Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, death, family, grief, loss, poem, poetry, sister on June 1, 2018| 3 Comments »
There was a time when I’d pull his hair out
if he sat too close to me on the couch.
Now, I curl into his right side,
lean my head on his shoulder,
feel the trembling of his chest
as he weeps. How good it feels
to be close to him as we grieve.
How familiar, the shape of his head,
the heft of his hand as he reaches for mine.
How deeply right, this leaning
into sorrow together.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, friendship, poem, poetry on May 14, 2018| 2 Comments »
for Jim Tipton
Margaret tells me
that while in a morphine stupor,
our friend told her I am dead.
I take the news of my death
rather well, I think,
remembering that just this morning
I ate blackberries
and pulled on my shoes
and drove a winding road.
But my friend, he is close
to death, his hand so tired
he signed only half his last name
in his book Margaret sends to me.
Reading it, he is in the room,
his voice still baritone and booming,
speaking of high desert honey and mesas
and cinnamon. I meet him there,
startled by how close he feels,
and when the book is over,
how enormous the emptiness.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, gratitude, poem, poetry on January 16, 2018| 11 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, cello, death, music, poem, poetry on November 3, 2017| 4 Comments »
with thanks to Kyra
Minor and slow,
the Russian death song
on the cello
fills the room
with loss and beauty,
the two rubbing
together like notes
side by side on the scale
played at the same time.
I lay on the floor
beneath the great instrument
and feel the waves of it
as if they originate inside me—
play it again, I beg
the cellist, and then,
when it’s done, I beg her
again, play it again,
And she does. And she does,
the warm notes filling
any chill they find.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, death, emptiness, loss, poem, poetry on October 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, death, letting go, poem, poetry on October 17, 2017| 3 Comments »
In the ragged purr of the cat
in my lap I hear all the sun
she has yet to curl into,
all the mice she has yet
to chase, all the days
we don’t have left.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comfort, death, poem, poetry on October 12, 2017| 2 Comments »
You want to say,
She was old, she had a good life.
You want to say,
She was treated well.
You want to believe
that death can be tender,
a blessing, a dark and beautiful flower,
and maybe you do say these things,
and all the while
your heart sags, wails,
curls like a cat into itself,
longs to be held
in some great, warm arms
even as you hold out
your own unsteady arms
to hold what can never
be held.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, garden, patience, poem, poetry, sunflowers on September 30, 2017| 2 Comments »
They are dead,
the sunflowers,
all petal-less and brown,
and I almost uprooted them
from the garden,
almost tossed aside
their tall brittle stalks,
their heavy bowed heads,
but see today how
the small gray birds
flutter amongst the dead
and dive for dark seeds,
how the garden air shimmers
with dozens of wings.
Patience, I think,
with whatever we believe
is lost—
so much beauty survives
even after a frost.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, grief, poem, poetry, suicide on August 19, 2017| 6 Comments »
Before the sadness comes the shock,
like snow falling on sunflowers,
like nightfall at noon. And then
the tears catch up. And then
the wondering, What could I have done?
The urge to hold her now that I cannot.
The ache to hold her daughter, to hold
her son the way that she once held
my children when they were young.
What is there to do now but cradle
each other, to cry, to recover, and again
to shudder, to cry. To say to each other
that this day it hurts to be alive.
To notice that despite grief,
the larkspur are in full blue.
The river curls notes around the rocks.
The bees immerse their bodies
in snapdragon blooms.
How it’s never been more important
to know this—that the world
is beautiful. That even as we’re held
by tragedy, here is tenderness.
Here, always waiting to be opened,
the invitation to love.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, pests, poem, poetry on June 6, 2017| 4 Comments »
I apologize
as I squish
the green worm
that’s been feasting
on the basil leaf.
It does not change
the fact that the worm
is dead. And the basil
now will live.
Yesterday, my friend Carl
stopped me on the street
and wondered aloud
how we die
to the moment,
then greet the next.
He did not,
of course mean
a literal death.
The basil leaf
has a hole in it now
where the green worm
is not. I pick it
and eat it myself,
not out of spite,
perhaps
to feel how the worm
and I are not
after all
so different.
