for Suzan
It feels right to walk
through naked trees
with our naked hearts
and our naked hands
and thrill in the sound
of wind in dry grass
and delight in how quickly
the clouds are shredded.
You could say, it’s just a day,
but perhaps a day such as this
spent practicing awe and openness
is what changes everything.
You step out of yourself.
Suddenly, anything could happen.
Archive for October, 2022
Spring in Fall
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, change, friendship, openness, walking on October 23, 2022| 4 Comments »
Handling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, pain, softening, time, touch on October 21, 2022| 4 Comments »
After years,
what once
was enormous,
sharp and piercing
now is rounded,
polished,
fits like a marble
in the palm
of my hand.
This is what comes
from touching it,
brushing up against it,
holding it
again and again.
And again.
Once, it cut me.
Now, as I rub it
beneath my fingers,
it soothes me,
reminds me
how I, too,
have been softened,
how I, too,
have been embraced
and held
and nestled
until I am smooth.
Temporal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged help, helplessness, kayleen, ocean, ritual on October 20, 2022| 7 Comments »
for Kayleen
As the tide rose and the waves grew nearer,
she took a stick and drew in the sand
a small labyrinth. In the center
she placed a dried tangle of roots,
some sodden gray feathers,
and the broken open shells of oysters.
White stone at the entrance.
Warm sun on our skin.
On the short path, we wrote with a stick
the names of people and places we longed to heal.
All around us the whirling of dark sea birds
seeking higher places to land.
All around us the sound of waves crashing on rocks,
sound of cliffs slowly eroding into sand.
Scavengers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, friendship, healing, vulture on October 20, 2022| 8 Comments »
A wake of vultures circled above us
as we sat on the porch, conversing,
their dark wings unflapping as they spiraled.
How did they know there would be carrion to devour
when my friends and I did not yet know?
The conversation began, perhaps, like most others.
Weather. Politics. Health. But as it deepened,
we spoke naked. We spoke wound. We bled fear.
We cast off ideas that no longer served us
and left them for dead.
God, they were beautiful,
the vultures as they circled,
their black wings backlit by the light.
They feasted on the scraps we left on the ground.
We emerged so light, so wildly alive.
Surprise Treasure
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, loss of the separate self, trauma, treasure on October 19, 2022| 6 Comments »
Treasure is a picnic
in a clearing amidst redwoods,
a black and white blanket to lie on,
a sky only blue. It’s hours to wander.
It’s the braid of conversation
between friends and the moment.
Treasure is never what we thought it was.
Once we thought we were supposed
to live perfect, unfailing lives.
Now we know treasure can look like scars.
Can emerge from the scent of burnt dreams.
Now we know treasure often arrives
only after we’ve been torn apart—
torn apart, then woven back together
with bits and strands of the world woven in,
a process that happens again and again
until we know ourselves more as the world
and less as who we thought we were.
Sometimes, like today, the scents
of evergreen and bay weave in, too.
And the velvet of moss. And the clean
taste of water. And the heartbreak
of another who we treasure,
a heartbreak so tender,
we now feel it and grow from it
as if it is our own.
When My Friend’s Husband Brings Us a Morning Treat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grandmother, kindness, mango, service, sweetness, time on October 18, 2022| 11 Comments »
I want to go back in years
and find my grandmother Rose
when she is living in Illinois
with my grandfather,
a cruel and angry man.
I want to meet her
on a cold snowy day
when the world feels small
and she feels smaller,
and I want to serve her
a bowl of ripe mango
with a squeeze of lime.
I would love to see her face
when she tasted it—
the orange flesh
that sings of sunshine,
warmth, and the far away.
Would she love it
the way I do this morning,
astonished by the goodness
that exists in the world?
Would she thrill,
as I do, in the surprise
of being served?
As it is, I delight in sitting
on a deep red couch with my friend,
sighing as we slip the soft cubes
into our mouths,
making lists of people
we long to feed mango—
like Beethoven, like Etty Hillesum,
like my grandmother,
who likely never tasted
a mango, my grandmother,
who knew so little of kindness.
Over sixty years later,
I long to serve her mango
to make her feel seen,
cared for, special,
astonished by the sweetness
of the world.
The Day I Learned More About Saying No
Posted in Uncategorized on October 17, 2022| 6 Comments »
There was that day at the orchard,
a hot July day, when, who could explain why,
it began to hail. And within two minutes,
a whole crop of ripe sweet cherries were pocked
and rendered unsellable.
And I was the fruit grower’s wife who ran outside
and felt the sharp sting of hail on my bare arms
and I raised my face to the sky and screamed No!
But the hail fell and did its devastation.
In seconds it had melted. The sun came quickly out.
And I stood amidst acres of ruined fruit,
my no just one small note unheard
in the grand score of yes.
Since that day, when I hear myself say no,
I remember how I walked down the rows
bringing blemished cherry
after blemished cherry to my lips,
the world exactly as it was,
despite my resistance,
sweet red juice dripping down my chin,
staining my hands.
It Did Not Look Useful, But
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dancing, Dolly Parton, friendship, light, singing, woods on October 16, 2022| 6 Comments »
for an hour we danced
in the tiny kitchen
and sang with Dolly,
our voices braided
like eager vines,
and for that hour
I smiled and swayed
and I felt such spaciousness—
like a lost girl in a fairy tale
who has walked through dark woods
and arrived in a glade
with sunlight streaming
and flowers and bird song,
and though she’s still lost,
for this moment she’s safe,
not only safe, but happy,
truly deeply happy,
and when she reenters
the cold, dark woods,
as she must,
a bit of the shine
has twined into her.
Even now, I feel it,
the radiance,
how it shimmies
just like we did
beside the old oak cupboards,
how it glitters in the dark,
how it moves.
Ripening Joy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, joy, persmimmon on October 15, 2022| 10 Comments »
Joy grows, sometimes, like a persimmon.
A moment might begin like a lifeless-looking stick
shoved in the ground and ignored and, somehow—
perhaps through the fine soil of friendship—
perhaps just through luck,
it becomes a giant tree with branches
laden with the bright orange, honey-ish fruit,
so much fruit you have to scrape sweetness
from your feet just to walk in the door.
No way, you think, can joy can go from barren
to bountiful so quickly. But just today, I woke
with an ache and within an hour found myself
with friends under a tall persimmon tree
picking ripe, warm fruits.
We gathered the globes with our hands,
those reddening ambassadors of joy,
pulled the lusciousness to our mouths,
laughed with our good fortune,
and bit into the jam-like flesh—so delicate,
so unashamed of the fact it wasn’t always this way.
Self-Portrait While Sleeping Alone in Alison’s Room
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, friendship, gratefulness on October 14, 2022| 8 Comments »
Of course, there are books everywhere—
shelves and stacks and bags of books.
Though I would not have guessed
there would be small wooden ladders
with many rungs for the mind to climb.
And the colors on the walls are warm
and the breeze through the open window
is cool. Through one window, some neighbor
is playing their radio loud,
though it’s after one a.m.
And out the back window, I can see
in the moonlight a persimmon tree
laden with hundreds of pale orange fruits.
And though Alison isn’t here,
she is so thoroughly here,
and I feel so very not all alone
as I fall asleep by myself in Alison’s room,
aware of my exact shape and grateful
that for this moment, I know myself
as something else that belongs here,
something chosen, something defined in part
by its presence here, something integral
as the tennis ball, the blue flashlight,
the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall.