Furrowed and runnelled and rough,
the gnarled bark of this old cottonwood.
The dead thickness protects living tissue
from cold, from wind, from flames.
I, too, am older, but somehow survival
shows up for me the opposite.
Any shields I would build up as barriers—
life keeps peeling them away.
What thickens around me now are layers
of dynamic compassion—vital, vulnerable,
ever-growing. They do not protect
against wounds. Instead, they seem to say,
Be with what aches, my dear. Trusting
discomfort is the only way.
Posts Tagged ‘compassion’
The Layers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, cottonwood, layers, self-protection, tree, vulnerability on December 6, 2025| 6 Comments »
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, heartache, ice, immigration on November 13, 2025| 8 Comments »
Teachers and fathers,
bakers and builders,
sisters in plaid shirts
and sons with shy smiles
kicked and punched,
sprayed and tackled,
grabbed and tased
and thrown to the ground,
locked up and jailed,
despised, dehumanized.
What is the heart to do when,
in the face of brutality, we hear
not only weeping, but cheering?
How do we go on?
Maybe you choose to ignore it.
Maybe you tell yourself,
this doesn’t affect me.
Maybe you rationalize.
Maybe you feel your heart break
again and again, as seed walls
must give for a seedling to grow.
Maybe you notice breaking open
is the only way love can go on.
Maybe you turn toward
life, belonging, respect
and ask your longing to grow you,
to guide your hands, your breath.
Maybe you say to the ache,
teach me, bless me, enliven me.
Maybe you listen more deeply.
Maybe you find other broken hearts
with heartbeats that rhyme with your own.
The terror is real. Fear is strong.
We are still here. How will we go on?
Meeting Intimidation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, intimidation on March 13, 2025| 4 Comments »
What if, in that moment when Wendy introduced us,
I had not been afraid to say more than hello?
What if I had not turned toward someone else
as if I had something I needed to say to them.
A week later, it’s so easy to see what I was doing
was turning away from the woman who,
through no fault of her own, daunted me.
What if I’d decided it was okay to feel afraid
and I invited myself to be uncomfortable
and stay with the interaction anyway?
What if I had asked her a question, any
open and honest question, such as,
“What felt good to you about tonight?”
Or, “How does it feel to be here?”
What if I had said nothing at all, and simply
offered her my awkward but honest attention?
How often do I let my fear make choices for me?
How much is lost in these moments of cowardice?
A chance for connection? A chance to meet
the small and uneasy parts of me that I would rather
hide from? A chance to see through my defenses?
A chance to be surprised by how generous
the world can be when I don’t turn away?
Letter to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, empathy, heart, imitation, mockingbird, song on March 8, 2025| 6 Comments »
Once I was embarrassed
you were a mockingbird.
I wished you were more
hermit thrush, more meadowlark,
more cliff swallow in the canyon,
heck, even wished you were
robin or wren.
At last I’m coming to see
the gift of learning another’s song,
letting it pierce you, own you,
then braiding it with your own tune,
to sing back to the world
as one.
And in This Way, He Still Lives
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, dad, kindness, legacy on October 30, 2024| 21 Comments »
for my dad
There was that time that he bought
a television for the woman who came
to the house to clean while he and mom were sick.
She had mentioned offhand hers had broken.
He was like that. Would take smoked salmon
for the men and women at the firehouse.
Would make certificates for people
to honor kind things they had done.
It was as if he could read the small thought bubbles
that appear above people’s heads,
the ones we read in cartoons
but can’t see in real life,
the ones that say what they really need,
and then he’d offer a kindness.
Not that he was a saint.
My god, could he get angry.
Not that he looked for people to care for,
more that he really looked at the people
who came across his path.
This is how I want him to live on in me,
his hands guiding mine to give.
One Day Later
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, fear, tears on September 15, 2024| 2 Comments »
after drying the tears
her fear
still wet
Letter to the Dead
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, river, self-compassion, softening on July 13, 2024| 10 Comments »
How many times did I stand
on the shore with you and throw rocks
in this same river simply for the joy
of hearing them splash?
But today, my friend’s daughter
suggested we use sticks
to write invisible wishes on the rocks,
then kiss the stones before we tossed
them in. Perhaps you could guess
what I wished for. Aren’t I always
longing for peace in this world?
But there is so much of me
now you do not know.
Like how today, when I got
behind the car going twenty-seven
miles under the speed limit,
I didn’t call him an idiot.
I just went slower. See?
Things change. Even this woman
who is still throwing rocks
in the same river.
Only now the splash
makes me both laugh and cry.
And now, when I drive
behind a slow, slow person,
I can’t not think
of what wishes
they might write.
Coming Home the First Time after Our Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, grief, help, loss, love, receiving on May 22, 2024| 20 Comments »
Someone had taken small rocks and shaped them
into a heart in the center of our drive
so when we arrived, we knew we were not alone.
At the front door, we stepped over
another small heart made of stones
filled with blue petals of larkspur,
golden petals of sunflowers,
the tiny red petals of geranium.
We walked into our home
to find wildflowers in a vase on the counter,
our fridge filled with fruit, soymilk and hummus,
the shelves lined with cans and boxes of tissues.
There were love letters tucked into every room.
The house itself was quiet,
too quiet without the boy who wasn’t there,
but it was not a lonely silence.
Those were the days when I learned
to say okay every time someone offered help.
Can I bring you lavender lotion? Okay.
Can I make you a meal? Okay.
Can I pick up your mail? Okay. Okay.
What a gift to be carried by others,
to learn by heart the sacred bond
between those who are broken
and those who offer their hands
to cradle the ones who are broken.
Years later, those same small stones
still grace our front porch,
though the shape of the heart
has been rearranged many times.
As has mine. I want to remember
how we need each other.
The petals I add never stay.
The love infused here has never gone away.
Into the Questions
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, conversation, love, love your enemy, pain, tenderness on November 3, 2023| 13 Comments »
I needed today the soft voice of the man
from Bethlehem saying,
Put yourself in the pain of others.
Not in their shoes, but in their pain.
I needed to see his eyes
when he said it is olive picking season
and the families are too afraid
to go to the orchards.
I needed to hear it is the hardest
his life has ever been,
needed to hear his fear, his anger,
his willingness to wonder
again and again,
What does it mean to love your enemy?
I needed to see the open face
of the man in Israel as he listened,
needed to hear his gentle tone
as he rejected the phrase us vs. them.
Needed to hear the resolve in his voice
as he called for creating an us together.
And because in the arms of terror
these two men find ways to love,
I invite a war into my heart
and imagine myself on both sides,
imagine the ache that fuels the rage.
I don’t have to imagine fear, distrust.
It is in all of us, this war,
not somewhere far away.
It is for all of us to ask in every interface,
How do I love my enemy?
How do we become an us?