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Posts Tagged ‘acceptance’

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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Practice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 20, 2024| 2 Comments »

I plunge my hands into the soil
and tug on the long white bindweed roots
that cling to the cool damp dark.
Never once have I pulled the whole plant.
Always, the bindweed comes back.
Once I might have longed for a weed-free
world. How did I not see the bindweed
for what it is—a chance to touch
again and again what humbles me, and
to learn with my hands the art of acceptance
so my hands might teach my heart.

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Grief Is Not Like the Squirrel in My Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 6, 2024| 10 Comments »


 
 
that’s been eating all my pansies,
eating them to the roots
so that nothing of beauty remains.
 
We were able to lure the squirrel
with sunflower seeds and peanut butter
and trap it in a cage and take it far away.
 
Grief is more like the mice that eat the lure,
then slip through the cage, though the holes
are tiny, the door shut tight.
 
Grief stays. It takes what I offer and escapes.
But it hasn’t devoured all that is beautiful.
See how the pansies are blooming.
 
Like the mice, grief makes a nest
in my garden. We live here together.
I’ve put away the cage.

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Afraid My Actions Would Hurt Someone Else,

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 28, 2024| 7 Comments »


 
 
my chest filled with anxiety,
as if burrs grew in my bloodstream,
sharp barbs catching on my skin from inside.
 
I wanted the feeling to go away.
Wanted to know I could make everything okay.
And the burdock dug deeper in,
 
clinging to my heart as it would
to a sock or a sleeve or a dog.
Inside the burr was a seed of fear:
 
I can’t protect others from harm.
And my teacher said, her voice warm,
Let the fear of repercussions be here.
 
But the longing to control kept
digging into me with spines sharp and long.
Include it as part of the whole, she said.
 
And I thought of wild burdock
with its big soft leaves,
how naturally it grows in a field.
 
How it’s evolved, a product of life itself.
How the root is used to heal.
And I was stunned by the fact
 
that burdock belongs to the field
as much as wheatgrass,
dandelion, wild iris, wild rose—
 
the burr one part of the whole.
And I knew myself as field.
I imagined inside me
 
the grass, the sunflower, the vetch, the trees,
and the uncomfortable burr of anxiety,
which, though painful, belongs.
 
I focused on whatever it is
that holds it all. Inside me,
acceptance opened like a song.

*with thanks to Joi Sharp for her words (in italics)
 

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Beyond Perfect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2024| 9 Comments »

with thanks to Heidi
 
 
It is not the best raspberry.
There have been berries sweeter,
more perfectly formed,
berries I’ve harvested
warm from the bush,
berries that have made me
close my eyes and rhapsodize
about the perfect, juicy,
bulbous joy of raspberry.
Still, this small and fragile fruit
packaged in a plastic shell
sings ripe and red on my tongue,
and on this January morning
it brings news of sunshine somewhere.
I delight in its tartness, its bite.
Bless what is good enough.
Not only bless but cherish—
Cherish this good enough morning
with its good enough fruit
in this kitchen cleaned well enough
for this good enough woman
living into the good enough day,
my mouth slightly puckered,
taste of raspberry still bright
on my tongue.
 

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