I sleep. I sleep and sleep and sleep
like a bear, like a snail, like a bee,
I sleep until the sun finally slips
above the riverside cliffs
and enters my bed like
a lover. I do not open my eyes,
but the light and warmth
slide into me anyway
as if all of me were waiting,
waiting to be entered by light.
And I have been waiting—
which I might have denied,
snuggled in deep as I was,
drowsy and night-drunk,
certain of my joy in the dark,
but oh, such a way to wake,
discovered by the light of a star
as it kisses my face and strokes
my skin, offering to give me everything
if only I open more.
Archive for December, 2024
On the Winter Solstice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged sleep, sunshine, winter solstice on December 22, 2024| 1 Comment »
Kinetic Joy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged billiards, daughter, joy, mother, physics, science on December 21, 2024| 5 Comments »
for my daughter
It’s perhaps like billiards,
in which the cue ball collides
with another ball, and the kinetic
energy passes on to a second ball—
that’s how it is when you,
in your joy, collide with me in a hug,
and your joy passes on to me,
my every molecule vibrating
as your bliss becomes my bliss,
your joy becomes my joy, until
I’m dizzy with it, spinning with it,
rolling around the room with it,
in fact it’s what I was made for,
to be moved by you, by your joy.
Inner Acreage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged inner world, intention, stillness on December 20, 2024| 3 Comments »
There are caves there where
I can rest without light
and radiant meadows
with room to expand
in every direction
They’re not real, of course.
Nor is the wasteland.
The glorious abyss.
Which is to say nothing
could be more real
than these inner landscapes
that always receive me,
whether I’m on a bus
or in line at the market
or lying in bed before dawn.
Sometimes I forget
the inner world is there. I start
believing only in the outer world.
How exhausting life is then.
But when I remember
to live through the gate
of intention, when I still,
it’s as if I am being breathed,
being lived. I’m out of the way.
Then everything is the way.
It may not always be pleasant.
It’s always exactly as it is.
There are no words there,
but look at me, trying anyway
to explain this nothing to do
and nowhere to go
and nothing to experience
which is everything.
I’m like a traveler trying to take
a dozen photos to represent
a whole country, only to discover
they’re all blank.
Like a child in a fairy tale
trying to leave a trail to get back,
only to have the crumbs
disappear.
The Man Who Rings Me Up at Target
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, hope, labor, mother, transformation, work on December 19, 2024| 4 Comments »
tells me he used to be mean.
Tells me used to not like
who he was. Tells me he dreamed
of his mother after she died
and she told him that though
she was no longer with him,
she still could teach him
how to be alive, which,
in practical terms, meant
how to be kind.
In the time it takes for me to buy
lint rollers and lip balm,
I am so moved by this woman
I will only meet through
a dream and a checkout lane
conversation that I walk out
into the night with a smile
on my face. This is the way
we share hope with each other,
one thin strand at a time.
By the time I get to the car,
I’m still smiling, wholly tethered to life
by a gift that appeared so slight
at first I didn’t even know
it was there.
After Wendy Pulls the Fool for Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fool, joy, tarot, Wendy Videlock on December 18, 2024| 7 Comments »
The Fool doesn’t ask
what is past the edge—
what some might call
The Wrong Direction.
He simply smiles
and continues toward
the beginning—
Barefoot. Grinning.
A rucksack the size
of a honey hive.
A walking stick.
Pockets full of maybe.
A shining, walking
sacred energy.
All day, I feel as if
I might step off
the world. All day
I put my faith
in laughter. All day
I notice how in moments
of terror lives also
the chance
to be extravagant
with my joy.
Before Winter Solstice, I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, night, solstice on December 17, 2024| 5 Comments »
This, too, is what we are born for,
this waking in darkness, unable
to see, but still able to hear the shush
of wind in bare branches, able to feel
the charge of our heartbeat, the swell
of our belly as it fills with borrowed air.
I have spent my life learning to love
these shapeless hours before the light
finds us, these shadowsome nights when
my whole being seems to stretch beyond
the bed, beyond the room, beyond the home,
beyond the valley, beyond even the globe,
as if I rhyme with the dark all around us,
the dark that holds us, the dark that surrounds
this whole swirling spiral of galaxy.
Sometimes, I feel how that infinite darkness
calls to the darkness inside me as if to say,
remember, remember where you come from,
remember what you are. And the darkness
inside me sings back.
Falling Asleep with My Head in My Mom’s Lap
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged age, daughter, mother, relaxation, trust on December 16, 2024| 11 Comments »
Mom slips her fingers through my hair;
my eyes close, and I am again
a sigh of a girl, a wisp made of trust,
and I don’t know where she goes,
the middle-aged version of me
who works, who carries, who forges on.
It’s not that I ask her to leave,
she just disappears as I curl deeper
into the den of dreams, my body limp
as a kitten picked up by the scruff.
Maybe I purr. I nuzzle in deeper.
I forget to remember there is anything
else to do. It’s a lifetime before I wake.
One at The Nutcracker
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, daughter, light, mother on December 15, 2024| 3 Comments »
so bright the light you carry—
watching you dance
I, too, am glowing
Grace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grace, healing, light, reiki on December 14, 2024| 9 Comments »
while receiving Reiki, with thanks to T. V.
For a moment,
there appeared a circle
of golden light,
the way sunlight
sometimes streams
through a gap
in the forest canopy
to form a small shining pool
on the ground.
It wasn’t that I
stepped into this light.
More that the light found me,
and for a moment
I knew what it was like
to be found.
This is perhaps
what grace is like—
when we wander
in the dark, cold, lost,
and the light finds us,
not because we deserve it,
not even because
we have asked for it.
It simply arrives,
and it is ours to receive it,
to know gratefulness,
even astonishment,
and to let it inform
what we do next.
One New Teacher
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, birdsong, teacher on December 13, 2024| 3 Comments »
while I sit and stew about the world,
the bird across the river
never ceases in its singing