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Posts Tagged ‘cliff’

Re-seeing the Cliff

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 29, 2026| 1 Comment »


 
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall 
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. 
—Gerard Manley Hopkins, “No Worst, There Is None”
 
 
We fear the cliff, the dangerous edge, 
but here on the banks of the San Miguel River, 
I see how even the cliff is in service to life—
how even in the steepest reaches of the canyon, 
the blue spruce and pinion pine grow tall
in the crumbling layers of red-sandstone walls
as if to prove how little ground life needs to flourish,
how the smallest bit of soil can sustain a great tree.
The mind, too, has cliffs, and sometimes 
they frighten me, but what if they, too, 
are not just heights from which to fall, but 
vital places to explore what happens in the layers, 
places where we see what has been here before, 
exposed. What if the cliff is not a place to resist, 
but an invitation to witness unfathomed growth?

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Nothing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 26, 2026| 10 Comments »


 
 
Today, for a time, I am more red rock cliff than river. 
I sit and do not do. 
Perhaps some part of me crumbles. 
I do not resist the crumbling. 
I do not resist stillness. 
I am weary of resisting. 
So weary that today 
I promised myself
I would make time for nothingness. 
What pleasure I found in not rushing, 
not rising, not streaming, not traveling to, 
not coming from. 
Why have I put off, again and again,
the chance to be intimate
with nothing? 
Yesterday, when I heard myself 
tell a friend my experience of nothing 
is what I think God is, 
then I wondered why I fill my hours 
with so much everything? 
So today I cliff. I rock wall. 
I sandstone. I canyon. 
I sit still and undo 
and meet the great nothing 
that holds up everything.

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Why I Write Every Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

in every blank
an invisible cliff
when I am brave
I meet the edge
and leap
sometimes
a splash
sometimes air
sometimes
a line will catch me
and swing me
to touch
for a moment
the infinite
before dropping me
back in the known
sometimes
I sit there
safe at the edge
count the minutes
and dream about
the dare

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One Faith

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 27, 2022| 4 Comments »

at the edge of a wish
choosing to jump—
you my parachute

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Momentum

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

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The Decision

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 3, 2019| 3 Comments »

 

 

choosing at last

to jump over the edge

only to land on another cliff

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