There in the church of poetry
beneath fluorescent lights
on a makeshift stage,
one naked heart
after another came to the mic
and through words and breath
they turned wound into blossom
again and again until the evening
became a giant bouquet
of the unbearable being borne.
It is a terrible gift to make beauty
out of suffering,
and this is the gift we most need.
But what stays with me, too,
was how each time a poet was called up,
a woman in the middle of the audience
with a voice made of equal parts
midnight and salve
would croon low and smooth,
Let’s go, poet.
Each time she spoke it,
she made a red carpet out of sound,
a generous path for the poet to step onto.
Each time, she spoke it,
I felt my whole being soften and open
through the alchemy of encouragement.
This, too, the gift we most need—
to dare to turn toward
what makes each other bleed.
This, too, transforms wound into generous bloom,
the gift of hearing and hailing,
honoring each other’s humanness,
saying yes, I see you, I see you.
Posts Tagged ‘courage’
With Tears as I Write
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bluebird, Charles Bukowski, courage, epiphany, honesty, judgmental, poetry month on April 1, 2025| 8 Comments »
Dear Charles Bukowski,
This morning when my student wanted to share a poem,
I was disappointed when she said the poem was yours.
I didn’t want to hear about whiskey and whores.
And there they were in stanza two,
but also, singing its way through the whole poem
was the bluebird that lives in your heart,
and Charles, I wish you could have heard it,
the living epiphany in her voice as she read the poem to me,
because she, too, has a beautiful animal trapped inside her.
She, too, realizes she can be too clever or too tough
to set that beautiful animal free.
And I fell in love, Charles, with her courage, yes,
but also with the honesty in your words
that winged through any cage
I might have put around my own heart.
In fact, I was shocked to realize I had a cage in place
with bars so stubborn they almost
kept your bluebird from flying in.
This began as a thank you letter, Charles,
but it’s also, I see, an apology.
To you, of course, and also to myself,
and most especially to that little bluebird
I tried to keep out. Look, now there’s a little
cup-shaped nest in my heart where that cage once was,
a nest woven of humility and genuine gratefulness.
And your bluebird now lives in me, too. I know you
wouldn’t cry over a bird living in the heart.
But Charles, you remind me, I do.
Love,
Rosemerry
to read “Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski, visit here.
One Not Without Fear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, courage, porosity, transformation on February 27, 2025| 6 Comments »
said the ice to the flame
teach me again
to be cloud
Walking with Lisa to Horsefly Mesa
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, conversation, courage, friendship, truth on May 23, 2022| 6 Comments »
Beside the purple lupine
she says, “The thing I most
don’t want to talk about—”
and then, with a sigh,
she talks about it,
and the path and the wild iris
and the bear bell and I
all listen as she meets
what she most wishes not
to meet. There are moments
when we step right up
to the line that delineates
the world that is and the world
as we wish it would be,
and no matter how much it hurts,
there is such relief in meeting the truth
that I swear as she spoke
the world was even more itself—
the lupine more purple,
the sky more blue,
and my heart more a heart
because of her courage
to take off her mask
and says this, this is what’s real.
Why I Wear Tall Brown Boots Every Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boots, courage on March 5, 2021| 3 Comments »
In my tall
brown boots
I can walk
into any room,
any fear,
any graveyard
any loss.
I zip up
those tall
brown boots
and I become
a woman
I trust,
a woman
who knows
how well-protected feet
somehow make
it easier
for the heart
to stay open.
In my tall
brown boots,
I could even
meet betrayal,
could shake
that two-faced hand
and know
where I stand,
could walk
toward love
no matter which
way I walk,
could walk
ever closer
to myself.
Lesson from the Ouzel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, courage, despair, ouzel, showing up on January 7, 2021| 5 Comments »
Sometimes I want to be anywhere but here,
but today, I let myself feel it all.
I go to the river covered in ice,
and move along the bank until
I find the open places where the dark-feathered ouzel
chooses to submerge in the cold, cold water—
It doesn’t hesitate to plunge into frigid depths.
It knows it was made for this.
After Reading the Headline About Rising Deaths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, Corona Virus, courage, garden, resilience, song on May 4, 2020| 3 Comments »
Today I take the courage I don’t feel
and the resilience I doubt and
all my unspent longing to serve,
and I bring them, cupped in my hands,
to the garden. They nestle there in my palms
like three baby birds that have not yet
opened their eyes. I take them to hear
the pungent song of the garlic shoots
and the thriving chives who chant
how to survive the winter.
I bring them to hear the strawberry leaves
who sing how to flourish despite the frost.
and the old song of chicken manure
and composted grass that hum about
how old life begets new life.
And they open their tiny beaks,
as if they could eat the green song.
How vulnerable they are.
So I open to the song, too.
I do what must be done.
I take in the nourishing song,
and feed them with my own mouth.
Wishing I Were Stronger in the Face of Grief
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, mint, strength, tea on April 7, 2020| 4 Comments »
Tonight, courage is the voice
of the mint tea as it lends its strength,
its green to the water.
It’s no small thing
to infuse something else
with warmth, with sweetness.
All day, I’ve wanted to be bolder.
All day, I’ve felt unsure
of what comes next.
The mint says yes, says drink,
says rest. Says, a small kick
can do a lot. The mint says,
one way to get stronger
is patience. It soothes me,
it helps me to sit
and feel what I feel
this smooth tea—
subtle, strong enough.
Tonight I Pray for All the Doctors, Nurses, Health Care Workers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, courage, doctor, uncertainty on March 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And tonight I think
of the seventeen Italian doctors,
dead. And the hundreds
of thousands of people
whose test results were positive.
