There are darknesses in me,
places I would disregard.
Is it any wonder every year
I plant thousands of tiny seeds
and then wander the garden,
rooting for each as overnightly
they put up rows of tiny leaves.
How easily I forget what is possible.
Posts Tagged ‘darkness’
Amongst the Nasturtiums
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, garden, poem, poetry, possibility, seeds on June 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Sumatra
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged coffee, darkness, poem, poetry, sumatra on January 18, 2019| 2 Comments »
I want to serve you Sumatra,
the wild, mossy, mushroomy
dark of it. I want to serve you
the muted black song in a white cup,
so you can, if you listen closely,
hear the birds of Southeast Asia
with their foreign calls,
hear the farmer as he hums
while he picks the coffee cherry,
as he removes its dark red skin.
I want to serve you the scent of moss,
so strong you find yourself laying in it,
staring up at the sky through
the canopy, laying there for hours
forgetting anything else to do.
Will you find there, too,
the hint of old leather, a favorite
belt, a favorite shoe, something
familiar to slip into? Dark in the cup,
dark like midnight, dark like two a.m., dark
like the silence that finds the world then.
Dark in the cup, like fathomless space
where a small voice whispers, stay awake.
And there, in the cup, the gift of a place
where we have never been, but
together, perhaps, we could sip the Sumatra
and visit again and again.
A Mighty Fortress
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, doubt, martin luther, poem, poetry, song, teaching on January 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I am afraid of the darkness and the hole in it.
—Martin Luther, “Luther”
And when Martin Luther was struck with plague
in 1527, he refused to leave the city, though he trembled,
though he burned. He felt it was the devil’s assault
sent to reduce him with despair. And reduced, he was.
There is darkness so great we lose all sense of direction,
forget even which way is in. There is darkness
so great that even the holes in the darkness are terrible,
cannot be seen as light. And in that terrible August,
the Reformer argued with God. And all that terrible August,
Luther trusted God’s promises. And he told himself,
Pray. Read. Sing. And the darkness endured.
Sometimes, Luther found, there are darknesses
so great we forget how to sing ourselves. Sometimes,
the only way through darkness, through doubt,
is to teach other people to sing.
The Power Out
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book of the dead, candle, darkness, light, poem, poetry, power, solstice on December 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »
and so we rise in darkness
and let our bodies move
without the blare of light.
The house is still and we
are somehow changed
by stillness, changed
by dark. As if we’ve
grown pads in our feet.
As if we are learning
a new silent language
with our limbs, a language
more graceful, more awake.
We find candles. Find
matches. Let the tiny lights
find us. For a thousand years
in Egypt, they wrote
and rewrote The Book
of Emerging Forth into the Light,
a series of writings we somehow came
to call The Book of the Dead.
All the spells were written
to help the dead person journey
through hostile forces
into the afterlife.
And this morning, we
are our only obstacles.
Still, the candles
are a bit like spells,
guiding us with their brilliant ink
toward dawn. There
are no warnings, no judgements,
no naming of evil spirits.
Only this new language
to learn with its syntax
of carbon, it etymologies
of shadow, its phonemes
of coming light.
Walking Before The Midnight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, darkness, poem, poetry, question on July 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »
in the dark
you lose track
of any lines
that say
you are here—
and the night
holds you
like a lover
with hands
somehow
everywhere,
and the stars
keep thousands
of secrets
and sometimes
they spill,
and if you have
a question,
it comes to meet you
whether or not
you’ve dared
to ask it.
Making Peace with the Darkness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged child, darkness, fear, love, mother, poem, poetry, villanelle on March 8, 2018| 12 Comments »
My child, I say, you need not fear the night—
its unlit corners, rooms of dim unknown—
the darkness helps us learn beyond the light.
But mom, how do I know that you’re alright
if I can’t see you? I feel so alone.
My child, I say, there’s goodness in the night.
The dark erases any lines we might
have drawn, makes all the world appear as one.
The dark helps us to see beyond the light.
But mom, I don’t feel safe without my sight.
What if there’s monsters, spiders, things that groan?
My child, I say, there’s kindness in the night.
You feel how darkness holds the whole world tight?
Embracing every human, creature, stone—
the darkness helps us reach beyond the light.
It hugs us all, despite our wrongs, our rights,
inviting everyone into its home.
My child, I say, you need not fear the night—
the darkness helps us love beyond the light.
One for the Lengthening Days
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, night, poem, poetry, wishing on January 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
When Skies Are Gray
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, poem, poetry, solstice, sunshine, you are my sunshine on December 23, 2017| 2 Comments »
We used to sing
You are my sunshine,
sang it like
a children’s song,
all glitter and wing.
That was before
we knew
how dark it can get,
sky without stars,
night without moon.
Even the brightest songs
can be sung in a minor key.
That is no reason
to stop singing.
That’s the time
to ask someone
to dance, please,
slow, your bodies
practicing how
to make light.
December 20
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, emptiness, light, poem, poetry, winter solstice on December 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »
One of the rooms
in the longest night
has an empty chair
and an open book—
and in the book
is an empty page
full of light—
if you read it
long enough
you might forget
what an hour is,
or night,
forget all stories
besides this one,
older than scripture,
where everything
is possible.
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, meditation, poem, poetry on December 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Darkness lands in my lap
on all fours, curls up and purrs—
I learn to miss
its weightless weight
when it leaves,
learn to be more still
so it will stay,
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