after her funeral
hanging her ornaments
on the evergreen
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
One Return of Friendship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, death, friendship, tree on December 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Shabbat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bread, candle, food, kindness, poem, poetry, Shabbat on December 14, 2019| 7 Comments »
for Peter and Lisa
We covered our eyes with our hands
and repeated the sacred words that Peter said,
blessing the pomegranate juice, blessing
the challah bread. And when we were done
with the prayer, we removed our hands
from our eyes and the candlelit world
was surprisingly bright. Such a simple faith,
kindness. The willingness to invite another in,
to make them bread, to offer them soup,
to say to the other, Here. Feast. Rest. To share
ancient stories and offer new wisdom.
To pass the braided bread, hand to hand,
and eat it together. To listen to each other
until the candles had burned through all their wax.
To continue to listen after the light goes out.
Following the Queen’s Lead
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, Alice in wonderland, impossible, Lewis Carroll, poem, poetry, possibility on December 12, 2019| 2 Comments »
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I put off breakfast for hours,
hoping it will allow more time
for impossible thoughts to come.
They trickle in: World peace.
Inner peace. Healing.
Pure love. An abundance
of unrestricted hours.
Then, stymied, I put off lunch.
Put off snack. Just before dinner
I meet a sixth impossible thought:
accepting the world the way it is,
falling in love anyway.
Who wants to believe in that?
But acceptance shines
through the window like a full moon,
as if it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Eventually, the night is so bright
anything seems possible.
As the Chemo Begins
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chemo, friendship, hair, healing, poem, poetry on December 12, 2019| 5 Comments »
Most of her hair was gone already,
but I guided the electric razor across her scalp,
brown tufts falling into my fingers.
We listened to music, drank wine,
toasted to vulnerability. She made jokes
about not needing to buy shampoo.
I sang along with the songs we had chosen—
choked on the lyrics to “Life is Wonderful,”
hummed when I couldn’t sing.
There are days when wonderful
is so far from what we might have chosen,
but wonderful it was, my hands
smoothing across the new naked landscape
of her head, delighting in the feel of the fuzz,
marveling at the gift of sharing loss and fear.
There are days when we lean into each other
and cry. And such a terrible wonderful it is,
letting the tears come. Weeping them together.
Tomorrow the World
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged jellyfish, poem, poetry on December 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Title from “Starting with Little Things” by William Stafford
Meet the world as jellyfish do,
evolving toward clarity,
straddling the balance
of what can and can’t be seen.
Know when to contract,
when to expand—to be efficient
and full of grace.
Become a bell that rings
only silence. A dance
that knows only pulse.
In the dark, be able
to be the light. In the light
learn to bloom.
The Poem Tries
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, ars poetica, augusta kantra, meditation, poem, poetry on December 9, 2019| 2 Comments »
Let yourself be danced.
—Augusta Kantra
The poem sits down to be written.
Instead, it stares at the bay.
There’s a highway in the distance
that could take it all the way to California.
The poem doesn’t want to go to California.
It wants to be present, just here,
on the sandy bank beside the driftwood.
It wants to find its inner poem.
It wants to get out of its own way,
to obey its emerging form.
Instead, it watches the tall grass
getting danced by the wind.
It sighs. The poem wants to know
what it doesn’t know yet.
And the poem wants to be good.
Dammit. It tries to lower its standards,
then judges, compares and tries to fix itself.
It lists. It sits cross legged till its legs
fall asleep. It is a book of sorrows,
a tree of anxiety, a wave of failure.
It’s a cage of empty lines. How
did it get into this straight jacket?
The poem gives up. It stares at the bay.
Watches the grasses sway. Notices
how the wind blows its hair,
lifts its hands. The poem doesn’t know
why it’s weeping. In that moment,
the poem is danced.
Who Am I?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poem, poetry, question, silence on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I thought I wanted
a harmonium of answers,
a key of certainty,
a hymn of how to,
but silence gave me
the most beautiful gift—
one true question.
Inner Locating
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poem, poetry, silence on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Close to the waves,
I hear only waves.
Close to the cars,
I hear cars.
Come closer,
says the silence.
Come closer,
says the heart.
One Simultaneous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, snow, time on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Instead of Getting Riled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, bird, meditation, pelican, poem, poetry, stillness on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The pelican dives
into the water,
rises again. Hovers.
Dives. Rises.
Each time, the water is quick
to forget the intrusion
loses its ripples,
stills. A thought
is a kind of a pelican.
A woman is a kind
of a bay. The pelicans
will always dive.
The bay will always
return to stillness.
A woman might
learn to live this way.
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