And all the doctors, nurses,
health care workers—
some right here in our town.
I think of them eating breakfast,
reading the same discouraging news,
then kissing their loved ones,
putting on their shoes,
and walking out the door,
though resolution’s as elusive
as last month’s peace—
the peace we didn’t
even know we had.
Should We Tell Her?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, failure, love, poem, poetry, tightrope on February 22, 2018| 2 Comments »
Somewhere in my heart
there is a tiny woman
with a crimson scarf
and hair pulled back
who is balancing
on a tightrope—
she has not yet learned
that it is okay
for her to fall,
that the net
will always catch her,
so she keeps doing
the same boring walk
back and forth
thinking how brave
and how proficient
she is at staying
on the rope,
never learning
she could also
jump and swing
and leap and twirl and fall
and get back up.
Easier with a Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bravery, courage, friendship, poem, poetry, skiing, terza rima sonnet on February 19, 2018| 4 Comments »
for Corinne, skate skier extraordinaire
The meadow was a violent scourge of white,
and still we chose to leave our cars and ski.
The wind and blowing snow obscured our sight,
lashed through our hats and stole our breath, but we
leaned into it and laughed, as if the storm
were nothing more than an excuse to be
more brave, more willing to eschew what’s warm
so we might face our fear, find joy in risk—
and sure enough, I felt myself transform
from nervousness to animated bliss—
and we for hours skied amidst the gusts
and for that time, knew nothing more than this:
to meet the crazy storm. When scared, to thrust
ourselves into the howling world. And trust.
Before She Goes Out, She Goes In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged activism, courage, inner life, meditation, poem, poetry, self care on May 5, 2017| 2 Comments »
When her voice is weary
it means it is time to listen.
When her armor is heavy,
it means it is time to be soft,
time to slip out of her certainty
and her battle songs,
time to retreat from the lines
she has drawn, time to unknow
the world she thinks she knows
and to find herself in the world
that knows her. She lets the darkness
penetrate her, it caresses
her universal curves. Her quiet
joins her to an infinite quiet—
she is everything, nothing at once.
She relearns how vulnerability
transforms us in ways
ferocity can not.
She is her own fertile seed.
She is her own desert rain.
She’s her own cocoon, her own inner cave.
Sometimes it takes the darkness
to remind us how to be brave.
If There Were Such a Maker
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, ferocity, glove, poem, poetry on November 16, 2016| 1 Comment »
The maker of gloves
is busy now. She knows
there are many hands
to sheath, much weeding
to be done. All the paths
of the garden are overrun
by brambles. The fountains
are covered in thorns.
The disarray didn’t happen overnight,
but in our present haste
to make things quickly right,
we’ve arrived with eager hands bare
and now they are bleeding, numb.
Attuned only to beauty,
how tender we’ve let
our hands become.
The maker of gloves
does not waste any time
tsk tsking. She starts
right in on her knitting,
infusing each stitch
with courage, ferocity.
Do not be surprised
when her gloves
arrive at your door.
Slip them on. They are
not for ornament.
She has made
them so you will feel
invincible. It’s not true,
but you must believe it.
The time for hard work has come.
Calling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, dream, poem, poetry, tiger, wildness on February 13, 2016| 4 Comments »
There are tigers in the forest.
I used to think I was tame. No one
knows why they are given
a certain task. My task
is to catch the tigers.
We keep each other strong.
My arms are bare. My head
is bare. We stay awake. We prowl.
*
A friend offers me a bit of something dead.
What is dead is dead, but still I try
to make of it something useful. I tie it
to a ribbon of blue and cast it into the forest.
The tigers do not care for beauty.
The tigers care nothing for what is dead.
It is me that they want.
I stay strong. The tigers stay strong.
*
I walk closer to the tigers
until we are face to face.
I have nothing to offer them
except for myself. This is all
we ever have to offer.
The tigers follow me now.
Once I thought I was hunter.
Now I see we are all each other’s prey.
*
There is a room with no windows,
a room with two hidden doors.
I lead the tigers here, though I
have never been here before.
The first door closes behind us
and as the tigers explore
I push on the weight of an inner wall
and slip through an inner door.
*
Anything tame is a lie.
It is only me that I want
and I will do even that
which I think is impossible.
I do not need a weapon.
I do not need a lure.
I am the wall that I slip through.
I am the hidden door.
The Truth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, perception vs. reality, poem, poetry on September 13, 2015| 1 Comment »
Quick, Before I Lose My Courage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, love, poem, poetry, vulnerability on August 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Too long I have dared to not dare,
love. Here, here is my whole heart,
and here is the fence I built
around it and here is the match
to burn the fence and while we are at it,
the doors, too, and the walls
and the weathervane.
I have no idea what comes next.
Fabulous.
Thinking About a Friend Who Counseled “Hold Back”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, love, poem, poetry on March 19, 2015| 3 Comments »
Every day I fall in love again
with the world—with the sweetness
of pears or with green. With
a man or a child or a woman
or a cat or with the way drupes hang
from birch branches in spring.
Every day it overtakes me,
this rush of joy paired with a rush
of sorrow. Always the two together.
Like opening my eyes as wide
as I can, but longing to open them wider.
Like the terrible tingles I feel in my hands
when they return after being numb.
Like the long, terrible silence
after I share the secrets of my heart.
Oh world, don’t let me be deterred.
Let me fall in love always. Let me always
be opening, wide and wider than that.
Look, even now the sun is peeking
through the clouds just enough
to make the whole world,
even the old tires, even the bones shine.