Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘communication’

break in the clouds
out of the blue
gold spills in

Read Full Post »

Of Tenderness


 
 
So easily the thin rind
pulls away from the Clementine
to reveal what is soft,
what is sweet.
 
It matters, I think,
the way we offer
ourselves to each other.
 
I think of how it falls open,
the peel of the ripe clementine.
 
I think of how sometimes,
when I ask how you are,
you, too, fall open
and give me everything.
 
What a gift
when I don’t need to pry.
What a gift, the bright scent
of conversation,
how the tang of it
lingers in the air.
 
I long to open
for you this way, too.
Trust begins here.
 

Read Full Post »

On Language


You, language, that rises
out of quiet air, from where?
How syllable? How syntax?
From whence come gifts
of fricative and nasal,
glide and vowel? From where
these translations of mood
into ooo and thhhh
and mmmmm and ah?
Sweet miracle, language,
the kindness of phonemes
the sweet generosity
of grammar—glorious
as a cherry tree in spring—
that teaches us to say
I am, you are, we have been,
we will be, we are going
to be, we might, we are;
all those truths spilling
from our mouths
that escape the known
like petals that form,
then flutter away
from the bough
into silence.

Read Full Post »




Just because I can’t hear the wind on Mars
without the sound being raised two octaves
doesn’t mean the Martian wind wouldn’t open a sail—
doesn’t mean it wouldn’t blow off my hat
or fly my kite or create thick swirls of red dust.

Just because I could barely hear the wind on Mars
with my human ears doesn’t mean
the wind wouldn’t flip up my skirt. So many forces
just beyond our senses have powerful effect—
like the words that just today I didn’t hear you say,

yet I know by the way my skin shivers they’re true.
I know, just as sure as the wind blows on Mars,
it takes just one gust to make a thousand seeds go flying.
And I am a weed with ten thousand seeds.
And those words I didn’t hear today, they’re the wind.

Read Full Post »


 
 My tears mingle with yours and the dry world is watered again.
            —Jude Janett
 
 
Parched and dusty,
the inner desert
forgets it was once a wetland.
Barren of confidence,
arid with self-disdain,
it forgets how to grow things
not covered in thorns
and spines.
 
Then you with your love
reach across the afternoon,
a brief shower of words,
and the whole inner world
remembers how it is to be lush,
to be nurturing, to be green.

Read Full Post »


 
 
Because our conversation
feels like riding a bike uphill,  
I think of gears. I think
of how easy it is to shift
lower, how a simple flick
of the thumb makes the impossible
possible. Where are the gears
for love? There must be better
ways to use our teeth
than biting words. There must
be a series of notched wheels
in the heart that allow us
to move forward with less force,
some mechanism to make
the chain hop from one sprocket
to another, changing the way
we engage. I want to find that gadget,
those gears, the ones that help us
hear each other, the ones
that help us say what must be said,
the simple tools that allow us
to move forward at all.

Read Full Post »

And if today we speak at all,

let us speak in golden leaf.

Let’s converse in low clear stream,

whisper in rose-hip pink.

And if we speak at all today,

let’s slip mulch between each word,

aware that what we say will grow—

how powerful the words we sow.

And if we speak at all,

let’s speak in mountain, speak in field,

speak only words that lift and heal,

speak only words that lift and heal.

And if we speak,

let’s listen for the quiet in between—

plant tulip bulbs in the silences.

And crocuses. And grace.

And any words with thorns in them,

let’s set them down. Let’s lose them.

And if our words don’t open like sky,

let’s let the sky do all the talking.

Read Full Post »

Student

The river in autumn

is clear enough

to see the trout

who swim

in the deeper pools.

There are many ways

to speak.

This is one.

Read Full Post »

A rumor platoon.

  A secret room.

    A flying trapeze.

      The honeyed moon.

    A grapefruit pucker.

  A slick river otter.

A compound fracture

  and a safety measure.

    The carrot peeler

      and the apple tree,

    the truth, the lie,

  the apology.

Read Full Post »

IMG_0343

 

Just two weeks ago, it was sufficient

to say, hello, good morning, good bye.

But now, in every text, every email,

every phone call, I tell my friends

and family how much I love them.

I tell them life is better because

they are in it. I say it with the urgency

of a woman who knows she could die,

who knows this communication could be our last.

I slip bouquets into my voice. I weave love songs

into the spaces between words.

I infuse every letter, every comma, with prayers.

Sometimes it makes me cry, not

out of fear, but because the love is so strong.

How humbling to feel it undiluted,

shining, like rocks in the desert after a rain,

to know love as the most important thing,

to remember this as I keep on living.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

%d bloggers like this: