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Posts Tagged ‘competition’

Gold Medal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 22, 2024| 11 Comments »

 
 
I’ve beaten my own record. Again.
Most tears shed while thinking
of people who are kind.
First tears in the audience
at an elementary choir concert.
Longest number of days in a row
weeping for any reason.
If crying were a sport,
I’d be a contender.
Furthest distance
for projectile tears.
Most Kleenex’s used
while reading a single poem.
Greatest variety of emotions
that might inspire weeping.
I did have a good coach
in my mother. My grandfather.
My aunt. They modeled
crying for love, for grief,
for sincerity, for prayer.
I’m a legacy, really,
natural talent, plus
practicing all the time.
Blue sky? Bawling. Brave kids?
Sobbing. Great loss?
I’ve been a puddle for years.
And to think I used to try
to stop the tears.
As if they were something
to be ashamed of.
As if they didn’t make me
a real winner.

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No Trophy, But

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 14, 2021| 6 Comments »




Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly
feel more love than I do,
today, the heart beats its own record—
falls in love with my daughter
singing Disney in the car.
In love with my husband
heating water for my tea.
In love with the leaves as they spread
golden praise through the yard.
In love with the sacred mess.
In love with each person who
meets another with kindness.
I fall in love with cats and candles,
the hill as I climb it,
the wind as it chills me,
and sunflowers that bloom despite snow.
And the raw me who aches, I love her, too.
And the naked me who weeps—
what else is she supposed to do?
And the quiet that comes
when I lean in to listen to what is most true.
It wasn’t a love contest today,
and yet, inside me, love continued to grow.
Last week, I felt emptied, scoured,
scraped clean, prepared for something—
I knew not what.
Perhaps I was being prepared for more love.
Love for the emptiness. Love for the scouring.
Love for the being scraped clean. Love
that expands despite heartache, because heartache.
Love that asks nothing. And gives it all.
And keeps giving.

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One for the Fencing Championship

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

within an hour

I watch the boy transform

from seed to leaf to flower

 

 

 

 

 

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Repechage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

Before on guard,

you meet your opponent

on the strip

without your mask

and hold your sword

between your eyes—

a salute—before

you drop the sword

and don the mask.

 

How much of the match

is fought in the gaze?

There are ways

to attack and riposte

when the body

is achingly still.

 

It’s a glint, a squint,

an unblinking hold.

It’s a stare, a glare,

a flash. I’ve felt it before—

known that it was all over

before it began.

 

But we pull on the mask

anyway, prepare

to engage, though already

we know how this goes—

who wins, and who

walks away wondering

how next time, next time

it could be different.

 

 

 

* Repechage: the competition formula which gives losers of a direct elimination bout a second chance to stay in the competition

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