Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘connection’

When Times Are Dark 

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »


 
Trust is a porcupine
sitting on the highway
in the middle of the night
not bothering to raise 
even one of his
thirty-thousand quills,
choosing instead to look
right into the oncoming 
traffic, the shine 
of a direct gaze 
more effective 
communication
than any sharpness, 
any barb.
 

Read Full Post »

Maximum Strength

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 26, 2026| 18 Comments »


                  for Moudi and Taylor
 
 
Starting the long drive home,
I do not turn on the radio
to hear news of the broken world.
My father taught me every broken thing,
from coolers to car doors to roofs,
could be fixed with silver duct tape,
at least for a while.
How big would the roll have to be, 
America? On the seat beside me, 
a green and white striped bag
is filled with hummus and cheesy crackers,
chocolates filled with coconut and pistachio,
oat protein bars, dried mango strips
plus a small baggie of pretzel twists,
a road-food care package my friends 
prepared for me in the middle of the night
so it would be on the counter waiting for me 
to find when I left their home at dawn. 
Perhaps kindness is a kind of duct tape—
which is to say it doesn’t actually fix things,
but it does help us go on. What is broken
is still broken, but I can taste the adhesion 
in the coffee they ground for me last night
so I could be awake for this morning’s drive—
hints of cinnamon, dark chocolate, toffee, 
love. I feel how their kindness holds me together 
this morning. How sticky it is, the message 
they wrote for me in sand: you are loved.
The message will fade, but as the world 
goes on breaking, I feel surrounded 
by their kindness all the way home.
 

Read Full Post »

The Phone Call

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
While all around us the world rushes by, 
our conversation becomes a wide flat rock
in the midst of the river where we can rest
long enough to see not everything
is snarl and torrent, rapid and rush. 
See how the heron lands in the eddy,
how soft moss grows on rocks in the shade.
Holding up all the tumult, the peaceful.
At the edges of chaos, the beautiful. 
This is why, when I call you in the middle 
of the day and you answer, I almost cry. 
Because the timbre of your voice is enough
to land me. I lie on the solid rock of our talk. 
I rest there long enough for my own pulse
to slow, long enough dangle my ankle
into the current and think, yes, 
I can swim again. 

Read Full Post »

For What Ails Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 25, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
Wini weeps as she tells me “everyone is so broken,” 
and a small shrine appears in the tear on her cheek.
I kneel inside it as it slips to her chin.
My throat clenches, my own heart widens,
enlivened by how deeply Wini cares, 
and somehow her heartache begins to mend 
my own grief for this cruel and callous world.
More than any beauty. More than the uplifting song 
of the red wing black bird trilling through the open window.
More than the scent of basil and lemon. 
More than the dark silhouette of two herons winging 
through the nectarine sunset. Wini’s tears heal me. 
Shared ache becomes its own medicine. 
No. Not the ache. The medicine is in the love that fuels 
the ache. It feels so right, I forget to wish it didn’t hurt.

Read Full Post »

Sharing Our Humanness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 10, 2026| 2 Comments »


    with thanks to James Crews
 
 
My friend James calls it the rough blessing,
the blessing that rubs, that chafes,
that scrapes. Perhaps I wanted blessings
to only feel good, to be gentle. But the word itself
comes from the practice of sprinkling blood
on an altar. Why should I be surprised when
the blood for the rite is my own? I am thinking
of how today when I was hemorrhaging fear,
my friend comforted me when I called her in tears.
I felt so loved when she listened and soothed.
Such luminous intimacy grew from my wound.
Oh, ache of being human. Oh, the blessing.

