Sometimes, like today,
when I have opened my heart so wide
that anything at all might fly in—
a sweetness or a curiosity—
sometimes when I am most expansive,
a sinister whisper comes.
It flutters through my blood,
shudders in my heart.
Then I find on the floor
a slender rectangle of light
and lie for a time in the warmth.
The sun soaks in through my skin,
and I invite it deeper in.
I soften.
I rest my hands on my belly, my chest,
Notice their weight,
how the simple rise of breath
is enough to lift them.
Outside, there are chickadees
calling to each other.
I imagine them calling to me.
Swee-tee. Swee-tee.
Oh, fear that I am too much,
oh, fear that I dare to be too big,
I am not surprised you showed up today.
But see how the sun showed up, too,
the enormous sun with its unfailing radiance,
the giant sun with its unstinting glow
the generous sun came
and met me on the floor
to remind me what I can do.
Archive for February, 2023
After Softening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged big, fear, softening, sunshine on February 27, 2023| 8 Comments »
When She Was Afraid She Wasn’t Good Enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, black widow, curiosity, fear, spider on February 26, 2023| 16 Comments »
When fear scuttled through her thoughts
with its eight slender legs; when she recognized
the shiny black body, the bulbous abdomen;
when fear found all her corners and began
to weave inside her mind a home of steel-strong silk;
she did not try to befriend the fear.
Nor did she try to squash it,
though she had a sturdy book.
Not that she wasn’t afraid. In fact,
fear seemed reasonable, if she threatened the fear first.
Instead, as if she were her own sweet child,
she took herself by the hand
and walked right up to the web to explore—
noted the upper structural threads,
the tangle threads in the middle,
the vertical threads in the bottom designed to trap.
Every day she walked back to the web
and stared wide-eyed at the fear hanging upside down,
and then she’d leave and wander
in other rooms where there was low-angled light
the way Renoir might have painted it,
or rooms of flowers, or rooms of song,
rooms of laughter, rooms of starlight,
warm rooms with nothing in them at all.
Eventually she could predict where the fear would be.
Could walk right to its brand new web.
We couldn’t say she liked the fear there.
We couldn’t say she didn’t miss it when it left.
We could say she found a way not to feed it.
We could say that while it lived in her,
she found a way to meet it.
One Impossible Hug
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, death, hug, loss, love on February 25, 2023| 4 Comments »
my arms still recall
the slender stem of your body—
oh, sweet empty circumference
Ineffable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, friendship, love, texting on February 24, 2023| 4 Comments »
—for Kayleen
I couldn’t name
the brilliant red flower
in full bloom,
couldn’t smell it
nor touch it,
but when my friend
sent me an image
of soft ruby petals
all dewy and open
there was no way
I couldn’t believe
in beauty—
and though I couldn’t
hear her velvety voice,
that made her message
no less true—
loving you—
so sitting in a room
alone
in the midst of miles
of snow and cold
I felt so sweetly tethered
to a world beyond
the world I know—
and long after
her message arrived
I continue to believe
in something wonderful
and sweet,
something true
I can’t quite touch,
I continue to believe
in what words
try to point to,
words like beauty,
like friendship, like love.
Tobogganing with My Teenage Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, play, slow, snow, speed, time, winter on February 24, 2023| 7 Comments »
Perhaps I wish for something dangerous—
a rush, a breakneck ride, a snow-drunk risk.
Instead, my daughter and I slide the toboggan
down the drive with a languid, slow-motion
sluggishness. And we laugh as we urge
the wooden sled forward, creeping
down the hill. After a few laps, the run
is fast enough we can build a small jump
at the bottom, but it’s more of a bump
than a launch. What is it in the heart
that loves a surge, a swell of excitement,
a dance with danger? Why is it fun
to be out of control when the stakes are low?
Oh, my girl and I know, we know what it’s like
when the stakes are high. No wonder
we laugh as we slide at the pace of a stroll.
We know what it’s like to be out of control.
