Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, may you be happy, metta, poem, poetry, wind on October 4, 2017| 4 Comments »
There are monks who sing
for the laity—May you be happy,
and today I sing it, too,
though I have not been
anointed and have no special
sway, but I stitch my song
into the morning’s ferocious wind
and send it everywhere,
May you be well.
The wind rips the words
from my lips. I sing them
again. This is all
we have in this world,
the way we choose
to meet it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, growth, interdependence, peas, poem, poetry on August 10, 2017| 2 Comments »
More and more, I have come to admire resilience.
—Jane Hirshfield, “Optimism”
And when the snap peas ran out of fence to climb,
they created a living trellis of leaf and vine
and climbed up themselves, winding
and twisting toward the sun—
there’s green inside your limbs.
There’s braiding to be done.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, EO Wilson, poem, poetry, test, United States of America on July 3, 2017| 2 Comments »
We will learn we cannot live
without each other—those who fight
and those who chant for peace,
those who vote for more government
and those who vote for less.
We will come to know, as E. O. Wilson says,
that our need to oppose the other
rises out of our biology
and it serves us, though it looks
sometimes like war.
We are falling together,
no matter which side we’re on.
We will learn that the only way
to rise is together, too—though it may
not look anything like we thought
it would. Every day, the world
grows more insistent. Every day
more reasons to drop our certainties
and listen.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, community, poem, poetry, rainbow, timing on March 25, 2017| 1 Comment »
Come quick, said the math teacher,
grabbing me and my daughter by the hand
and rushing us past the school’s edifice
where he pointed east at rainbow
made of ice crystals hung in the air—
an ice rainbow! he exclaimed—
and we applauded with our eyes
until all three of us ran back into the shadows
to pull others to street corner,
sharing in the thrill that we did not
arrive too early, too late,
our breath coming out in misty curls,
silent, visible prayers.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, division, family, poem, poetry, unity on November 10, 2016| 6 Comments »
These, too, are your family,
any who would build a wall,
any who would throw a stone.
The other is your sister,
your brother, your mother.
Pick up the stones
and build fire circles
where everyone’s voice
can be heard.
Tear down the walls
and use the debris
to build bridges.
Tattoo these words
on your hands,
on your tongue:
we are all in this
together.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, inspiration, poem, poetry, Telluride Arts on June 27, 2016| 1 Comment »
And if you are lucky, you might stand
in the place where the horses were loaded
before they were led to look for gold, for silver.
There are journeys you, too, wish to take,
though you know now that the journeys
you long for the most are often made
by pledging yourself to a place.
The old stone walls were built with flow in mind.
Even now, they keep nothing out—not the sunlight,
not the wind, not the curve of your imagination.
And every window is an invitation
to see the same beauty framed a new way.
What might be possible here? No way to pretend
to predict the infinite. Still, this chance
to show up, to serve our own passion
in a toast to potential, and to be humbled
by our own hearts so eager to be opened.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, forgiveness, poem, poetry on May 2, 2015| 3 Comments »
for B
I would like to pour light
into all your frightened spaces,
and wherever you are tired,
I would like to bring a beautiful dream.
And your wounds, still festering
beneath scars, I want to bring salve
that will heal even the past
through a blend of forgetfulness and grace
so that you can walk back into the world
with your own pitcher of light
and dreams and salve to share,
perhaps you could even spare
a little light, a little softness,
a little grace
for me.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, poem, poetry, unity on February 28, 2015| 1 Comment »
you and I—
two threads joined in one
miraculous cloth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breaking, community, fragile, poem, poetry on October 6, 2013| 1 Comment »
Fragile, said the stamp
in dark black ink imprinted
on the cardboard box.
The bottom of the F
was not quite dark enough
to read, but there was no mistaking
the message. Things break.
All day, I imagine
the word invisibly stamped
on everything I see. Fragile
on the aspen trees and Fragile
on the chopping board and Fragile
on my daughter and the woman
I sit next to in the pool.
The red-tailed hawk. The cantaloupe.
The plastic bag. The lawn.
In the mirror, I see the word
in all caps on my cheeks. I remember
that afternoon in the car when
I wept and told my friend that I was breaking.
Open, she said, not down.
There is no shame in breaking.
Still, this chance to treat the world
with tenderness, as if the day
itself relies on how we hold it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, community, letting go, peace, poem, poetry on June 11, 2013| 3 Comments »
One morning
we will wake up
and forget to build
that wall we’ve been building,
the one between us
the one we’ve been building
for years, perhaps
out of some sense
of right and boundary,
perhaps out of habit.
One morning
we will wake up
and let our empty hands
hang empty at our sides.
Perhaps they will rise,
as empty things
sometimes do
when blown
by the wind.
Perhaps they simply
will not remember
how to grasp, how to rage.
One morning
we will wake up
and we will have
misplaced all our theories
about why and how
and who did what
to whom, we will have mislaid
all our timelines
of when and plans of what
and we will not scramble
to write the plans and theories anew.
On that morning,
not much else
will have changed.
Whatever is blooming
will still be in bloom.
Whatever is wilting
will wilt. There will be fields
to plow and trains
to load and children
to feed and work to do.
On that morning,
I hope I see you.
