I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all, all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands the swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze,
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.
*
by the way, friends, if you are aware of a word in another language that means okay/not okay, gosh, I would love to know it
Archive for March, 2022
For When People Ask
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged feelings, grief, joy, paradox, singing on March 13, 2022| 23 Comments »
Love Poem for My Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cinema, daughter, love, mother, movie on March 12, 2022| 20 Comments »
You are the movie
I hope never
reaches the credits,
the only reality show
I want to watch.
You are the star
in this cinema—
and the script writer,
the choreographer,
the costume designer.
Every day, I love watching
the unfolding plot of you,
marvel at your character arc.
You, the hero I cheer for
when life does its worst.
You, the stunt girl
for whom I hold my breath.
You, the creator of your own sound track
in which you play jazz for dinner,
in which we sing along
in the car to Arctic Monkeys
and Taylor Swift and Wham!
I love your laugh track
when you hang out in your room
reading or watching
someone else’s movie.
You may not hear me clapping,
but I’m in a constant state
of standing ovation
as you meet whatever
your role brings you,
my heart pounding as you move
with such integrity
into the next frame.
Coming Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, geology, pangaea, peace, tectonics on March 10, 2022| 8 Comments »
It seems too slow,
this moving toward each other,
toward peace.
The heart is eager for union,
longs for grounding between continents,
longs for connection, for wholeness,
instead of all this fracture.
Do the tectonic plates
remember what it was
to be Pangaea? Can the heart
remember a time before
it was defined by rifting
and brokenness?
I have read that the next supercontinent
will form in 200 million years—
that we’re halfway through
the scattered phase.
Oh, we are so scattered.
They say the pace of the plates
is comparable to the speed
at which our fingernails grow.
Oh, so slow, this coming together.
Yet it happens. It happens.
Let the heart know
what the land knows: It happens.
Acceptance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, grief, rain on March 10, 2022| 13 Comments »
Today grief is a long steady rain
and the thing to do is to walk
in the long and steady of it.
The thing is to let the face
get wet, let the clothes get wet,
let the hair get wet and plastered
against the cheeks, the neck.
The thing is to meet the soaking world
and the soaking skin and the soaking
shoes and the soaking dreams
and not pretend it’s dry.
Whatever longing there is for dryness,
it is soaking too. Because it’s raining,
the thing to do is to walk in the long
and steady rain, to walk in the sodden,
soaking world, to trust that it will
not rain forever, to breathe in the scent
of the wet, wet earth, to kiss the rain,
to be kissed by the rain.
To be wet in the wet, wet world.
While Helping Mom Calculate Mileage for Her Taxes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, father, gratitude, love, numbers, stubborn praise on March 9, 2022| 8 Comments »
I count all the Tuesdays, Thursdays
and Saturdays from January to mid-July,
all those days in Florida
when you drove an hour
to dialysis and sat there for hours
as the machines removed toxins
and water from your blood,
then drove an hour home.
I multiply that number times
the number of miles and arrive
at a number that means devotion.
Means grit. A number that means
I will live for you as long as I am able.
Remember, Dad, how no matter
how early you had to rise,
no matter how difficult the drive,
no matter how inefficient the process,
you did it. And every time
you thanked the people
who were keeping you alive.
At the end, when you couldn’t stand,
couldn’t sit, couldn’t lift your own arm,
they took you to dialysis on a stretcher.
When they’d move you,
you’d moan in pain, howl, even,
as they twisted your body
in ways it no longer could twist,
and then, with deep humility,
you’d thank the nurses.
Did you ever see them cry, Dad?
I did. I saw them walk out of the room
into the hall and weep,
so grateful to be thanked
for doing the work that hurts.
Two thousand nine hundred ninety miles.
That was the number for six months.
A number that means life is hard and I want it.
A number that says my body is stopping,
but my love grows.
A number that means, Yes, I will meet you, death.
Butnot yet. Not yet.
*
PS–I want to honor that my mom drove my dad many of these times, and many other times in other cities–and she, in such courageous, humble ways, was devoted to dad’s health and healing.
For the One Who Is Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, love on March 8, 2022| 6 Comments »
The way skin loves the scar
that remakes the skin into itself,
that is the way I love you.
I love you the way I love
driving on dirt backroads,
the way I love walking in the dark—
unsure of where I am,
unsure of where I’m going,
so the slightest movement
requires my whole attention.
I love you, though I am
a barren peach tree
with nothing to offer
but the memory of when
there were peaches, ripe and sweet.
And love is a glove
filled with holes
that still fits.
And love is a fountain
that doesn’t care how many
coins are tossed in for wishes.
I love you the way I love the space
where the cottonwood used to stand—
how the air there will forever be
the place where the cottonwood grew.
I love you the way
the rain barrel loves the rain
that doesn’t fall.
I love you because
not loving you
feels like the worst fate of all.
Sunday Night with Mom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, gratefulness, mom, sitting on March 7, 2022| 6 Comments »
Sitting on folding chairs
in the dark, we talk
in hushed tones
as night birds swoop
and call across the lake.
The evening air is warm
and though I can’t see
the pale purple flowers
on the rosemary bushes,
I know they are there—
it’s the kind of night
I will someday miss most,
the kind when we speak
of plans and weather
and what’s for lunch tomorrow,
the kind of night
when we know full well
how else a night might go,
but for this night we
sit with the stars
and the sound of the train
and we snuggle deeper in.
The Blue Blanket’s Resume
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blanket, grief, mother on March 6, 2022| 12 Comments »
*How I let myself be carried
for over eight years through rows of peaches,
into playgrounds and preschools
hotel rooms and cars.
*How almost seventeen years
I let myself be drooled on
and scrunched up, sat on, and tossed.
*How I went weeks,
sometimes months,
without being washed.
*How once I was left behind
and thought I’d be lost forever.
*How later, the boy would spread me
across his pillow, carefully tucking
my ends underneath.
*How some nights
when he thought no one else could hear,
he’d cry, and I would hold his tears.
*How I watched as they took almost all
his other things from his room and gave them away.
*How I sat, patiently, on the boy’s mother’s shelf,
for six months without touch.
*How, one day, when the mother
began sleeping with me herself,
I molded myself to her cheek.
*How I received her tears.
*How I tried to summon
his scent for her nose.
*How I let her think it was her holding me
when it was I who was holding her.
Lucid
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, grief, love, mother on March 4, 2022| 13 Comments »
He was taller, having grown since his death,
and his hair needed to be washed, but here
he was, in my dream, my son, so at ease
in his body, so warm in his speech,
as if he had come for the sole purpose
of letting me know he is thriving.
We talked about what he wanted
to pass on to his children,
and I melted with relief to learn
he was looking forward to his life.
When we said goodbye, he took me in his arms
and hugged me so long, by morning,
and long after lunch, I forgot
it was a dream.
A Different Holding Pattern
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged holding, photosynthesis, plants, transformation on March 3, 2022| 14 Comments »
If I am to hold the world in my heart,
then let me hold it the way leaves hold sunshine,
trapping the energy not for the sake of holding it,
but to transform it into nourishment.
Though the process isn’t simple, it’s common.
All around the globe, in every season,
leaves hold and synthesize
whatever the day gives them.
On a day when the energy of the world
seems too much to hold,
let me bid my heart turn
like a leaf to the sun
and make sugar.
The way Rilke turned grief into sonnets.
The way Sibelius turned war into song.