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Posts Tagged ‘alone’

When Feeling Alone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
If there is a door in aloneness,
I want to be brave enough
to stand in aloneness and not
try to walk through that door
in a fruitless attempt to escape
the discomfort of feeling alone.
How many times have I rushed
to try to make things feel okay
instead of staying with the ache?
If there is a door in aloneness,
perhaps it is fashioned
from being vulnerable enough
to feel alone, to surrender to this,
and then it’s not so much
that the door opens, more
that aloneness itself becomes
the key to encountering
an infinite communion.
All along there was nothing
to do and no one to be.
All along, everything was here.
 

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In the Fields of Grief

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 7, 2025| 5 Comments »

 
 
 

 
 
There are millions
of us here, billions,
all of us finding our way
on a different path,
as many paths as there
are griefs. But the field
is the same. Big enough
to hold us all. How is it
I sometimes feel alone,
when every other human
has gathered here
or will gather here
someday? How do I
sometimes fail to see
how grief connects us all,
even when we can’t
get ourselves out of bed,
even when we wonder
why grief looks so different
from the way we thought it would.
Even when we’re breaking down
in a room that looks empty,
even then we are companioned.
Even when we’re most alone,
we are never alone.
 

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Mid-Swirl

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 1, 2023| 13 Comments »


Alone in the kitchen
after midnight
with a small glass
of Sazerac
and a heart full
of wonder,
a woman might
feel herself soften—
softness in her thoughts
and softness in her breath
and softness in the way
she holds her shoulders,
her head—
as if she knows
in this moment
no one needs her
to be anything but
a woman alone
in the kitchen
with a small glass
of Sazerac,
sweet fragrance of anise
tendrillling into her nose.
 

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After Peeling the Beets

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 22, 2023| 6 Comments »



I resist peeling beets,
hate wearing their red tint
on my hands,
but today, the thought
of sweet roasted beets
was enough to make me
overcome my reticence.
Later, I notice it is impossible
to feel separate and alone
when my hands wear the evidence
of what they have touched.
I find myself wishing
everyone could see on my skin
how my life has been marked by you,
how everywhere we touched
I wear the stain of love.

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Remembering

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 2, 2021| 8 Comments »




In the moments after
my father died
I slid next to him on the bed,
and though I held
the anchor of his body,
still warm, I felt untethered
from above and below—
felt the loss of my father
and the loss of my son—
and knew myself adrift alone.

For a long time, I lie there,
too loose, too free,
alone, alone, alone,
and a tender voice
I have heard before
said, Oh sweetheart,
did you forget?

I knew what it meant—
did I forget love would meet me
anywhere I am? And love
showed me in that moment
an infinite sea and said,
Sweetheart, it’s true,
you’re alone. It’s always been true.
And the only thing
that will ever ground you
is not the object of love,
but love itself.

And there in those infinite waters
love baptized me as its own.
No horizon in sight.
And I am not alone.

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Walking Alone at Midnight

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 24, 2018| 2 Comments »

 

 

The moon was hidden and the scent

of rabbit brush was thick, so thick

a woman could be hypnotized by it—

 

it seemed to come from everywhere,

the garbled light, the sage-sharp scent,

the sound of every step she took, and

 

every step she took felt like

a baptism, though into what, she could

not say—herself, perhaps, but more

 

the world, and yes, it was

the kind of tenderness

one only meets when we’re

 

alone and somehow lost

inside the night, amazed that it

can be so warm, so gentle,

 

shocked that we can be so slight

we almost, almost disappear—

but ah, the sound of every step she took

 

reminded her that she was here—

and sage-sharp scent of rabbit brush

caressed her every everywhere,

 

and led her deeper into night,

soft sound of footsteps, garbled light,

the snarl of squirrel nests in the trees

 

made visible through silhouette,

and every every step she took felt

like a baptism, like a rite

 

though rite of what, she could not say,

the moonlight gave itself away

the rabbit brush said here, here, here.

 

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Still, It Would Have Been Nice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 6, 2014| 1 Comment »

only one other
set of footprints in the snow
beside mine—
I try not to hold it against them
for not being yours

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Do you believe in always, the wind said to the rain

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 12, 2012| 8 Comments »

—poem on a line from e.e. cummings

Rubble, smoke, sparrow, stone,
she wakes in darkness all alone.

Angel, master, docent, thief,
she wears the scars of love and grief.

Furrow, honey, Chopin, moss,
those are veils that are her loss.

There’s more, there’s more to be undone—
milk, lattice, lily, plum.

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