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.
Posts Tagged ‘acceptance’
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 »
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.
On a Day When Life Feels Black and White
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, ekphrasis, gray, Kayleen Asbo, paris, Van Gogh on May 25, 2022| 10 Comments »
Inspired by “Impasse des Deux Frères” by Vincent van Gogh and Kayleen Asbo’s musical response, “Moulins de Gallette.”
Some days, like today, I long for rain,
long for the muted, grey kind of day
that unfolded in the oils of van Gogh,
when he’d stroll through the flat
and quiet daytime streets of Montmartre,
those dreamy hours when the world
is not too bright, not overly exultant,
not too sure of its gaiety,
a day when the wind is the only thing
that feels it needs to move,
when I don’t need to know anything
about anything, can notice how
the world resists resolution,
how the barest scrap of color
can change the whole scene,
can let myself be content to be gray,
can let myself be a student of windmills,
notice how it’s the invisible forces
like silent love, like persistent wind,
that make the whole world spin.
Acceptance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, grief, rain on March 10, 2022| 13 Comments »
Today grief is a long steady rain
and the thing to do is to walk
in the long and steady of it.
The thing is to let the face
get wet, let the clothes get wet,
let the hair get wet and plastered
against the cheeks, the neck.
The thing is to meet the soaking world
and the soaking skin and the soaking
shoes and the soaking dreams
and not pretend it’s dry.
Whatever longing there is for dryness,
it is soaking too. Because it’s raining,
the thing to do is to walk in the long
and steady rain, to walk in the sodden,
soaking world, to trust that it will
not rain forever, to breathe in the scent
of the wet, wet earth, to kiss the rain,
to be kissed by the rain.
To be wet in the wet, wet world.
Three Months After His Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, communion, death, oneness, sky, window on November 29, 2021| 7 Comments »
Let’s say there’s a window
at the end of a long dark hall—
the more we walk toward it
the farther away it feels.
And then, let’s say, we stop
trying to get anywhere and meet
where we are. That is how
I found myself on the other side
of the window, released
into sky—blue sky, then tangerine
sky, then sky dusky pink.
That is how I found myself
talking with my son the way
we used to whenever he went
to camp—through the sky.
Only this time we didn’t talk.
We just were. Together.
I would say we were fused,
but more truly, perhaps, commingled,
as if our atoms were diffused enough
to commune. To know this
for a moment is to know it
forever—how it is that
there is no separation.
How it is that we are one.
I Didn’t Think I Could Do It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, dark, grief, light, mother, softening, son on November 15, 2021| 22 Comments »
But I found myself
rigid in the room where my son
took his life. And I sat
on the floor in the doorway
where he had last sat,
where his blood had pooled
and the air had briefly smelled
of burning. I sat there
beneath the wall
where the bullet had made
its narrow hole. I sat there
with my coil of sorrow.
I didn’t want to meet it.
I desperately wanted to meet it.
I wanted to give sorrow space.
I wanted to crawl inside it.
I wanted to be anywhere
but there on the dark wood floor
in the night dark room,
and I wanted to be wholly,
completely, obliteratingly there.
Fear-ridden, ferocious,I met it all,
felt the current pushing through.
Acceptance is a filament
that takes our resistance
and makes it bright,
makes it luminous enough
that we might see ourselves
exactly as we are.
I did not find my son
in that doorway. Perhaps
I had hoped I would.
But I saw the light
that came with me.
I softened into that light.
Saint Francis and Sister Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, death, mother, saint francis, son on October 6, 2021| 15 Comments »
As Francis lay dying
in his humble hut,
he wrote a praise poem
that honored Sister Death.
And when death came
to dance with him,
he did not shun her
nor shame her nor
push her away.
He embraced her
the way he embraced
the sun, the wind,
the water, the air.
He claimed her as family,
as dance partner, guide.
Oh Francis, here
in the hut of my heart
is a wooden box of ashes
about the size of a baby.
I can cradle it, carry it,
sway with it slow
the way I once did
with the boy in the box, now dust,
the boy the coroner
swaddled in white.
