after Naomi Shihab Nye, “Red Brocade”
I would like to think if you arrived at my door,
I would invite you in. I would ask you to sit
on the light green couch and sit down beside you.
I hope I would offer you tea with milk or honey,
let you choose which mug you like best.
I hope I would not answer the phone,
would not worry about the work not being done,
would not think of the list as it lengthened.
I hope I could sit with you and listen.
Could look you in the eye. Could notice
how the position of my body
naturally mirrors the position of yours.
But I notice how defensive I am of my time.
See how I label it mine?
Every day, I feel somehow behind.
Every night, I lament I did not find more hours
hidden inside the clock.
Is it possible meeting you is the most important item
on my list of things to do?
What would it look like if you knocked tomorrow
when I know I already have every minute planned?
Would I say, I’m sorry you’ve come such a long way.
I have too much to do today?
Or would I find any closed inner doors
and fling them wide?
Could I find the words I hope I could say:
Come in. Welcome.
Here, which mug would you like?
Archive for July, 2022
Excuse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged door, excuse, other, welcome on July 13, 2022| 17 Comments »
Reflection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, other, reflection, relationship, unity on July 13, 2022| 5 Comments »
In each other, let us see ourselves.
—Alberto Ríos, “Who Has Need, I Stand with You”
Sometimes when I look in the mirror,
my eyes see only my own reflection.
I forget to see the eyes of my mother,
and her mother, and her mother.
I forget to see the eyes of my sisters
who live in other towns, other countries.
I forget to see the eyes of my brothers
who teach, who fight, who rule, who beg.
I forget how my heart is fueled
by the same electric impulse
that drives every other beating heart.
I forget how my skin is made and remade
from the same carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen
that comprises every other human’s skin.
Oh, to remember. Not just when I look in the mirror,
but when I walk down the street.
Not just when I feel drawn to another,
but also when I feel defensive, averse.
Oh, to remember the strange and certain math
that seven point seven five three billion people
equal one cohesive expression
of what it means to be alive.
Your hands, my hands. Your breath, my breath.
Your eyes in my eyes. My eyes in your eyes.
This life, ours.
Link to Video: The Art of Collaboration with Van Gogh, Asbo, Trommer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collaboration, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on July 12, 2022| 2 Comments »
My dear friend composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo and I want to offer you the video recording of our hour-long conversation about Vincent Van Gogh, loss and The Art of Creative Collaboration– click here.This project has been such an important part for each of us in holding on to hope and beauty during a dark and challenging time. If it speaks to a part of your own aching soul and you want to share it, you have our blessing to forward it to whomever you wish.
If you want to offer a donation in support of our work so that we can professionally record our project in both audio and video format, click here for our Go Fund Me account.
As We Sang the Hymn at My Father’s Funeral
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, father, grief, tenderness on July 12, 2022| 14 Comments »
I couldn’t say why that particular hymn
made me cry—not that I am averse
to weeping—but when love broke me open
with hot, relentless tears,
my daughter beside me reached
to hold my hand and leaned into me
and I bloomed into wild gratefulness.
Grief comes with its arms full of blessings.
I am not grateful for the loss,
but there is so much beauty in how the world
rises up to hold us—cradles us with kindness,
cradles us with song. There is so much good
in how grief asks us to be tender with each other—
teaches us to reach, to offer comfort,
to receive comfort, to connect.
In a world where we crave beauty,
we learn we are beauty,
our every word, our every touch
a building block that makes the world.
The Big Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arts, conversation, Kayleen Asbo, loss, Van Gogh on July 11, 2022| 6 Comments »
inspired by Pietà by Vincent van Gogh and a piano composition by the same name by Kayleen Asbo
When Chopin wrote his prelude in E minor,
its melody descending like sundown in a field,
he could never have guessed how
Eugène Delacroix would listen to the song relentlessly
when he painted his Pietà, how the haunting notes
would infuse themselves into the twilight
of the Virgin Mary’s blue dress,
into her outstretched hands and her oddly angled neck
as she held the dead body of her son.
And Delacroix could not have known
how, two years later, Anna van Gogh
would give birth to Vincent Willem,
his heart unbeating, his lungs unbreathing—
how Anna would long to mourn like the Virgin
and hold her own dead child, but her husband
would forbid her to even speak of the loss,
calling her grief a sin.
And Anna could not have known
how a year to the day when her first son died
she would deliver another boy
and name him Vincent Willem van Gogh,
and he would grow up seeing his own name
and birthday carved into a gravestone.
No surprise then, perhaps, that when Vincent
painted his own version of Delacroix’s Pietà,
he painted the dead son in the likeness of himself—
his own slender shoulders, his own red beard.
In Virgin Mary’s eyes, he painted dusk.
And van Gogh could not have known
how over a hundred years later
a woman named Kayleen, inspired
by Chopin and the agony in Vincent’s painting,
would write a song for piano, a song infused
with heartache and beauty, eventide and gloaming.
