you for letting an absence
tell a larger story. Thank you
for unusual postage.
For wonder. For special delivery.