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.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, night, poem, poetry, wishing on January 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
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.
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,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, friendship, poem, poetry, problem on September 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »
for Barbara Ford
We sit on the couch in the low lamplight
and talk for hours about the heart,
its longing to know and be known.
I watch your hands as you speak, how
your long fingers dance. And sometimes,
my eyes catch on a moth amusing itself
at the edge of the room, content in shadow.
We are both well aware that pain
can also be a blessing, that just because
something is not going right doesn’t mean
it is wrong. There are problems
we will never solve, but tonight, it is not
about the solving of things, it’s about the feeling
of them, the willingness to lean over the edge
of the well-lit world, the thrill of fluttering
in the darkness together.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, light, poem, poetry on February 26, 2017| 1 Comment »
Fumbling in the dark
with the matchbook
grateful my hands
are experienced
with making flame—
part of me fears
using them up
part of me knows
it’s what matches
are for.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, poem, poetry, power outage on February 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, joy, poem, poetry, wushdan on January 24, 2017| 5 Comments »
In dark times it is sometimes hard
to speak of joy—not because
it doesn’t exist but because
of the guilt in feeling it.
The dark clots our arteries,
it keens in our ears, floods the streets.
Still, my friend sends me a word—
wushdan. It’s pronounced like swush,
she says, not swoosh. Wushdan.
I say it aloud, and the syllables
hush my tongue. It means,
she says, “heart awareness,
conscience,” as in a practice
of inner discipline. Wushdan,
I say again, as if to speak a word
is to know the secrets harboring
inside it for centuries.
The root, says my friend, is wush,
which is Persian, means joy.
It feels as if someone
has slipped me a piece of chocolate
in math class during a test.
Or as if, while reading
the headlines of war I look out
the window and see the big brown eyes
of a doe looking unwaveringly
into mine. And I put the paper down
and watch out the window
until the light is gone.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, light, peace, poem, poetry on December 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Let us lace our words with light—
the fragrant light we carry in our flesh.
Even the darkest words can be said
with light, can be spoken with a seam
of radiance, spoken as if the whole world
depends on us finding that inner shine
and sharing it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, poem, poetry on May 17, 2016| 1 Comment »