And Kayleen could not have known how,
months later, another woman would hear
in the slow rolling bass of the minor key
a mirror for her brokenness,
the spilling of her own golds and blues,
how she would seek out Vincent’s Pietà
and see in the painting
her own empty hands, her own dead son.
She would understand in an instant
she was not alone
in meeting the darkling swell of unbearable loss
and the light of bearing it anyway—
*
Today (Monday, July 12) at 11 a.m. mountain time, I hope you can join me and composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo for an hour of conversation about the “unfolding delight of collaborating on a multimedia project for Vincent van Gogh. No charge, but if you want to donate in support of our work, we will accept gratefully! Above all, we want to share the joy we have discovered in weaving poetry and music in response to van Gogh and each other.
To register. cut and paste this link:
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07ej9t6q9ac30328ce&oseq=&c=&ch=
After My Father’s Memorial
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, daughter, duck call, father, grief, memorial on July 9, 2022| 5 Comments »
We gather at my brother’s home
and his wife has ordered 57 duck calls.
They were not in time for the party,
but when we arrive to find them
on the front stoop, immediately
we open the box and almost a dozen adults
begin blowing on the duck calls—
not just once or twice,
but for twenty minutes
we make rising calls, falling calls,
sharp quick staccato calls,
calls to the beat of Bridge Over the River Kwai.
It is loud and raucous and somewhere
in heaven, my father I am sure
was blowing, too, and giggling
until tears ran down his cheeks
and he rubbed his wet eyes with his fists.
There were tears today, sobs, even,
but my god tonight how we laughed
as we made the sound my father loved—
the sound to call in the birds.
How it called in his memory, startling
and alive—how I felt him wing in—
not sure if the tears on my cheeks
were his or mine.
Playing Hide and Seek Tag with My Nephews
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, game, love, tag on July 8, 2022| 6 Comments »
I am so glad to be it,
even if my role as chaser
lasts over an hour.
I want these boys
to know I will run
for them forever,
will chase them up
and down stairwells,
will follow them
through halls and alleys,
through exhaustion,
through decades
to find them.
I want them to be certain
I will show up for them,
especially when they least expect it,
leaping toward them
shouting “got you,”
and meaning
I will be there for you
if you let me,
meaning, You are
beloved to me,
meaning I choose you,
then wrapping my arms
around them and whispering,
you’re it.
Strange Teaching
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eternity, space, teaching on July 7, 2022| 10 Comments »
Sometimes when I forget to think
I feel in me eternity, feel big bang
and black hole and spiraling galaxy.
Feel myself as arc of swallow,
bend of river, canyon depth,
feel myself as wind, as branch,
as scent of evergreen,
as slowly spinning earth.
In those moments,
I feel the everything I am
and the everything I’m not—
a self so whole it is lost.
No me, no you, no other,
no here, no there, no when,
no need to name, no need
to understand, no need
to state things just so.
The quietest of teachings:
the erasing of the one
who wants to know.
Though I Would Converse with You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, silence on July 6, 2022| 8 Comments »
I can be the silence
that touches your skin
like raw silk,
silence soft as a lover’s hand,
silence that holds you
when you have pushed
everyone away, even me.
I can be the silence
that leans in to know you,
silence that opens
like the scent of peonies,
silence that opens
like troughs between waves.
I can be silence
that wears clunky boots
and the silence
of the phone that does not ring.
Though I want to give you
the gift of my arms, the gift
of my ears, the gift of now,
I am learning to be the silence
that gives you the gift of yourself—
silence of patience, silence of time,
generous silence, tender silence,
silence that falls like the softest rain,
silence of sunshine, silence of soil,
silence of leaf, silence of bud
as it grows into what it will be.
Two van Gogh Poetry/Piano Events
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collaboration, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on July 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Dear readers,
As you know, I’ve been sharing lots of poems inspired by van Gogh’s paintings and the music of the incredible composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo–and finally, a chance for you to hear her work! We will have two events together: the first one is Monday, July 11 for a conversation about collaborating across the arts. We’ll share about the process of creating “Love Letters to Vincent,” piano compositions and poems all conversing with the art of van Gogh, who was, in turn, responding to other artists of his day. Join the big conversation! It will be practical and passionate! Donation based.
for more info and to register, copy and paste this link:
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07ej9t6q9ac30328ce&oseq=&c=&ch=
The second event, “Love Letters to Vincent” on Friday, July 29, will have all the pieces she composed, all the poems I wrote, all the art, plus a chance for you to write your own love letter to Vincent. This online salon of love and memory on the anniversary of Vincent Van Gogh’s death will be a heartfelt communal ritual of creativity.
Available on a sliding scale donation and also recorded for later viewing. for more info and to register, copy and paste this link:
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ej8dm76j7c30686c&llr=q9rr4nabb