for Joan Shearer
From six hours away,
she holds my hand.
Tonight when my ship
has no anchor, she meets
me in the waves and
floats with me there.
Not because I told her
I needed her. It’s more
that her soul is ever ready
to bob in the swells.
We drift. We say nothing,
but I don’t feel alone.
We’re alive in the silence
that weaves through all sound,
connected by the invisible
currents that govern whatever
is real. What is real: letting
another person feel what they feel.
And being there with them,
saying “I love being with you like this,”
sharing the fullness so present
even from six hours away.
Archive for March, 2023
From Six Hours Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, silence on March 30, 2023| 2 Comments »
Beyond Beautiful
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged augusta kantra, love, woman on March 30, 2023| 6 Comments »
for Augusta
She is the hot rod engine,
the fuel, the transmission.
She is the race itself.
She is the door,
the picker of locks,
the opening swing, the courage
to step through the frame.
She’s the path. The steepest road.
The gentle country lane.
The quiet when the sun goes down.
The warmth when it rises gain.
She is the still of shavasana,
the leap in the merry heart.
She is the immeasurable dark,
the faithful moon,
a kite, a riotous wind.
She’s candle and constellation,
bonfire, firefly, comet that crashes the sky.
She is sky. She is faint scent of rain.
The sweet of satsuma,
the double bloom of camellia,
the nothing you can’t quite touch.
She is the key that opens your thoughts,
the song that grows your soul.
She’s the beacon at the bay,
the pelican deep dive,
the ever present tide of the seas.
She’s the luck that makes itself,
the wildflower that blooms
wherever its seeded,
the prayer that slips itself into your heart
in exactly the moment you need it.
Unscheduled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, busy-ness, time, wonder on March 29, 2023| 3 Comments »
No matter the day is already planned
to the minute. No matter how pressing
the deadline, the must do, the should.
It takes only a second to look out the window
and see the brown bunny in the brown grass.
It takes only a second to fall in love
with the twitchy nose, the nervous eyes,
the lumpy shape of bunny.
How quickly the known world cants toward awe
when wonder slips in—wonder forged
not from epiphany or greatness
but from the barest instant of meeting what is real.
Impossible Generosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, grief, love, parenting on March 27, 2023| 12 Comments »
for my daughter
I want to give you what I could not give you,
a world where there is no hurt or grief.
a world where you don’t know
ravaged and sleepless nights,
don’t know mornings too quiet
or the color of dirt in the cemetery.
Because I cannot give you this,
I want to give you the certainty
that you can live fully in a world
where there is hurt and grief,
that you can meet what is most painful
and at the same time
turn toward what is beautiful.
I want to give you a love so safe
that you grow into yourself
certain that there is nothing
you can do or not do
that could keep me from loving you.
I have been loved like this, too,
and did not know the enormity of the gift
until I longed to give it to you.
I want you to take it for granted
that love is so vast, so unshakeable,
so true. I want to give you the belief
in your resilience, want you to know yourself
as a flower that grows more vigorously
after it’s been cut back.
I would keep the hands from cutting you,
but since I can’t do that,
I want to be the soil, the rain, the sun.
I want to give you what cannot be given,
want to give you what you have given me—
the astonishment of living with you
in a time of hurt and grief
and the miracle of watching you grow.
New Poetry Collection! All the Honey
Posted in Uncategorized on March 26, 2023| 7 Comments »
Oh friends. I am so excited to share with you that I have a new collection of poems, thanks to the amazing Samara Press: All the Honey. It is a full-spectrum collection forged from great love, filled with devotion, loss, humor, devastation, joy, grief, epiphany, exhaustion, and all in between. It comes out April 18.
On the day of the launch, I hope you will join me, Tuesday, April 18, 11 mountain time, for a very special “lunch launch” hosted by Mythica and my beloved friend Kayleen Asbo. I will read poems from the book, and Kayleen and I will converse about poetry and how creativity can alchemically transform the pain of profound loss into a source of brave beauty that calls us into deeper relationship with all that is.
For more information and to register for this donation-based program, visit here.
*
All the Honey is available for pre-purchase at Bookshop.org
Or from Amazon.
Or at your own local bookseller.
OR
If you would like a book signed and/or personalized, please order it from Telluride Bookstore. (There is a big blank space at the end of the online order form where you can say who it is for, and if it is a gift, please also say who it is from). Please note, however, that Telluride Bookstore will be closed for the month of April and will not be taking orders during this month. SO if you wish to order from them, please do so BEFORE April 1 or AFTER May 1. In all cases, books ordered before publication date will be sent after May 1. This offer for book signing and personalization is good until June 1. Giant thank yous to the owners Jennifer and Brad Ball for making this possible!
If you live nearby, I will be doing an in person reading for All the Honey in Ridgway on April 25 at 7 p.m. at the Sherbino Theater featuring music by Ford & Fitzroy. And on May 2 in Telluride at Telluride Arts on Main at 5:30. More info TBA.
Two Months after My Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, grief, light, Mirabai Starr, silence on March 26, 2023| 3 Comments »
for MS
She gave me an hour.
Since then, every minute
has grown from the soil
of that time.
She gave me silence.
It was the wisest teaching.
She did not know me.
She deeply understood my heart.
There was a time
when she, too,
was met with unthinkable loss.
Now she knows
to say the name
of the one who is gone.
She knows not to fix.
She knows the gift
of being seen.
She asked for nothing
in return.
Over a year later,
I remember how she listened
with her eyes.
I remember the generosity
of her gaze.
She lit a candle for my child,
a golden light
on a bed of amethyst.
With that flame,
she has lit hundreds more
through my hand.
Sometimes I wonder
where her flame began,
I think of all the hands
lighting all the candles.
How beautiful that light.
How far we have come
from the dark we have known.
One Everyday Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily, meaning, mother, transcendence on March 26, 2023| Leave a Comment »
this errand, too
a quest for transcendence—
taking my girl for a haircut
What the Heart Would Keep of Today
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, grief, meter, mothers, sorrow, time on March 25, 2023| 3 Comments »
for Naomi
Into this time capsule
of our conversation
I add a shovel and two trees,
a candle (of course),
a black and white button,
a closing door,
an inner knocking,
a cat box, tears,
wise words from a monk,
what isn’t here,
a dissolving dream,
long ribbon of laughter,
a letter that survived
four years of weather,
books we’ll never read,
the great hole inside,
sorrow that will be with us
until we die, and …
and whoever finds this capsule
couldn’t possibly guess
how this strange collection
nourished two friends.
It just looks like a shovel
and some other strange things—
but for an hour,
oh friend, we had wings.
Bonding After My Son’s Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chemistry, friendship, grief on March 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
for Summer and Autumn
Tonight, while buying bread,
I saw my son’s beloved friends—
and as I held them in my arms
and thrilled at the connection,
I imagined how my friendship
with them is a kind of covalent bond—
we join just as atoms are held
together through shared electrons.
My sweet son is the electron.
To anyone else watching,
it might have looked like a hug,
but I know with all my matter,
this energy (I call it love)
this is how the world was made.