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Posts Tagged ‘acceptance’

The Rooms of the Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 21, 2026| 8 Comments »


                  for Rachel
 
 
I thought my heart might need a makeover.
There are well worn paths from all the entrances
and exits. The color palette hasn’t changed
since the early seventies when the heart
was first decorated. And the four chambers,
sometimes feel a little tight. Shouldn’t I make it
a little nicer for guests? I spoke to the interior designer,
asked her to spiff it up for me. She smiled and said,
Sweetheart, there’s nothing more beautiful
than a well-loved heart. Its colors are always true.
You don’t need anything new or fancy. Every ding,
every scratch has made you who you are—
a home for love. Let it be.

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Acceptance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
As wet loves the waves,
as dark loves night
as white loves snow
as a bell loves the strike
as a wing loves air,
as the shout loves the ear
as silence loves silence
let me love what is here.

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With My Open Heart as Bait

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 23, 2026| 1 Comment »


 
 
What are you catching today?
I asked the man on the pier.
Nothin’, he said.
What do you wish you were catching?
I asked.
Anything, he said.
And could I be so brave?
Could I throw out my line
to the ocean of the world,
stand there at the edge,
patient and still,
and say to life, anything,
anything at all, whatever you give me,
I’ll reel it in. I’ll take it.

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After I Fell in the Canyon of Grief

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 7, 2026| 7 Comments »


 
we discover that falling in the canyon is our initiation
—Mark Nepo, “The Life After Tears”
 
 
I didn’t land. I fell and I fell and I fell.
At first as I plummeted, I feared the landing,
imagining an imminent crash. Then,
I fell through nights and middays. Fell through
kitchen floors and highways. Fell through
birthdays and Saturdays. Fell until the sense
of groundlessness was so familiar it no longer
felt like peril. I don’t know when I stopped falling.
There was no splat. No splash. No crushing of bones.
No sense of arrival. In fact, I am not certain
I am done with my falling. But I do know now
the falling is not something to be feared.
Not that we grow wings. This is not about flying.
It’s about falling. About meeting the gravity
and feeling its force and letting it carry me
in ways I have never before let myself be carried.
Now I know that the canyon of grief is
just another name for living the fullest life.
The reward for the falling is to no longer
expect a reward. The reward of falling is to
learn to not resist the falling. The reward of falling
is to feel how grace falls with us as if holding
our hand, like a teacher, like a friend.

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One When I Feel Shoreless

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
your voice on the phone
each word a stepping stone
toward acceptance
 

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After Four Hours of Driving, We Arrive at What Google Maps Said Would Be a Park

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 2, 2025| 3 Comments »


 
 
There is no park.
Still, we park at the edge
of the road and look out
over the Hudson
beyond the thick trees,
inhale the yellowing
scent of autumn,
reach our arms up to the sky,
play chase around the car,
and laugh the whole time,
at first in disbelief,
and at last in surrender.
One more chance to meet
the world that is here
instead of the world
we expect. One more chance
find ourselves grateful
to be exactly where we are.

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Sitting in a Quiet Room

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 8, 2025| 4 Comments »


                  with thanks to Karly Pitman
 
There is this stark moment
when I see I am not my worry.
When I do not chastise
myself for worrying, nor
do I demonize the worry.
I do not imagine the worry
as a snake or a tick or a nail.
I welcome it into my lap,
uncomfortable teacher,
and pause here
on the hard chair of curiosity.
Softness arrives with conscious breath.
In and around me blooms
spaciousness.
Silence is the tenderest lullaby.
It holds both the worry and me.
It has no tongue, yet the lyric is clear,
There is nothing here you cannot meet.

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One After a Long Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 27, 2025| 3 Comments »


 
somehow, the broken heart
finally stops trying
to fix its cracks—
how cool, how brisk
the rain it once tried to keep out 

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One Ever-Changing Pressure

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

bless the accordion heart—
whether it opens or closes
it’s all a chance to sing

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Trust

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 11, 2024| 6 Comments »

 

 
 
Let the rain fall as it will
and fill the ditches and
flood the paths. Let it
pour from the gutters
and spill from the eaves.
Let the gulleys be gushing
and roiling with rain.
Let it rain. Let it rain as if
it will never stop raining.
Let it rain until everything
glistens and shines.
Even the sunflowers,
gold petals now limp.
Even my longing
for sunnier days.
Even my longing
to push it away.
Remember when
I prayed for rain?
Let it rain as long as it rains.
Let it rain and let me
laugh in the rain,
let me dance in the rain,
let me cry until
my tears rhyme with rain.
And let me be soft
in the rain. Let wonder
be present as rain—
driving rain, gentle rain,
long and relentless rain—
the rain I know by another name.
This poem is not
about the rain.
But because it is about to rain,
let the heart exclaim,
Let it rain.  
 

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