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Posts Tagged ‘communication’

Student

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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.

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What’s in a Long Pause?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 13, 2020| 6 Comments »

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.

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The Most Important Thing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 22, 2020| 14 Comments »

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.

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Resolution

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 2, 2020| 4 Comments »

 

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.

—T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

 

 

So let me speak this year in leaf,

and let me speak in stem.

Give me photosynthetic nouns

and algal interjections.

Let my syntax be made of phloem,

let my phonemes be blades of grass.

May all my conjunctions produce oxygen

may my prepositions be moss.

And let me mostly listen

with ears attuned to soil and root

And when I have words, let them be living,

may only the kindest words bear fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

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From the Tip of the Thought

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

   inspired by Erik Satie, Gnossienne 1

 

 

same phrases, same sighs,

we’ve said them, sighed them before—

and each time the chance

to find (mid-syllable) a door, a new wildflower,

a raincoat, blue, perhaps a wing

 

 

(to hear the music, click here. This direction is given when the initial theme is repeated)

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One Bummer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

dang, how the songbird

mutters sometimes, and slurs,

forgets how even the most

discordant song can be beautiful

when it’s sung clear

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One Approach

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

the elephant in the room—

giving him

the finest seat

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Translation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2019| 3 Comments »

 

 

Once I would say “table,” and mean

“table.” Once, I would say

“broccoli” and mean “broccoli.”

I would say “stone” and mean

“stone.” I really did believe

that things were separate.

And nameable. Now,

every word that comes

out of my mouth, no matter

how many syllables, no matter

the tone of voice, no matter

my intention, I’ve come to understand

that every word

is really just a translation

for thank you,

thank you for this moment.

And every silence between the words,

regardless how brief,

is really just the sound

of one hand in gratitude clapping.

 

 

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In Matthias Hall

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

Years later I wake in the night and remember

the way he banged on my bedroom door.

He was drunk and he begged me to let him in.

 

I was in my dorm room bed, and my best friend

was visiting. The interruption angered her

and she hissed in the dark, Don’t you dare.

 

I told him to go away. He didn’t.

He pounded and begged and shouted.

Please, he said, before I heard him crumple

 

at the base of the door where I believe

he fell asleep. By morning, he was gone.

It wasn’t only my door I had closed,

 

it was my heart. I didn’t understand then

that I was too frightened to let him in.

I didn’t comprehend how our fear

 

makes us small. Years later, I want

to open the door. I want to meet him

before the drunken night and tell him, I hear you.

 

I want to thank him for bringing me his heart.

I want to tell myself, You are capable

of sharing difficult feelings. I want

 

to write a new night and walk with him

through the dark, the only pounding

our fragile hearts.

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Sometimes, Like Today, We Remember

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 27, 2019| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

that everyone, even the driver in the white jeep

who cut in front of you, yes, even

the elegant woman in the dairy aisle and

the man who seems lost on the library steps

and the child sitting alone on the bench, yes

everyone has a story—fears and hopes

and something to learn and someone they love

and someone who’s hurt them and someone

they long to hold. And though their stories

are mostly invisible, they’re always

more complex than whatever we project

and they’re every bit as real as our own.

The woman in the dairy aisle smiles at you,

and though she is wearing diamonds in her ears,

she looks lonely. Or is it you, who is lonely?

Is it all of us? All of us longing for someone

to truly see us. And that driver you’re cursing,

don’t we all sometimes feel as if we need

to move forward any way we can? And that

boy on the bench, notice the empty seat beside him?

Perhaps you could sit there, too, in the sun.

Who knows what might happen next?

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