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Posts Tagged ‘emptiness’

Moment of Grace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 29, 2013| 3 Comments »

Sometimes a person’s name
becomes so heavy around her neck
that the gravity of it pulls her down,
down into the snow drift, so far down,
syllables wrapped around buried stones,
that she cleaves it from her, expecting
blood, but there is only a sweet
emptiness where the name once was.
Such levity, she nearly floats above
the white bank. But you know what
happens to an empty space. Don’t
tell her. She is talking with the birds now,
and the sky. And the space
behind the sky.

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Eating the Soup without Salt

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 30, 2012| 5 Comments »

Something is missing.
At least that is what

the palate says. Though
so much is here. Nudge

of onion. Wink of cumin.
The lentil’s warm shrug.

It is like, perhaps,
a person who, feeling

a certain emptiness
longs to fill it with

a voice. Though all
around him, voices,

not hers.
The soup is warm,

but not there the spark,
the sharp song, the crystalline chime.

It is easy to taste
mostly absence. We are

hard wired to want it,
to crave it, adore it.

We’ve evolved
alongside of our need.

No one wants to hear
they can’t have what

they want. We cannot
untaste what we’ve tasted.

They say we are mostly
made of emptiness.

Sometimes I understand.

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The Pleasures of Flow

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

The great gift, contrary to assumption,
is to disappear.

—Barry Spacks, The Pleasures of Flow

Like the scent of lemon
once intense in bare hands.
Like cottonwood leaves—
how they flee
first in heaps
and then one
by one
leaving empty
degrees of space.
Like the last note
of the solo cello
after the bow
has stilled.
Like stars
in the face
of one
great star
so close
to us.
Like
the taste
of a kiss
that persists
long after
the lips
are
gone.

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Haiku to Prometheus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 28, 2012| 3 Comments »

I too, stole fire.
I, too, waited daily
for the eagle.

*

Just one piece of sun.
That’s all I wanted. After all
everything is broken.

*

It did not look
like a gift, the devouring
from the inside out.

*

Only clay after all.
But we’re more than that.
Ask my liver.

*

It never once
looked over its shoulder.
Brown wings blocked the sun.

*

I’d almost say
I came to like it. Could you
understand?

*

Isn’t it funny
I can’t remember now
the color of the eyes.

*

Tonight so full
the moon. It can be so lovely,
emptiness.

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Falling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 27, 2012| 3 Comments »

It is good
to ache with love.
Tonight
the empty
cottonwood arms
let the moon
escape.
Earlier
they threw
all their leaves
and made a path
of gold.
I walk it
in the dark.
It is all
so beautiful,
so empty,
cold. I take
the long
way home.

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Walking to the River with my Three-Year-Old Girl

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 21, 2012| 2 Comments »

last night’s snow
fills in the spaces
where we’ve been

so many emptinesses
in our wake

some never fill

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five haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2012| 5 Comments »


I could never say
what love is but often
I say I love you

*

you’re shy? it’s okay—
I can drip love from these words
instead of flooding

*

who says there is
only one sun? let’s think
vaster than that

*

falling through
the spaces between stars
a temple of emptiness

*

a velvet cage
is still a cage she said
scissors in hand

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Eight Attempts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 20, 2011| 2 Comments »

on our fingers,
six layers of skin
because
our hands
are made to touch

*

my daughter
picks a small stone
from the parking lot
and puts it
in her mouth

*

how do we know
what is real?
the stone
in the mouth
smooth and gritty and cold

*

the days
are so short.
they turn
into years
that are so, so short

*

and have we touched
enough?
the fingers
still have much
skin left

*

I am being
eroded
but you can’t see …
it’s all inside
the canyons deepening

*

I used to rush
to fill in
emptiness—
small stones
sinking into a pond

*

already
I have said
too much.

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