bullets, bombs, blades
but what does the most damage—
indifference
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged danger, indifference, war | 7 Comments »
Sometimes I expect to see him walking by the river,
to see his tall, thin body move through the willows,
camera in hand. I don’t see him, of course, but I do,
I see him as a young man in a blue button-up shirt,
his hair cut short, his movements doe-like as he
picks his way through the rocks. And sometimes
I see him a young boy, still blonde, still shrieking
with joy at the splash he can make with a big river rock.
And sometimes I see him as the willows themselves,
as if he’s come back in everything—the willows,
the river, the stones, the trees, this woman
who is standing at the window, looking.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged absence, grief, mother, presence, river, son | 10 Comments »
Dad used to love to say of strangers,
We went to different schools together.
He always did love the silly, the goofy,
the nonsensical, the absurd.
Loved making funny noises,
like the time he sent me a cassette
while I was living in Finland. He
squealed high into the recording, saying,
Have you ever heard the sound a sock makes?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I learned from him to narrate the world through sound.
I, too, might find a noise for setting down a plate
or pulling up a window blind, or tugging a weed
or dropping seeds into the ground.
I, too, have heard myself say of a stranger,
Oh yes, we went to different schools together.
And though I’m the one speaking,
it’s Dad’s voice I hear. His hee hee hee
when I’m giggling, laughing till tears spill free.
His squeal when I pull on a sock.
And I don’t pretend to know how it works,
but I believe we are, even now, somehow
in different schools together—me in the school
of life, him in the school of death.
I don’t know what he is learning, but I
am still learning how to love what is
and what isn’t here, how to show up,
how to listen to and interpret
the secret sound of a thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged daughter, father, grief, silliness | 12 Comments »
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you, and if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
—The Gospel of Thomas, verse 70
There is a galaxy in my heart,
a vastness that surprises me
each time I dare look—
my god, it’s so much larger
than I could ever explore.
Filled with dark things that defy
investigation and dead places
where nothing can live and brilliant
places so radiant I’m unable to look
straight on. There is a galaxy
in my heart so expansive it sometimes
frightens me—what does it mean
to not know my own bounds?
What if I never live into my capacity to love?
There is a galaxy in my heart
that knows itself by spiraling,
swirling out from its own center,
and forming new stars.
Did I ever believe it was limited
to hold only so much?
The galaxy in my heart
invites me to remember
I am made of mystery, and
whatever theories I have
of how and who I love
are always being changed.
Even now, it stuns me,
how galaxies sometimes merge.
Imagine, if your galaxy
and my galaxy come together,
my god, how much vaster
our hearts can become.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged connection, galaxy, heart, love | 4 Comments »
like a sentry
at the gate of forever,
this moment
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged the moment, time | 2 Comments »
after James Crews, “Mud-Puddling”
Those were the years we gathered dark mud in our hands,
slathered it all over our legs, our bellies, our arms,
our faces, our hair, until only our lips and eyes
were not coated in thick river mud.
We did not know then we were mud-puddling
the way butterflies do, gathering essential nourishment
from what is fusty and damp and messy.
Is not pleasure one of the greatest nutrients of all?
How I loved going from clean to filthy, the slick mud heavy
on our skin before it dried and cracked in the sun.
We’d peel it off in chunks or in flakes,
then jump into the brown waters
of the Gunnison River and emerge less caked
but no less dirty. Perhaps this was training
for the heart, learning to let the self roll in the mess,
to treat the great muddle like a playground.
Then I still believed in a shiny version of happiness,
but fifteen years later, haven’t I come to trust there is something
nourishing in death, in ache, in turning toward fear—
something necessary I need to sustain me?
It is no surprise when I read that butterflies seek not just mud
but dung, rotting fruit, urine and carrion.
Oh heart, bless the wings of your intuition.
You know it does no good to fly only toward the beautiful.
Still it is not easy to choose what is messy, disordered, dank.
Perhaps it helps to remember now how much joy we once found
in that cold, blackish mud. When we were fully covered, I remember
how brilliant they were—our flashing eyes, our smiles so wide.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged butterfly, joy, mess, mud | 8 Comments »
lighting a small candle tonight
for your child as you
light a small candle for mine—
from hundreds of miles and years apart
we rhyme
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged candle, connection, loss, mothers | 2 Comments »
for Laure-Anne Bosselaar
If I can’t love all of it, I can at least love
what is good in this moment—
these three fresh-cut roses on the table
in a small clear vase, their fragrance
mingling with the scent of lemon blossoms
that arrives through the open French windows.
This moment with its wall full of poetry books
and their welcoming spines.
This moment in a spacious room
with white couches and white curtains
and a white quilt on a king-sized bed.
I can love this place I have been lucky enough’
to land for one night,
this place with its jacaranda tree visited
by a peregrine falcon each morning,
this place steeped in the musings
of Hoagland and Lux, this place
with three fresh lemons set beside my backpack
that I will take home with me and slice
into my water glass. And I believe
I will love that moment, too,
when I taste the sharp sweetness
and look back on this moment
when I feel so cared for, so carried
by a woman who wrapped her arms
around me tonight and said she was glad
we were together. We said the word glad again
and again, as if a word could somehow
contain all this goodness,
which of course, it didn’t, no,
in fact, it amplified all this good
until, like a lemon tree bowing to the weight
of its own abundance, I too felt like bowing
to every little thing saying glad, glad, glad.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged glad, gratefulness, Laure-Anne Baaselaar, words | 2 Comments »
In the night dark room
we sit together and speak
in tones tender enough
for anything to be said,
even vast things
that frighten us most,
even shimmery things
that surprise us,
and the night is a spindle
that twines the honesty
and courage of our words
into yarn, and trust is a needle
that uses the yarn
to stitch us together
so even when we are apart,
I can tug on one of those stitches
and, from half a country away,
I feel you tugging back.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged conversation, friendship, trust | 6 Comments »
because
you,
me
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cause and effect, connection, friendship, interconnectedness, legacy | 6 Comments »