He isn’t in it, his chair,
the big brown one
that tilts forward
and reclines, but
the slip covers
on the arm rests
remember his hands—
they are worn
to a lighter shade
of brown. I imagine,
my own hands
could be a lighter shade
from all the times
he held them,
his thick fingers wrapped
around mine, his thumb
worrying a small circle
in my palm. May
I, too, be marked
by his touch—
may my palms
be threadbare.
reshaped by his love.
Archive for November, 2021
Staring at My Father’s Chair
Posted in Uncategorized on November 20, 2021| 9 Comments »
There Is Only the Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged antelope, daughter, death, father, field, hospice on November 19, 2021| 16 Comments »
On the day my father begins hospice,
I watch the pronghorn in the field,
marvel as their brown- and white-striped bodies
nearly disappear in the dead grass where
they graze. If only I could camouflage
my father so death can’t find him, so that pain
would never have discovered him.
Tomorrow, my mother and brother and I
will gather around him the way a herd
might gather, circling him as some antelope
circle their young. But death will come.
And we, unable to run fast enough,
unable to hide, will meet it together.
And if I could fight death, would I? Whatever horns
I have are more for ritual than dangerous.
When death arrives, I want to bring
my softest self. I won’t bargain,
but I’ll tell death it’s taking the best of us—
the one who worked hardest to survive.
When death arrives, I want to ask it, Please,
be gentle. He suffered so much already.
I want to tell death, You don’t get all of him.
I carry in me his goodness, his courage.
While I live, he will always be alive in this field.
Sacred Ground
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ground, holy, step on November 18, 2021| 8 Comments »
And if, as I now know, the closet
is sacred and the bare room
is sacred and the sidewalk
and classroom and the ER
are sacred, then I trip
into the teaching
that everywhere is sacred—
not only the church, but
the alley. Not only the mosque,
but the bench.
Not only the places in candlelight
where the air is pungent
and woody with myrrh.
I want to worship
at the shrine of everywhere,
want to know every inch
of this earth as an altar—
every walk, a pilgrimage.
Every step, a step
from holy to holy
to holy.
Sheer Truth of Impermanence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, dad, daughter, grief, illness, impermanence on November 17, 2021| 18 Comments »
My father lies in his hospital bed,
eyes unseeing, unable to do more
than open and close his hand—
a wounded bird trying to fly—
his thoughts too wispy
to gather into sentences.
And then, quite clearly,
What is wrong with me?
I tell him, We don’t know.
And then, Is it my fault?
I want to gather him
into my arms and cradle him
the way he once cradled me.
No, Dad, I say. It’s not your fault.
You’re doing so good.
And then he is lost again,
cloud-minded, moaning,
his face a storm of pain.
Outside the window, the clouds
have lost their shape. The wind
pulls their thin white veil across the blue
like a translucent sheet.
In the coming days, there will be rain.
His eyes flash open, then close.
Hi, he says, his voice warm,
full of marvel. Hi, I say,
press my hands to his chest.
I’m pouring love into you, Dad.
He hums the little two-note song
he always hums in affirmation.
He is so beautifully himself.
Then you’re going to need—
His thought evaporates.
What do I need, dad?
I’m desperate for his answer.
What do I need to pour love into you?
He says, You’re going to need—
The sentence turns cirrostratus.
I kiss his head.
I kiss whatever went unsaid.
Neither of us knows what we need.
We hold each other and reach
for what we cannot hold.
Hands open, we wing into the moment,
into love, this sky where we meet.
Gonna Rise Up Singing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, cause and effect, daughter, eternity, mother, singing on November 15, 2021| 4 Comments »
What we do now echoes into eternity.
—Marcus Aurelius
If what we do now echoes into eternity,
then let there be more mornings such as this one
in which my mother wakes me by singing
a thin thread of melody
that praises the beauty of the day.
By breakfast, I feel the small reverberations
of her joy as they ricochet in me
chiming against loss and fear,
an unabashed gladness that rings
against the holy ribs,
that spirals inside the aortal caves,
that peals through the chasms of the hours.
By afternoon, it’s coruscating, resonating,
a bit of aural shine against the day’s ache,
helping me meet the world just
a bit more brightly.
Just think, after an eternity, how much
beauty might have come from one
simple tune sung by one open heart
willing to sing for one moment what is true.
I Didn’t Think I Could Do It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, dark, grief, light, mother, softening, son on November 15, 2021| 22 Comments »
But I found myself
rigid in the room where my son
took his life. And I sat
on the floor in the doorway
where he had last sat,
where his blood had pooled
and the air had briefly smelled
of burning. I sat there
beneath the wall
where the bullet had made
its narrow hole. I sat there
with my coil of sorrow.
I didn’t want to meet it.
I desperately wanted to meet it.
I wanted to give sorrow space.
I wanted to crawl inside it.
I wanted to be anywhere
but there on the dark wood floor
in the night dark room,
and I wanted to be wholly,
completely, obliteratingly there.
Fear-ridden, ferocious,I met it all,
felt the current pushing through.
Acceptance is a filament
that takes our resistance
and makes it bright,
makes it luminous enough
that we might see ourselves
exactly as we are.
I did not find my son
in that doorway. Perhaps
I had hoped I would.
But I saw the light
that came with me.
I softened into that light.
Becoming the Bird
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, emily dickinson, grief, hope, wind on November 14, 2021| 13 Comments »
Once on a bridge
I had met a hope,
a radiant maybe,
a glint of perhaps,
but I am so far
from that glint today
that when I stand
again on that bridge
I almost hate hope
with its stupid wings,
always promising
to carry us toward
something better.
I stand on that bridge
and stand on that bridge,
my inner perch
empty, silent.
I turn to face
the autumn wind.
It batters my bare skin.
I sing full-throat into the gale.
*This poem is in conversation with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” which you can find here
Having Lost Sight Now of the Shore
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, grief, humanity, ocean on November 13, 2021| 7 Comments »
Wading into the ocean of grief,
I feel how the tides tug
at the story of how I arrived here—
the waves don’t tear my story away,
no, but float its fabric around me
till I wear it more loosely
and meet the raw self inside the story.
How many of us are here
in these waters learning
new ways to swim?
Already we’re deeper, deeper in.
Though it is a terrible gift to be here,
I fall in love with us all,
with our common humanity.
How sweet it is to meet each other
with our vulnerability glittering on our skin,
our bodies more buoyant
than we ever dreamed.
Adjusting to the Change
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, grief, serving, tea, waking on November 12, 2021| 8 Comments »
Just today I didn’t make you
a cup of chai—did not stir
in the dark clover honey,
did not warm the soy milk,
did not bring you the cup
with red flowers, the one
we got in Finland all those
years ago when we couldn’t
sleep with all that light—
instead I pour myself
into the black of morning.
There is sweetness here
in these quiet, predawn hours,
a vastness no cup could ever contain.
I want to serve it to you,
though I sense, love,
it is you serving it to me.
Kintsugi Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broken heart, brokenness, friendship, grief, heart, kintsugi, loss on November 11, 2021| 14 Comments »
After the heart broke like a porcelain bowl,
when it shattered in pieces, scattered,
life itself reassembled the shards.
Friends bring their melted gold
to seal the bits together again.
I trace my fingers across the shining scars.
Some pieces will be missing forever.
Let me fall in love with what has been broken.
Let me dare to call it beautiful.