When I say Happy New Year,
I hear my grandmother’s voice
inside my voice, the way
she slapped the first syllable,
the way silence hung for a moment
before she finished the rest of the phrase.
HAP-py New Year!
Each time I say the words, she
is so alive in that moment—
the syllables themselves
wear her bright red nails,
her signature updo
and her rhinestone earrings.
HAP-py New Year!
I sing out again and again,
loving how she enters
each conversation this day.
There are small ways
to bring our beloveds back,
little rituals so strong they
defy the loss, so strong
that each time we do them
we become more and more
who we love. Her voice
becomes my voice and her
joy becomes my joy.
I don’t have to look in the mirror
to see she is here, her smile
my smile curving up from the inside.
Posts Tagged ‘connection’
January 1
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, death, grandmother, language, loss, new years on January 2, 2021| 3 Comments »
One Connection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, conversation, family, walking, winter on December 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
walking in chill air
beside the frozen creek
warm words
Star of Wonder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged astronomy, communion, connection, planet, star, unity on December 23, 2020| 3 Comments »
I don’t want us to be
like Jupiter and Saturn,
slowly moving toward each other
only to find ourselves
slowly moving further away.
When we conjoin,
let it be that we find
our paths not crossing
but merging, moving
us forever in the same direction,
our light uniting so brightly
others might imagine
it signifies a miracle—
and they will, of course,
be right.
As You Have Done for Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, heart, treasure, value on December 2, 2020| 10 Comments »
There is treasure in you.
—Joi Sharp
If you were here
I would put my hand
on your heart
and hold it there
until our breaths
became a single tide,
hold it there until
I could feel the moment
when you remember
your infinite value.
It’s so easy to forget
we are treasure.
So easy to lose track
of our own immeasurable worth.
The chest rusts shut.
We think we are empty.
Amazing how easily
we are fooled into believing
we’re paupers.
Sometimes it takes another
to remind us
we have always been
not only the treasure
but also the key.
Though the hinges
are a metaphor,
the treasure is not.
We were made to open,
to share our priceless gift,
to press our hands
to each other’s hearts
and hold them there
until we all remember.
Beyond Touch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, fire, soul, tetrameter on October 7, 2020| 6 Comments »
And if a cheek should find a chest,
and if a tongue should graze a lip,
and if a hand should meet a curve,
and if a hip should stir a hip,
then we might know the flesh as kindling,
know the skin as eager spark,
know the lover as the flame
that helps unthaw the frozen dark.
But if a heart should stoke a heart,
and if a soul should fuel a soul,
then we might know the self as unself—
ravaged, ardent, blazing, whole.
That Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, loss, lost, map, music, song on July 7, 2020| 2 Comments »
I want to slip into the song
you sang, the one with verse
about loss. I want to hang
on its notes as if they were branches
I could swing from, want to climb
through its chorus, want to meet it
in its rests, want to offer it tea.
I want to ask the guitar
about your fingers, about
how they knew where
to find the melody. And how?
I want to speak with the loss itself,
want to ask it if it’s sure its lost,
want to offer it a map made of apples
and wings and moon.
I want to hear the silence after
the song, and then beg it, beg it,
to keep singing.
Always Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, home, song on June 6, 2020| 8 Comments »
And on that Saturday morning
when you feel isolated, alone,
no matter the time, or even
if it’s a Tuesday, call me.
I won’t be able to fix anything,
but I will remind you that you
are home, right there in your body,
you are home. And I will listen
as you weep. I will listen.
And though I won’t sing
in a way you can hear,
I will sing for you. I will sing
a circle around you,
I will sing you home.
In a Circle Six Feet Apart in Town Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, Heartbeat, joy, music, singing, tears on May 26, 2020| 4 Comments »
Perhaps we stumbled
on the words, perhaps
we forgot a note,
forgot a bridge,
bumbled our entrances,
fumbled our parts,
but we sang, oh yes,
we sang into the low golden light
of summer, sang
because joy, because
harmony, sang because
lonely, because fear,
sang because, tears
spilling down our cheeks,
we could sing, oh friends,
before we said goodbye,
we could sing.
The Afternoon the World Health Organization Declared the Pandemic
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged avalanche, connection, Corona Virus on March 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »
That was the afternoon
we watched the avalanches—
dozens and dozens of them
flowing over the cliff bands.
How beautiful they were
from a distance—
bright falls of billowing snow.
They began as dark rumble,
then burst into plume, into rush.
Unstoppable they were.
Powerful. Inevitable.
Such a gift to feel humbled,
to exult in forces
greater than our own.
Later that night, reading
the tumbling graphs,
the sliding accounts,
the unforgiving reports,
I began to understand
the scale of the cliff.
And as everything
I thought I knew
slid over the escarpments
of comprehension,
how clear it all became.
What really matters.
How we’re all in this together.