In my heart today, a river of love for you—
sparkling, clear, easy to wade in.
Some may not understand
why I sometimes reach down
to pick up a smooth stone of sorrow,
not because I have stumbled on it,
but because I want to know its weight again.
I search beneath the glossy currents,
and always I find what I seek.
There are thousands of such stones,
enough to cover the whole river bed.
Every one of them precious.
Every one of them, a memory
of how it was to love you when you were alive.
Stone of you waking in your crib, pointing to light.
Stone of you doing tricks on your bike.
Stone of hiking up cliffs. Stone of undone dishes.
Stone of your eyes. Stone of long fingers.
Stone of you whistling across the room.
The river of love is no less powerful
for all this sorrow. When I am still,
often I choose to go wading here.
I notice how beautiful they are, all these stones,
worn as they are by the currents of love.
I notice how the current never stops.
Posts Tagged ‘choice’
Choosing the Sorrow
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, grief, love, river, rocks, sorrow on January 22, 2024| 6 Comments »
Principle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged buoyancy, choice, density, mother, resilience, science on October 30, 2023| 8 Comments »
for my mother
She could have sunk,
the way a stone
falls to the bottom
of the pond.
But she didn’t.
She floated like wood,
like cork, like ice.
Floated like a ball
tossed in an angry sea.
Density alone
is simple math:
mass divided
by volume.
But density
of spirit is,
perhaps, a choice.
As if we exist
to be tossed
again and again
into the waters
of difficulty,
each toss
another chance
to practice
buoyancy.
Thank You & a Poem of Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amusement park, choice, family, grief, rollercoaster, surrender on August 14, 2023| 21 Comments »
Dear Friends,
It has been two years today since I wrote you to say that we had a family emergency and it would be some time before I wrote again. Several weeks after that I wrote to explain my son Finn, nearly 17, had chosen to take his life. And it was several weeks after that before I began writing the daily poems again. During these two years, I have received so much love, and I thank you. I thank every one of you who has lit a candle, said a prayer, thought good thoughts, did something nice for someone else who was grieving. I thank every one of you who held me and my family in your hearts. I am so grateful. As it is, it’s been the hardest thing I have ever done–meeting this loss. I honor every other person who has lost a beloved. I honor every other heart that has grieved. It is so hard, and without an enormous upswelling of love, I don’t know how anyone would do it. Your words, your thoughts, your blessings have carried me, and I thank you. Thank you for all the letters and notes today and this week–I read every single one out loud. I thank every one of you by name. I am sorry that I am not able to write everyone back individually–your words matter to me. It matters to me that you reach back. It matters to me that you let me know the poems matter to you. Thank you. Thank you. I can’t imagine doing this without your support.
Today our family decided to honor Finn’s life by going to the amusement park where we had a lot of fun as he was growing up–and one of my friends pointed out after we’d made our plan, “Life’s a rollercoaster,” and isn’t that an apt metaphor.
As you ride your own rollercoasters, friends, I wish that you, too, feel carried by love. I wish that peace finds you and makes a home in you.
with love,
Rosemerry
Riding Rollercoasters on a Difficult Day
The moment we entered the queue
for The Boomerang, we already knew
we’d be turned upside down and whirled around,
and by the time our chests were restrained
in our seats, we knew we’d consented to free fall,
to be shaken and twisted and then do it all again
backwards, but it wasn’t until the ride began,
clackity, clackity, clackity, clackity, clackity
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
it was only then, when we laughed
the whole time we screamed,
it was only then we surrendered.
By Now You’d Think I’d Know
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, communion, music, yes on July 31, 2022| 4 Comments »
There is a secret music
that hides inside each yes.
At first we think we know
the tune. Heck, we might
even think we wrote it.
But soon, after yessing,
we learn there is a much
grander score than we ever
might have guessed,
and now we hear how
just one yes,
plucked like a string,
creates harmonies
and dissonances
and asks us to listen again,
not for what we think we hear,
but for everything else—
the soundtrack of the infinite after,
Perhaps you notice it, too,
how the masterpiece
needs you. How each note
informs the song forever.
Evolution
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, choice, past, self on May 1, 2022| 7 Comments »
There comes a time when
the life you have
meets the life you once had
and you stare at that old life
as if it’s a beautiful bird
with a haunting song so familiar
you can’t stop yourself
from singing along.
Isn’t it strange
how quickly things change,
how already you’ve forgotten
some of the words.
