Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, gratitude, poem, poetry on May 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Sometimes gratitude rises in us
like snowmelt—as if some great cold
has met with stubborn warmth
and now the whole world
roars with the transformation.
And sometimes gratitude
touches us more like moonlight,
we can’t truly feel it, but we know
it is there, our being
no longer intimidated by the dark.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, fear, poem, poetry on May 6, 2016| 1 Comment »
And when there is fear,
then let us be flowers
unashamed of our blooming,
and let us be rivers undammed.
And when there is loss,
then let us be leaves that surrender to death
and give even more in life.
And when there is ache,
let’s unfold like dawn in layers
and layers of ripening pink,
let’s be bells
that ring only love.
And when there is sorrow,
let us be dark wings
that gather the light,
and let us be the light.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, blessing, losing the self, loss, poem, poetry on September 9, 2015| 1 Comment »
after William Stafford
When the leaves are about to yellow and fall
ask me then how I tried to hold on to what was green,
how I thought perhaps I was different,
how everything I thought I knew about gold
turned brittle and brown. Ask me what it was like
to fall then. Sometimes the world becomes invisible
and we know ourselves as the world. Sometimes
the only words that can find our lips are thank you,
though the gifts look nothing like anything
we ever thought we wanted.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, blessing, bliss, poem, poetry, sky on October 26, 2013| 3 Comments »
I did not choose
awe today, but the big
pink sky chose me
and steeped me
in fantastic joy—
a drenching of miracle,
an overdose of amazement,
a wild indulgence of bliss—
oh such pink! layers
of rose and deeper rose,
and I did not earn it,
did not first prove my worthiness,
did not beg nor kneel nor fast
nor renounce my name
nor pull the strings
of the lyre nor sing,
all I had to do
was step outside
out of my own way
and open my eyes
and let myself
be gifted.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, cottonwoods, dissolution of the separate self, falling in love with the world, poem, poetry, trees on June 20, 2013| 3 Comments »
Sometimes I forget
the trees. It’s embarrassing
to admit. Like saying I forget
I have hands. But
days go by when I do not
consider them. And then
some mornings, today,
for instance, the trees,
like an Indian saint
hurling petals at her attendants,
throw their fluffy white catkins
into my hands, my hair,
into my everywhere I look
until everything is baptized
in white cotton down
and I half expect the giant limbs
to pull me into a great gray trunk
and hold me close, whispering
into my ear, in words so quiet
no one else can hear, my daughter,
my daughter, my daughter, my daughter.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, poem, thanksgiving on November 23, 2011| 2 Comments »
Running south beside Mission Bay,
one comes to the place where the city
has stenciled, Courtesy Please,
only it looks to me as if it says
Curtsy Please, and so I do, to the whole
majestic world, and to the joy of mistakes,
and find myself overwhelmed by the wish
to bless everything in sight, and so
with the power in me—inherent
and equal to the power in everything else—
I bless the short man with one good eye
and the pelican as it keels then dives,
and I bless the fish it catches. I bless
the sky above me and the worn concrete
below me, the old men walking slowly
and the beautiful beautiful women.
I bless the ones who built the pavilion,
utilitarian and new. And I bless the short grass,
the playgound equipment, the water,
the mallard ducks, too. I bless each thing
for the pleasure of blessing, imagining
everyone else doing the same,
all of us blessing each other, ourselves,
one elation, indivisible, slivers of god,
with hilarity and just us for all.
