Posted in Uncategorized, tagged endings, heart, letting go, transformation on December 9, 2020| 2 Comments »
The swirling ash
doesn’t try
to be become
log again.
The flying leaves
don’t attempt
to return
to the tree.
The girl
can’t untwist
her genome
back into
separate strands.
The flour
in the bread
can’t return
to the sack,
can’t undo
the kneading
of hands.
In all things
lives a memory
of letting go
and the chance
to transform
into what
it can’t know.
What do you say
to that, heart?
Good self,
what do you say
to that?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged endings, rabbit brush on December 3, 2020| 7 Comments »
End well, says my friend,
and I think of Beethoven,
how his final symphony
was a triumphant masterpiece,
a unifying ode to joy.
And I think of the time
we ran the Grand Canyon
for weeks and on the last night
we tied the boats together
and floated all night and laughed
and laughed and laughed.
There’s the Rilke poem
about a marble torso
in which he closes with
You must change your life.
And espresso at the end
of a meal, how the dark bitter cup
leaves the mouth
in an warm O of ecstasy.
But it isn’t always easy to end—
saying goodbye to a faraway friend.
Ending a kiss. Leaving the beach.
Turning the last pages of a book.
So I think of the rabbitbrush
that fill the field—how long
they hold their gold. Until
it’s cold and they fade
and it seems like the end—
but then, if I should shovel
across them, or walk through them
in the early snow, oh the perfume
they release then—evergreeen
and earthy, herbaceous and cool.
Sometimes to end well
is to offer more
when it all seems done.
Sometimes to end well
Is to surprise everyone
with one more gift.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beginnings, breaking open, endings, poem, poetry on May 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
weeping beside
the pussy willows—
all those tears
over saying goodbye,
I wouldn’t uncry
a single one