Even the word surrender
suggests some agency,
but perhaps
what is asked of us
is zero—perhaps
we are like the seed
of the lodgepole pine
that does nothing itself
to open.
It needs the heat
of a wildfire blaze.
The seed is released
into the blackened,
desolate world
that seemed hellbent
on destroying it,
but it is the carbon-rich
soil left behind by the fire
that feeds the seed
and helps the tree
grow straight
and tall.
No surrender.
No effort.
Who could ask
for the fire?
The seed didn’t.
It did nothing at all.
Posts Tagged ‘awakening’
Serotinous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, effort, fire, lodgepole pine, opening on May 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Opening the Deepest Ears
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, birds, kingfisher, song, waking up on April 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The kingfisher wakes me
with its strident rattle,
thrilling me out of sleep.
It’s been months since
I’ve seen one, and now
on this snowy morning
one clatters and chatters
me into spring.
The heart leaps up,
surprised it doesn’t
have wings. I’m here,
it beats, its own tuneless call.
Like the kingfisher, it’s ready
to dive into the deep.
I’m here, it calls again
from inner branches.
It need not be beautiful,
the song that reminds us
who we are—it calls to us
in its own undecipherable way
until one day when we hear it,
we can’t help but hear
our own name.
One Urgency
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, geese, poem, poetry on August 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Busy Girl’s Satori
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, bird, blue heron, poem, poetry, question, revelation on June 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Across the yard, below
the cliffs, and just beneath the evening’s
drift toward darkening, above
the river, through the trees,
there is, if you are lucky,
a slender moment charmed
by chance when, if you look up,
the great blue heron
will angle past on slanting wing
and make you question
everything.
Puddled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, invitation, poem, poetry, rain on April 7, 2018| 7 Comments »
Today it was the puddle
that woke up my heart,
the way it received the sky
and remade it in smeary mirrors
of grays beneath my feet.
How at first, I tried so hard to avoid it,
and then, once my feet were wet,
I could see it only as a way to play,
an invitation for joy. To splash
in the clouds. To splash for the pleasure
of splashing. To splash until
I could no longer recognize her, that part
of me who longed to stay safe, stay dry.
Alone in the Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, gardening, poem, poetry, silence on May 14, 2017| 2 Comments »
Digging there in the dirt
with small seeds
in your hands
you hear the wind
high in the cottonwoods,
you hear the silence
sown inside the wind,
and the quieter
you are, you hear
perhaps, within you
a call like the geese
that aren’t flying
overhead, a startling
call, an almost
strangled sound
that, if you heard it,
might almost
wake you up.
Before We Say a Word
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, love, poem, poetry, sleep, tenderness on February 27, 2015| 4 Comments »
I like my body in the mornings
when the light has not yet stolen the room,
and when you, in darkness, turn your length
toward my length and bend your body
to match the curve of my spine.
I like the warmth our bodies find,
I like your legs bowed into mine,
your feet like a tangle of roots about my feet.
I like my neck when it’s touched by your breath,
and I like my waist when your hand rests there.
And my belly, I like how soft it is, like sweet dough rising.
So tender, this drowsy, dreamy, yielding state
when we are more flesh than name, more limb than thought,
more breath than what we know.
And the darkness holds us quietly,
your body, my body, oh how we linger,
indulgent, our boundaries blurred,
while all around us, even inside us,
the world with its edges and certainties
begins to dawn.
Grace
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, grace, life, poem, spring, weed on March 13, 2013| 4 Comments »
Spring comes to the sidewalk
in the longer days of March.
The sun warms the slab, and beneath
it the seeds of old weeds start to stir.
They are tiny. And who knows how,
but in the dark, they begin to grow
and put down roots and,
though it seems unlikely,
begin to push through the concrete itself.
First a hairline crack. This fissure is somehow
sufficient to provide light and water enough.
Soon there are tendrils, then whole leaves,
then the yellow blooms of new weeds.
What is it in us that knows to push?
I, too, have wintered in a dark, thick cast, one
of my own making. Cramped and dormant,
I had stopped believing in hope.
But it was not hope that cracked the shell.
Nor was it anything that I did.
It was life’s longing for itself.
How I Begin to Abandon My Longing for the Perfect
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, imperfect, knowing the self, love, poem, poetry on October 10, 2012| 2 Comments »
with thanks to Rita Robinson
Even considering
the sputtering sky
and the caving between
my shoulder blades
where my heart
should fill the body’s cage,
despite the lack
of song today
and regardless
of angry voices
that scuffle
and riddle
the gutters outside,
even then I read
in a letter her closing words,
so much love here
right now, she says,
for you, for us,
and slowly,
as if just awakening
in a foreign country
in a too short bed
surrounded by
unfamiliar sounds
and slants of shadow
and assaulted with
exotic scents,
I hint by hint
come to
recognize myself,
and know
with irrational
and utter certainty
she’s right.