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Posts Tagged ‘altar’

Waking on Day of the Dead

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 2, 2024| 8 Comments »


 
 
Eyes still closed, the world
still dark, in my mind
I name my beloveds
no longer here
and my thoughts
become an altar.
I imagine each of their faces,
each of their voices,
surround them with snapdragons
and calendula, smooth stones
and white feathers.
Eventually dawn slips in
as if to light inner candles.
How does it do that, the light?
How does it enter me even
when the eyes are closed?
The dead, too, seem
to find their way in.
I linger with them.
It is beautiful.
When I finally open my eyes
the salt from the altar
has spilled all over my pillow.

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Consecration

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 29, 2024| 11 Comments »


 
 
Even a song can be an altar,
a place to bring an offering—
as on this anxious day
when I can’t stop giving my heart
to love songs for the broken world.  
And perhaps the breath, too, is an altar
on which the song is placed,
which would mean what is sacred
might be ever flowing through us,
a space where we might meet the divine.
To believe this doesn’t change
the song, but it changes everything 
about the singer.

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Before Turning Toward Light Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 14, 2024| 6 Comments »


                  for K
 
 
On the altar of healing,
I would place a blade
of grass to represent tonight
lying in the fresh cut lawn.
You in the cooling shade.
Me in the low, warm sun.
The late summer green.
Distant hum of river.
Your tear as it slipped
toward the grass.
Our laughter about
I don’t even know what.
The way the earth held us,
asking nothing in return.
Your knees on my knees
as we curled in for warmth.
Your fear. My fear. Your trust.
My trust. The way we could
say and hear anything—
anything at all—as the world
turned slowly toward dusk.

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Still Learning to Pray

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 1, 2024| 4 Comments »

The night the scrub oak leaves emerged
was the night the temperature dropped
to twenty two degrees. Whatever had dared
to unfurl has become a brown and brittle thing.
I put these, too, on the altar of the day—
not just the flax flowers purple and thriving,
not just the greens of the sedge, the rush,  
but also the barren branches of oak
with their lack of growth, their shriveled hope.
The dead invite us into the mystery
every bit as much as the living.
I carry the gray sticks like a sparse bouquet.
The woody scent lingers on my hands.

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One Sacredness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 10, 2023| 7 Comments »

 
an altar for wonder—
that small pause
before you speak

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Momentary Altar

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 23, 2023| 12 Comments »


On the altar of sunset,
I place the scent of lilacs
we used to pick every year
to give your teachers
on the last day of school.
I place the sound of the river
where we used to stand on the banks
and throw rocks for the joy of the splash.
I place the wild and vibrant
green of spring
and the new paths your father
has mowed in the field.
I place the ponderosa tree
now taller than you were when you died
and the golden light at the end of the valley.
I place my own naked heart.
Everywhere is an altar,
a place to remember you.
The pond. The driveway. The field.
Everywhere a place to pause,
to wish you well, to tell you
I remember. I remember.
You were here. You are here.
I remember.

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