How already, your wings
have changed color.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, love on May 1, 2022| 2 Comments »
knowing now
how fragile our hearts—
still choosing love
For Five Minutes in Belize
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belize, choice, gravity, grief, self-care on April 18, 2022| 12 Comments »
On a wooden plank
only eight inches wide
I stood thirty feet
above the ocean
and stared at the waves below,
stared at the horizon,
stared at my fear of heights,
stared until I felt such deep peace
standing on this slender choice.
All it would have taken
was one step.
One step, and gravity
would have done the rest
to plunge me into the ocean
in the name of fun.
The whole time I stood there,
I thought of you,
how you would have
leapt from that plank
with no hesitation.
I loved this about you—
your abandon,
your joy in launching
into something new.
Gravity, they say,
is the weakest force we know.
Though it can hold galaxies together,
it’s weak enough
to overcome it every day.
Weak though it is,
I’d like to say
I overcame it.
That I stood at the edge
and chose, instead of falling,
to hold things up—
chose to hold up
the memory of you falling,
chose to hold up
my own tired heart,
chose to stand
in a difficult place
and notice how beautiful it was,
the golden light on the water,
the wind on my skin,
chose to walk a narrow path
that felt kind to myself,
though in my head
the voice kept saying
jump, jump, jump.
Choosing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, night, shine, star on August 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »
It’s not the meteor shower
with its wild arcs of light
that unzip the velvet dark—
what moves me is the one star
that manages to shine
through the thick atmosphere,
a lone light in this giant dome,
not more than a speck,
yet it persists, constant.
There are many ways to shine,
it seems to say, its tiny glint
winking against midnight.
And the dark is deep and long.
When It’s Hardest
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, desert, drought, love, plant, yucca on June 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »
In a time of drought
let me choose to love you
the way yucca blooms—
creamy, abundant, soft—
despite drought.
No. Because drought.
Momentum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, cliff, path, step on January 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Only after I step one foot over the cliff
do I realize the drop is so deep
and the pool in the river below so small
that the chances of hitting the water at all
seem infinitesimal.
I thought nothing could stop me from my course,
but seeing the rocks so far below
and knowing how likely it is I would hit them,
now I stand one foot on the desperate edge.
The other foot, free as a prophecy, hovers in the air.
Family Woman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged career, choice, dance, devotion, family, woman on July 23, 2020| 2 Comments »
Such awkward dance partners,
this longing to follow my own pursuits,
this longing to be ever available to you.
Both want to lead.
They step on each other’s feet.
One waltzes, though the other
has put on rock and roll.
One loves eye contact, the other
loves closed eyes to better feel the music.
And yet they whirl and two step every day,
taking turns swinging and dipping and bowing.
I used to think they were rivals.
Now I know neither wants to dance alone.
Even now, they’re pushing back the furniture,
rolling up the rug. There’s gonna be a real
fine hoedown tonight.
Yes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, choice, poem, poetry, present moment on September 24, 2019| 2 Comments »
It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
— Yes, William Stafford
It’s Saturday and I’m choosing to sit on a broken fence,
the logs all weathered and fallen.
I am choosing to sit in the sun on a broken fence
beside a dirt parking lot in a high desert.
Perhaps I do not really believe
that this is the only moment that matters?
Perhaps I don’t trust that I could be gone,
that all life could be gone in one blink,
in one bomb, in one meteorite.
Or is it that I choose to sit on a broken fence
beside a dirt parking lot with the scent of pine
edging each breath and the sound
of cottonwood leaves rustling then stilling
because this, too, matters, this willingness
to treat each breath as if it were the first,
to treat each place as if it is the last
and give it my full attention. To be like the birds
sitting on the barbed wire knowing now, now
is the moment to sing.
One at the Chasm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, poem, poetry, ready on June 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Catkins in March
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, choice, poem, poetry, spring, timshel, trees on March 17, 2018| 2 Comments »
But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—”Thou mayest”— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open.
—John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Today it was the aspen buds
that ruined my heart.
One glimpse of them
through the window, and
for that moment,
the inner winter I’d constructed
out of should and shalt
fell down like bricks. Perhaps I could have
returned to work, but instead
stared at the soft gray
tufts of spring. How they defy
the stubborn chill. And almost
against my will, in me I felt
an opening I didn’t quite want,
and perhaps I didn’t want to hear
a small voice saying, you
have a choice, you
have a choice.
Five Rescues
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, life, poem, poetry on March 31, 2015| 1 Comment »
standing on the unstable
edge of the life raft—
choosing to fall in
*
between one wave
and the next, writing
love poems to breath
*
everything that hasn’t
happened yet—
the end
*
the urge to take control—
by controlling
the urge to take control
*
finding a life raft
on the inside—
resting there