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.
Posts Tagged ‘acceptance’
Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, openness, rain, trust on August 11, 2024| 6 Comments »
Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, bindweed, garden, hands, practice, touch, weeding 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.
Grief Is Not Like the Squirrel in My Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, grief, mouse, squirrel 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.
Afraid My Actions Would Hurt Someone Else,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, belonging, burr, resistance 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)
Beyond Perfect
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, contentment, good enough, imperfection, perfection, raspberry 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.
Some Days It’s Like This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, meeting death, mortality, tea on June 25, 2023| 4 Comments »
Today it is somehow easy to know I will die.
Meeting mortality feels as possible, as natural
as inviting someone over for tea.
Caffeine or no caffeine, I ask.
Mortality shrugs as if it’s all the same.
I settle on the new tea I bought yesterday,
assam with rose petals. It’s dark and floral
and makes the mouth come alive.
You’re really not afraid of me today?
mortality asks. I shrug and say, Not right now.
We sip from our cups and stare out at the field
where the wind is whipping the tall grasses
in rhythmic pulses. “It’s good,” says mortality.
I nod. And we sit in content silence.
There just isn’t much to say.
When our cups are empty, mortality
doesn’t leave. It occurs to me then
my invitation to tea wasn’t necessary.
Mortality was already here.
It moves with me as I rise to clear the dishes,
as I wash the cups, as I walk out
into the wind, into the field.
Then I Stood There a Long Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, failure, falling, let x equal x, standing, winter on March 10, 2023| 11 Comments »
Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.
—Mary Oliver, “It Was Early”
There is no lovely way to put this.
It was sleeting. I am not going to tell you
how the gray sky unfolded like a somber rose,
how the misty air softened every dark
and barren thing. It was sleeting.
And slick. And when I fell, it hurt.
A lot. But I got up. I got up.
When She Was Afraid She Wasn’t Good Enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, black widow, curiosity, fear, spider on February 26, 2023| 16 Comments »
When fear scuttled through her thoughts
with its eight slender legs; when she recognized
the shiny black body, the bulbous abdomen;
when fear found all her corners and began
to weave inside her mind a home of steel-strong silk;
she did not try to befriend the fear.
Nor did she try to squash it,
though she had a sturdy book.
Not that she wasn’t afraid. In fact,
fear seemed reasonable, if she threatened the fear first.
Instead, as if she were her own sweet child,
she took herself by the hand
and walked right up to the web to explore—
noted the upper structural threads,
the tangle threads in the middle,
the vertical threads in the bottom designed to trap.
Every day she walked back to the web
and stared wide-eyed at the fear hanging upside down,
and then she’d leave and wander
in other rooms where there was low-angled light
the way Renoir might have painted it,
or rooms of flowers, or rooms of song,
rooms of laughter, rooms of starlight,
warm rooms with nothing in them at all.
Eventually she could predict where the fear would be.
Could walk right to its brand new web.
We couldn’t say she liked the fear there.
We couldn’t say she didn’t miss it when it left.
We could say she found a way not to feed it.
We could say that while it lived in her,
she found a way to meet it.