I did not want this dance.
I stumble. I trip.
I am awkward, ungainly.
Sister Death is certain, serene.
I would have barred
the doors if I could have, Francis,
but now she walks with me,
sleeps with me, makes
dinner and cleans with me.
There is no locking her out.
She brings me the costliest gifts:
Trust in life. Immeasurable love.
Perfume of the great mystery.
I tell her I’d trade them all back
for my son. She whispers,
Oh, sister. Dance with me.
Earl Gray
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, entropy, mess, tea on January 24, 2021| 2 Comments »
Today the lesson is in the little black leaves
floating freely in the tea, loosened
from their bag. How quickly things come apart—
things I wish would stay intact.
And yet I drink from the dark cup
and find joy in the bold, citrusy warmth.
Though it’s messy, though the bits catch
in my teeth and tickle in my throat,
though it isn’t what I would have wanted,
neither has it ruined the pleasure of bergamot,
the sharpness of lemon, the flavor
of acceptance, of morning.
Another Reason to Be a Gardener
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, garden, letting go, practice on July 2, 2020| 7 Comments »
Though it’s July, the grass is iced
from last night’s frost, and the heart-shaped leaves
of the pole beans hang limp and dead.
And so the chance to practice letting go.
It’s too bad, of course,
but the stakes are low.
It was only one row,
a handful of seeds,
a hankering for fresh green beans.
Not a livelihood. Not a child.
Not a hope. Not a dream.
Just a small row of leaves
that do what leaves do.
No one to point a finger at.
No one to pick a fight with.
Just this practice of meeting
the world as it is. This chance to start again—
the work of the living.
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.
When It Comes to Ideas
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, ideas, poem, poetry, sheep, yes on November 11, 2019| 2 Comments »
I am perhaps like the mama sheep
who rejects the lamb that is not her own—
snorts at it, won’t let it suckle,
shoves it away with her nose.
Though her own lamb was born lifeless,
though her teats are full to leaking,
she will have nothing to do with the alien.
It’s not the lamb’s fault it has the wrong scent,
just as it’s not the idea’s fault it was born
in another’s mind. It’s likely a good idea,
just needing a bit of nourishment.
But there are skilled herders who know the art
of grafting, who make of the dead lamb’s skin
a jacket and wrap it around the alien lamb,
tricking the ewe into taking it on as her own.
Then it’s a matter of bonding.
Don’t think I didn’t see you as you stripped the skin.
Don’t think I’m unaware of what you’ve done.
The truth is, I wanted to foster it, to claim it
as my own, to see it frolic in these fields of sage.
I was made for nurturing. It’s just that loss is difficult.
It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to say yes.
Conversation at the Silent Retreat
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, distraction, poem, poetry, silence, sound on March 17, 2019| 5 Comments »
Apparently no one told the tickle in my throat
that this was a silent retreat.
All it wanted to do was explore the sound
of throat clearing, the sound of cough.
All around me the sound of nothing
but breathing and sitting, but in me,
this tickle saying Notice me, Notice me.
Here I am and what will you do about it?
I told the tickle, If I were freeclimbing,
I would ignore you. My life would depend on it.
The tickle said, but you’re here,
here in a quiet room, and your life is at stake
in a much different way. What are you willing
to notice? What do you wish away?
Isn’t this just one more way you tell yourself
life would be better if it were different?
Dear Frost That Will Crack My Bones,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, death, frost, love, poem, poetry on July 31, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Think of the frost that will crack our bones eventually
—Tom Hennen, “Love for Other Things”
Before I can love you, I hate you.
Because the frothy pink of the milkweed
and the monarch who travels thousands of miles
just to feed there. Because the dark leaves
of soybeans, millions of green hearts
per acre. Because ripe blueberries
without a hint of pucker. Because
of the touch of the man who loves me.
Because the cool breeze on my bare arms.