We know. I hold her by the waist as we barely move.
And part of me longs for speed. And part of me
is grateful to move in a way that lets me hold her
a little bit, even just a few seconds, longer.
In a Time of Much Doing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged busyness, pandemic, remembering, stillness, time on February 22, 2023| 8 Comments »
Teach us to sit still.
—T.S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday, Part 6”
How soon I seem to have forgotten
how to be still, how to not plan,
how to step out into the day
and let the world itself write
the story of how a morning becomes
an afternoon becomes a night
becomes a woman.
How soon I seem to have forgotten
the value of not doing,
the gift of unscheduling,
the blessing of dipping my toes into the stream
of no time, then wading in full body,
where I remember I am part of an infinite story
at the same time I relearn how fragile it is,
this life.
How soon I forgot I could change it all.
Even now, I could be still again.
I could choose silence.
Even now.
That Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged challenge, snow, storm, winter on February 21, 2023| 11 Comments »
It was like driving through a winter storm
for years, day after week after month
after night after morning of white-knuckled,
stiff-shouldered worry. No tracks to follow,
no sign of a centerline, no rails on the edge,
and where are the snowplows, and what
good is a map when you can’t read the signs?
There were whole months of white out, driving snow-blind
and slow, whole seasons of running the wipers on high
in an attempt to see just one inch further.
It was icy roads, skidding with the baby in back.
It was wishing I could ask someone else
to take the wheel. It was frozen-slick and slippery
with no studded snows. It was sliding with no brakes.
It was what I woke to everyday
and what I dreamed at night.
If there was beauty, I was too afraid to see it.
I wish I could tell you I was brave.
It was slow to change,
like a spring that arrives only to leave again.
One day the drifts were gone and the roads
were dry and the sky was wide blue and clear.
But it wasn’t like snow, was it?
Some things don’t just melt away.
Some storms transform the landscape forever.
Some storms transform the driver.
Sitting in the Driveway with My Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, mother, music, paradox on February 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
You share with me the song
that makes you cry.
Oh strange alchemy
of connection—
as I tune my heart to yours
what at first seemed dark
and moonless
begins to reveal
its tender light.
On Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged prayer, silence, sound, wayne muller on February 19, 2023| 12 Comments »
for Mark Primavesi
Prayer is what happens when we listen, and wait, beneath words, for the outline of heaven and earth to emerge.
—Wayne Muller, “Nourished by Prayer”
Today prayer is the silence
in the snow-deep meadow.
It’s the gurgle of the ice-choked river
that cannot be heard unless
I am completely still. Today,
prayer is not to, it’s not for,
it’s something I am
more than something I do.
Prayer is even the sound
of the logging trucks on the highway
as they brake rounding the corner.
It’s the rapid shush, shush, shush
of my skis in the track as I climb the hill.
It’s the sizzle of onions in the oil.
It’s the hitch in my breath before I cry.
I’m astonished, today, to find
there is nothing that isn’t prayer
when I am aware it’s an invitation
to be completely here, to open;
it’s a call to meet it all
with the love that asks nothing from me
except that I give it and receive it.
Every single thing can be prayer.
Even the siren blaring by.
Even my own familiar voice
as I listen into the silences
for whatever words come next.
All at Once
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, dream, grief, joy, mess, mother on February 18, 2023| 17 Comments »
Before I woke, my son and I
were eating breakfast—
a beautiful brown-crusted boule,
warm from the oven,
and he was slicing it and making
a giant mess of it,
the bread tearing and smushing,
and we were laughing—
his head was thrown back
with the joy of making a mess,
carefree and goofy and foolish.
Crumbs everywhere.
God, how I loved him
as he smashed a hardboiled egg
onto the uneven slice.
How I loved him
as he stuffed his mouth
with the botched bread and egg.
How I loved him as we laughed
and laughed and laughed.
How I loved him when I woke
and he was dead,
his absence making the love
no less beautiful, no less true,
our laughter no less mirthful
in the empty room.