The clay mug had clearly been broken,
even shattered, then reassembled
with a clear amber glue that allowed
me to see winter sunlight shining through
its walls when I lifted the mug to sip
the rich black tea. I swear, the drink
was even more delicious served
in a vessel so thoughtfully remade.
All day I thought of broken things.
All day I thought of repair. All day
I thought of ways to make beauty
out of what looks, for a time, like despair.
Archive for January, 2025
On Inauguration Day, Amy Serves Me Tea
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, brokenness, inauguration, tea on January 21, 2025| 13 Comments »
Steadfast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, connection, freedom, inauguration, resilience, voice on January 19, 2025| 12 Comments »
Though a cold
wind is howling,
we’re not birds
without wings—
and as long as we
have voices
let us sing together,
sing of freedom,
sing what’s true,
let us sing.
- “birds without wings” is from John Lewis’s speech, January 9, 2005, at the Kennedy Center, at a choral tribute honoring Dr. Martin Luther King
In a Dangerous Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, bones, commitment, love, presidency, ribs, skeleton on January 19, 2025| 12 Comments »
I think of the bones
of the unsung rib cage,
the way they protect
the heart. How bone,
too, is living, how it constantly
renews and remakes itself.
I think of how ribs engage
with other ribs
to expand, to contract,
and because they do
their solid work,
they allow the heart to float.
This is what I want to do:
to be a rib in this body
of our country,
to make a safe space for love.
There is so much now
that needs protection.
I want to be that flexible,
that committed to what’s vital,
that unwilling to yield.
And Then, All at Once, Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, silence, song, winter on January 18, 2025| 8 Comments »
in the barren cottonwood tree
dozens of birds, all of them still,
as if, like me, they are enthralled
doubtful they could ever improve
on all this glorious silence
I, Who Did Not Die That Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, death, love, parts, resilience on January 17, 2025| 23 Comments »
“I, who did not die …”
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Making a Fist”
I, who did not die that day,
also died. Not all of me,
but part of me: The part
who believed I could change things
beyond my control.
The part who believed
any of us can save someone else.
What a terrible freedom to know
what I cannot do. The part
who did not die is the part
who loves—loves what was,
loves what is now, loves as long
as I am able to love.
The part who did not die
is the part who still thrills to see
the twitchy-nosed bunny
streak across the grass
and the near-full moon that bathes
me in cold blue light. The part
who still lives is not afraid to grieve
and lets herself be turned
toward fear and learns,
learns to meet even heartache
with wonder. Like a tree, I grow
from the soil of all I have lost.
I, who did not die that day,
am still being taught how to touch
the wound and let myself be sung
by the part still wildly alive.
Carpe Diem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carpe diem, connection, love, reality on January 15, 2025| 14 Comments »
Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.
—Wendell Berry, 1993, I
Knowing today brings the day of my death
one day closer, I decide to love you more.
By which I mean, I decide
to practice letting myself be
exactly who I am and letting you be
exactly who you are and noticing how
love grows in that most rich soil—
not the thick clay of longing for things
to be different, but the good loam
of reality. Our time here is too dear
to be spent with fruitless wishing.
In this generous earth of allowing,
what might grow? Real love.
The kind that requires nothing
but our laughter and tears,
our anger and forgiveness, our frustration
and tenderness. I feel love root anew
in this ground where soon enough
I, too, will belong. Do you feel it, too,
the blooming between us, this love
that asks only for us
to be faithfully ourselves?
One for My Daughter, Made of Water
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, river, rules, water on January 14, 2025| 4 Comments »
the river must follow its channel,
but every cloud can tell you
water also flows up
The One Great Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being held, belonging, holding on January 13, 2025| 7 Comments »
There are so many ways to hold and be held.
—James Crews, “The World Loves You Back”
Assume belonging.
—Augusta Kantra
There are so many ways to hold and be held.
Like the way the white and black cat holds my lap
even as I hold her small weight.
Like the way a woman holds a canyon in her heart—
its red rock cliffs and snow-thick spruce—
even as the canyon holds her.
And when I hold silence and offer it my whole attention,
I feel how silence holds me,
cradles me with such profound nothing
it becomes everything.
What if we assume we belong?
Then we might find we are held
by strands of birdsong, by the even beat
of eagle’s wings, by the blue moonlight
that reflects off the snow.
I spent so much time worrying
about how to fit in, changing
how I dressed, how I spoke, what I did.
I somehow didn’t learn until recently
real belonging asks nothing of me
except I offer myself exactly as I am.
I become more myself when I trust I am held
as much by shadow as by light,
held by the one shared breath, by the one
infinite song, held by soil, held by sky,
held even by the human longing to be held,
held by the one great story
from which our lives cannot be unwritten.
How We Are Held
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, broken, connection, held, holding, love on January 12, 2025| 7 Comments »
When my arms were the most empty,
when my hands were unable to hold anything
and I was most unselved,
that was when I felt the most gathered up
by love. An immeasurable and wildly precise love.
Even when I wanted to push love away.
Even when I felt too broken to be found.
I felt love gather all my pieces.
Not to fix them.
Not to put them back together.
Love simply held every shattered thought
and every ruined dream and cradled me
just as I was. Not because I deserved it.
Just because that is what love does.
I am learning to trust this feeling of belonging
to the world, broken as it is, broken as I am,
learning to trust I need not do a thing to belong.
I do not know how it all works
or why I was able to receive it.
But I can’t unknow this unfathomable truth:
how love holds us when we cannot
hold anything, gentle as silence,
fierce as a flood, true as the breaking itself.
The way the ocean forever holds every wave.
The way the shore forever changes to hold the ocean.
Evergreen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged language, memory, tree on January 12, 2025| 8 Comments »
Skiing up the railroad grade
we pause to catch our breath
and from somewhere in the woods
a tree speaks to us in a spruce language
we can’t interpret,
and I am again a young girl
at the edge of the forest,
believing I understand the trees,
the way they call to me,
primal and true.
How did I ever forget?