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Archive for November, 2023

Ten Minutes of Embracing Grief & Joy

What a Thanksgiving gift! I feel so crazy lucky that Jennifer Kent of University of Nevada–Reno created this beautiful 10-minute video as part of their UNR-Lake Tahoe speaker series. Shot at the Lake Tahoe campus in September 2023, it features me reading three poems–“For When People Ask,” “Simple Tools” and “Untamed”–and also conversing about how a daily poetry practice helped me in a time of grief, what I didn’t know about grief before my son died, spaciousness and silliness, and how my most recent collection All the Honey came to be.

Jennifer wrote me, “It felt important to edit this for you before the holidays began … because I think your words will offer comfort to those that struggle to feel joy during the holiday months for whatever reason.” Friends, if that is you who is struggling, I am wishing you deep peace as you meet a difficult time. May you be carried by love.

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One Traveling

while sitting in 24 E
when my girl rests her head on my shoulder
already I’ve arrived

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For ten million years, the sandhill cranes
have trumpeted in their rich, low pitch
and flown over grasslands
as they did today
while we wove our car beneath their V—
oh, their long slender necks,
the slant architecture of their wings—
such elegant things
developing since the Eocene.
How beautifully small I felt then,
a speck in big time,
so lucky to spend even an hour on this planet
at the edge of a marsh where perchance
the cranes are migrating south again
and the heart, astonished, unbidden,
leaps up in wonder and falls in love with life,
a gift of our own brief evolution.

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            while looking at Klimt’s “Tree of Life,” I consider
 
 
After grief carved me, dismembered me,
scattered my parts, I couldn’t imagine
how I’d ever be put back together.
This is how it is life grew me again,
less like a woman, more like a tree
rooted in compassion and forget me nots,
nourished by all that had happened,
rising out of old stories, old wounds,
old parts, old love, new love.
The person I was is gone, yet here,
fueling the flourishing, the unfurling,
fashioning my limbs into a resting place
for dark wings, for golden light.

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Please, don’t paint me today.
Maybe sketch me in pencil,
arms dangling soft by my sides.
Perhaps another day
I will gaze at the world
straight on, chin up,
eyes full of challenge
lips curled in risk.
Perhaps another day
I’ll stand with defiance,
long hair tossed back,
hands on my hips.
But today, dear man,
keep the eraser close.
I’m more paper than gesture.
more blank than bold stroke.
Today I have no mask,
no message, no need
to be seen. In fact,
Gustav, close your eyes.
Let me ask you about
when you met Typhon
and the Gorgons
and how things changed
from snakes to angel choirs
from skulls to golden kisses.
Here, good man.
Show me your face.
Please, hand me the pencil.

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How do we speak of grief with our children? With our beloveds? Sometimes even the softest words feel too crass. Sometimes, the night allows us to be together in wordless times in deeply intimate ways. This poem, “Talking with My Daughter About Grief,” was written after my son died in 2021. It’s part of DARK PRAISE, a spoken-word album on endarkenment–exploring the ways the dark nourishes us.

The video features the amazing Steve Law on guitar, with art by Marisa S. White (Happy Birthday, Marisa!) and it’s made by Tony Jeannette. You can download the album for free or listen to DARK PRAISE on Spotify, Apple Music, or anywhere you stream music. You can also buy the album for $15 to support our efforts on bandcamp

Talking With My Daughter About Grief

We lie in the dark
and speak about anything
but what I ache to speak about.
Some part of me longs
to find the words like search lights
that will help us find
what we don’t yet know
we are looking for.
Or a black light
that might help us see
what is valuable right here,
but invisible to our ordinary eyes.
I try to infuse my words
with candlelight, but somehow
even this feels too brash,
too aggressive, and so
we lie in the dark
and I let the moon
do all the talking.
Oh, waning crescent,
you know when to shine,
when to simply be held
by the dark.

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Tonight I Remember

how he resisted learning
to tie his own shoes,
how I cheered
when he learned
to pinch the laces
between his fingers,
knotting and looping
and pulling them tight,
making a bow
that would stay.
How I encouraged
the very thing
that allowed him
to walk away.
Oh, sweet woman
I was then,
beginning to learn
letting go.
Now that he’s gone,
I’m a student
of being loosened,
untied, undone,
still practicing
how to let him go.

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One Small Step



            for LEI
 
 
intimidated
I enter infinity
through the smallest door

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One with Notes of Cherry

untouched for a month
empty wineglasses dream
of toasting her return

*

Dear Friends, 

This very small poem celebrates my mom’s birthday! A quick update–she has been in skilled nursing for a couple weeks now, and it looks as if she can go home in another week or so. What a long, curve-ball-ish, difficult path. I so appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for her and for me as she navigated the 
ICU and hospital … 

Also, this poem is a very small nod to some fun news … I have several times submitted to the Judd’s Hill Poetry contest, which caught my eye back in 2016 because the prize is a double magnum of cab! And the contest is for poems written about wine. This year, I won! With a poem about mom’s wine glasses … You can read about the amazing vineyard (I am so moved by their values and how they interact with their community) and the wine poetry contest here, and read the winners from the last many years … I don’t think my poem is up yet, but here it is, below, with a smile for mom. Happy Birthday, Mom!!! I have never been so glad you are having a birthday!! 

While Unpacking Giant Wine Goblets


At first, I wish my mother
would consider giving them away—
her new apartment is shy on cupboard space.
How many wine glasses do you need?
I ask, trying to sound reasonable.
She responds by saying,
But they’re for red wine,
as if that explains it—
as if of course, she needs eight
beautiful globe-shaped glasses
for serving pinot noir and merlot.
And they’re so hard to find
in this exact shape, she adds,
clearly pleased with these glasses
she has transferred
from home to home to home.
And so, I think, of course,
she needs these glasses
round as grapefruits, clear
as happiness. I imagine her
sipping a fruity red with easy-drinking
tannins and a super-soft finish.
I imagine the smile on her face
as she sips from the larger goblet
designed so the wine can contact
more air and thus open up
so its cherry and raspberry notes
shine through. I imagine the smile
on her face—and I slide
the glasses onto the shelf
and move on to the china,
the measuring cups, the spoons.

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When it’s dry here,
the clay in the soil shrinks,
its particles pulling
more tightly together
until deep cracks form in the earth,
a force so powerful
it can damage foundations.
This makes me wonder
about how we, too,
storied to have come from clay,
can crack in times of drought.
I have felt it, drought of love,
drought of touch, drought of death,
drought of compassion and justice.
And I have known, too, the miracle
of how when the drought is over,
the clay of my soul expands again,
absorbing what it most needs.
Is it strange how much comfort
I take in knowing it’s natural,
that cracking is what we do,
it’s part of the cycle.
Of course, the cracking.
And of course, the healing.
I am awed by its force
and how little it takes,
even a small bit of rain,
for deep healing to begin.
 
 

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