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Posts Tagged ‘despair’

Lesson from the Ouzel

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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The Real Story

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 11, 2020| 4 Comments »

Just as I threw my arms up in despair,

it was as if two angels

swooped in beneath them

and held them in place,

kept my arms raised high

so that anyone walking by

might have thought I was praising

the day, praising the air,

praising the clean blue sky,

kept my arms raised until I, too,

was fooled into thinking

I am here to honor

the immeasurable blue,

here to open, to feel the heart

beat wild inside the chest.

Long ago the angels left,

still I am here, hands raised.

*

*

ha! Friends, I just noticed that an anagram for despair is praised.

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Proxy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 13, 2020| 9 Comments »

The woman who knows what to write

did not show up today. Perhaps she’s gone

hiking amongst the blue larkspur, or

maybe she’s pulling weeds in the garden.

Perhaps she got a job as a counselor or a priest,

or decided to run for political office.

I wish she’d show up again. Sometimes

it’s not easy to face the blank, to believe

there are any words worth writing. Like today,

when I read about how the abandoned fracking wells

are leaking pollutants. How today will be

the first federal execution in seventeen years.

How there are still children at the border

still crying, “¡Mami!” and “¡Papá!”

Perhaps she was simply so sad

that she went to sit in a corner, quietly,

not to forget, but to find the strength to meet it.

Perhaps she is, even now, trying to conjure

the words that might actually make a difference.

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