But to love is to open the circle
of what is beloved, to offer my attention
to the concert of crickets and crows,
to the proliferation of box elder beetles,
the weeds that infiltrate the field. Sound
of lawn mowers, jackhammers, swarm
of mosquitoes. Stench of Sulphur. Deep
snows that bury the drive.
And love says why stop there? Widen
the circle to toxic sludge. Yellow jackets.
Earwigs. Freezing sideways sleet. Men
with guns and hate in their stare. Girls
who spit disdain. And the pain
that steals sleep. And the pain
that never leaves. And the pain
that would obliterate every bright thing,
and in so doing, reveal what is most precious—
this ability to love. To love despite.
To love regardless. To love. To love
what I hate, even you, frost that will crack
my bones. Will you not be my final teacher
in how to offer my attention? Will you
not be my last great love?
Love Lessons
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, love, poem, poetry on February 16, 2018| 6 Comments »
When the favorite sweater
becomes threadbare at the wrists
and already you’ve mended it
repeatedly: when you find yourself sewing
on top of your sewing and there
is little left of original thread,
is this when you decide
that the sweater is better worn
with holes, that not everything
needs fixing, that sometimes
what is most loved is what
is most beyond repair?
One Agreement
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, poem, poetry, why on July 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Dear Christie,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, change, death, epistle, orioles, poem, poetry on May 22, 2017| 16 Comments »
Yesterday I found a bird on the ground outside the window. Remember how I had told you about the two pairs of Bullock’s Orioles at our feeder? It was one of the females. I was too squeamish to pick her up with my bare hands. Someone at some time told me about the bacteria on birds, and like so many other stories, I let it define my actions even though I don’t know that it’s true.
I did pick it up, however, fashioned a little stretcher out of cottonwood sticks and carried the bird to the deep grass.
Though it was at the feeder the day before, already it was gone enough to have lost its eyes, now two little sunken spaces where the head pulled in on itself. But the small body was not yet rigid, and it hung, limp, over the sticks.
I sang a death song, as I always do, sometimes out loud, sometimes in my head. It was taught to me by Art. “Nothing lives long, nothing lives long, nothing lives long, not even the mountain.”
I remember the day Art changed the lyric. For many years, he had sung the final phrase, “nothing lives long but the earth and the mountain.” Perhaps like all things
that are new, it trembled something me. The old words were so comfortable and familiar in my ears, my mouth. I suspect the real reason they shook me was the truth of them. Nothing lives long. Not even the mountain.
How small we are. Sometimes, like yesterday, I let my sadnesses and worries become so big, much bigger than my body. I can’t contain them and they spill. It was beautiful to watch how, on that flood of my sorrow, you found a boat and sat in it and showed me it was possible.
Why did I think the deep grass was a better place for the body of the bird? I didn’t question the voice that told me to take her there. Perhaps we are all heading into the unkempt field, a place where we are open and hidden at the same time.
I watched the other three birds all day as they flew from feeder to cottonwood. They were a braid of song, seldom staying in one place for long.
Nothing lives long. It’s no revelation, but sometimes an old truth finds wings in us. And so it was when you told me yesterday, just before you drove away, that I needed to stop hoping things would change—that I needed to decide if I could be happy with things just as they are. Only minutes later I found the bird. Though the two events didn’t seem connected at the moment, now they are like two drops that become one water.
And so this morning, I join you in the boat. Although it is just a metaphor, I notice that it changes things not to be swimming in the waters of wishing things were different. I notice how there are no oars in the boat, and how part of me longs for control and part of me has already found the freedom to stare at the sky.
And there they are, the three orioles, their yellow feathers flashing as they rearrange the air. And there she isn’t, the oriole now laying in the field.
Later today I will fill the feeder. There are some things we can do.
Your friend,
Rosemerry
One Acceptance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, letting go, poem, poetry, surrender on May 10, 2017| 5 Comments »
unable to hold things together
I open my hands, let everything drop
and feel how the world holds me
Though I Have No Bouquet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, love, poem, poetry on March 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Standing on the stoop of your heart,
hand poised above the doorbell,
hoping you’ll open the door,
hoping you’ll keep it open.