Read Full Post »

The Single Instant

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 5, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
Inspired by Camille Claudel’s sculpture “The Wave”
 
Almost like a fist
the great wave of war
rises now, arching,
all froth and force,
and in the single instant
before the crash,
before our demise is cast
in onyx or bronze,
before everything
we’ve made is smashed
like plaster on the floor,
this chance to conceive
the world as it could be,
the chance to take
each other’s hands
and hold them fast
so the terrible wave
can’t separate us.
The wave will break.
We will be towed and tossed.
My friends, it matters
that we stay together.
 
to see this sculpture, visit here

Read Full Post »

One Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 28, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
I am no longer surprised
when strange, exotic
blooms appear in my mind,
knowing now how seeds
arrive on the wind from everywhere.
Now, I am less likely to label
something weed simply because
I didn’t plant it myself.
At the same time, I want
to be discerning, knowing
whatever I choose to grow might
appear soon in the soil of you,
so I am cautious when sowing
bulbs of anger, saplings of judgment,
thorns of certainty.
I want us all to plant great beds
of unanswerable questions
and tend the mystery together.
How else might it change
what these hands do when I
trust every choice matters?

Read Full Post »

Big Conversation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 18, 2026| 18 Comments »



 
 
I’ve become the person who talks to avocados.
Oh, look how ripe you are!
The one who talks to dust bunnies under the bed.
Oh, my goodness. How long have you been there?
I’ve become the person who narrates wind as it gusts,
the one who composes out loud while writing poems.
In short, I’m the person who once mystified me.
Does she really think lettuce seeds can hear her?
And I love being this woman who converses with stars,
with shadows, this person who notices feelings that rise
as I move through a day and takes pleasure in greeting them.
Hello shame. I say. Hello fear. Hello embarrassment.
How much easier life is when I join in the big conversation.
Then I am never alone. Not that the bananas talk back.
Neither does the mop. But that doesn’t stop me
from being curious about my connection with all of it—
the stain on the dishtowel, the pond as it melts,
the broken pot, the robin in the yard, the highway trash.
It’s not the talking part I love, but letting my attention
touch everything. Cracked glass. A lost glove. Tire tracks.
Mostly, I love the listening for what isn’t said back.

Read Full Post »

What Joins Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2026| 2 Comments »


 
 
At last the river is covered in ice,
a vast white sheet from bank
to bank. A woman, or a rabbit,
could use to cross what usually
feels uncrossable. I think
of William Stafford standing beside
the frozen Methow river, asking a question.
The silent river was his answer.
Later today I will put on my old navy coat
and my big old rubber boots and walk
to the shore with my satchel of questions,
the ones that writhe and twist in me,
the ones that make me tremble.
Perhaps, you, too, will bring your questions
to a shore where winter has hidden the song.
If you have no river, any quiet space will do.
We can stand there together
at the edge of no separation
to see which questions spill out.
No matter where we stand,
we can listen to the silence
that crosses all boundaries, listen,
together, and wade into the current
beneath all listening.
 

Read Full Post »

Sometimes, I Forget How to Listen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 1, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
Listen with the ear of your heart.
from the Prologue to the Rule of Saint Benedict
 
Because words can be rubber bullets,
can be pepper spray, can be cuffs.
Scared, my ears become rabbits
that burrow and hide. Angry,
my ears become stone gates
that refuse to let anything in.
It’s so painful to hear
the rhetoric of hate. Burns
like tear gas. Stuns and disorients
like flash-bang grenades.
No part of me then can believe
there is a sliver of divinity in you
that I want or need to listen to.
It is so hard to listen.
What if we do not listen?
I want to train my ears to hear
beneath the invective. Want
to listen beneath the attack.
What if I could hear the human
in you and not only the weapons
of your words? What if you could hear
the human in me and find a piece
of yourself? What if we left all our mouths
at home and let only our ears
gather in the streets?
Would we hear, then, the sounds
of each other’s breath, proof
of our mutual humanness?
What peace might arrive for a moment
if we listened, all of us miracles,
softening into that generous silence,
listening with the ears of our hearts
as the cold wind swirls all around?

*after reading “My Mouth (An Apology)” by Tom Holmes

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »