You were curled into yourself,
a tight lump of a woman,
hiding in the corner of the closet.
How long did you scrunch there
in that small tight room beneath the coats,
that room dark as coal, while tongues
of fury and fear and indignation
swirled inside you like blue flames,
blue flames licking, licking and seeking
more fuel to burn. You burned.
What was it that allowed you
to unclench? Exhaustion, of course.
Exhaustion, and an almost imperceptible spark.
You would never call that spark love. But was it?
Was it love that came and found you and gave
you the will to crawl to the door
and push it open just an inch, another
inch. Was it love that helped you stand,
love that fashioned from the char of you a woman?
Was it love that survived the blue flame
and whispered, I, too, am fire?
Posts Tagged ‘fear’
That Impossible Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, burning, fear, fire, love on October 8, 2026| 3 Comments »
Re-seeing the Cliff
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cliff, fear, growth, reframing, san miguel river on September 29, 2026| 1 Comment »
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins, “No Worst, There Is None”
We fear the cliff, the dangerous edge,
but here on the banks of the San Miguel River,
I see how even the cliff is in service to life—
how even in the steepest reaches of the canyon,
the blue spruce and pinion pine grow tall
in the crumbling layers of red-sandstone walls
as if to prove how little ground life needs to flourish,
how the smallest bit of soil can sustain a great tree.
The mind, too, has cliffs, and sometimes
they frighten me, but what if they, too,
are not just heights from which to fall, but
vital places to explore what happens in the layers,
places where we see what has been here before,
exposed. What if the cliff is not a place to resist,
but an invitation to witness unfathomed growth?
In the Garden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ache, fear, garden, peace on September 2, 2026| 9 Comments »
In the garden works a woman,
in the woman grows a fear,
in the fear lives a truth,
in the truth is an ache.
After some time
of pulling weeds and
deadheading flowers
and before the rain begins,
the ache has sloughed
enough layers to make
it more easily seen.
On its own, the ache
is not so large. When
the woman meets it
between the sunflowers
and snapdragons,
the ache does not disappear,
but somehow it no longer
consumes her, it simply
is as she tugs
at taproots, removes
yellowed leaves.
The world is so much
more alive than the fear
would have her believe.
As day goes down, she
tends the soil, she speaks
to potatoes, to basil,
to kale. There is no seed
for peace, yet it grows here,
the peace of green leaves
and dark earth, the peace of
nightcrawlers, moss and bees.
She speaks to the plants
as she moves through the
rows, and knows ease.
*Inspired by Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”
Sharing Our Humanness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ache, blessing, connection, fear, intimacy on March 10, 2026| 2 Comments »
with thanks to James Crews
My friend James calls it the rough blessing,
the blessing that rubs, that chafes,
that scrapes. Perhaps I wanted blessings
to only feel good, to be gentle. But the word itself
comes from the practice of sprinkling blood
on an altar. Why should I be surprised when
the blood for the rite is my own? I am thinking
of how today when I was hemorrhaging fear,
my friend comforted me when I called her in tears.
I felt so loved when she listened and soothed.
Such luminous intimacy grew from my wound.
Oh, ache of being human. Oh, the blessing.
Every fortress I have ever built
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, fortress, self-protection, vulnerability on February 12, 2026| 4 Comments »
around my heart has come down.
Oh sure, I’ve rebuilt them with stones
of indifference. Stones of distraction.
Stones of unwillingness to see and be seen.
I’ve rebuilt the fortresses again. Again.
But then come flames of heartbreak.
Cannons of loss. The triple promises
of entropy, gravity and time. And at last,
too exhausted to lift the stones again,
I shiver with the cold wind of fear.
Sting from the sharp blades of betrayal.
But I feel, too, the gentle hand of another
as it holds my trembling hand.
Feel the body soften as I listen
to the music I could never make alone.
How present I can be when I no longer try
to rebuild the fortress. Present
enough to listen for the goodness
in the hearts of others. Present enough
to listen for the goodness in mine.
The Channeling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged divinity, fear, kindness, rising, uncertainty on January 20, 2026| 5 Comments »
We might as well be divine.
—Kate Horowitz, “i tell the ghost of carrie fisher the world is ending”
We might as well be divine.
As masked agents arrive
with guns, curses
and brutal disrespect,
we might as well be divine.
We might as well sing at the edge
of collapse, bring forth the kind
of harmony that calls goosebumps
to arms and hot tears to eyes.
As we march, as we gather,
as we fight for each other,
we might as well be divine.
As rivers shrink and sinkholes
appear and we face water
bankruptcy worldwide,
we might as well share
what is not ours to own.
And be kind to each other.
And praise what good we find.
This is it. It’s like this. Nothing
but now. What we bring,
who we are, this is all.
As tears fall fast and voices rise,
as fear grows thick and viscous,
we might as well be channels for grace,
we might as well be divine.
In the Airport, I Wonder about Enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged enough, fear, helplessness, kindness on July 28, 2025| 8 Comments »
Could they ever be enough,
these stumbling attempts
to bring kindness to an aching world?
Enough, this holding the door for a stranger,
this saying I’m sorry, this holding a place in line?
How could it be enough, asks the ache,
when today I saw the photo of the mother
holding the starving child in Gaza,
his brown legs as thin as my wrists.
I am sick with helplessness.
What does it mean, enough?
Beside me on a bench,
a man I have never met is humming.
His tune blooms like a sun in my chest.
The warmth twines with the beat of my question,
How could any small act be enough?
Until the child in the photo and all children
are safe and fed and loved and held by loving mothers
who are safe and fed and loved
and held by loving others who are safe
and fed and loved—until then,
how could anything ever be enough?
The old man beside me has started to sing.
His eyes are closed, and his
low gentle voice braids beauty
into everything around him.
Even the questions that will never
have answers. Even this terrible ache.
How deeply I want to believe
it is not too late to save this world.
All at Once
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, fear, night, paradox, worry on June 18, 2025| 8 Comments »
Walking alone into the dark,
my fear comes with me.
I feel it small and hard
in my belly like a tiny grenade
the mind has conjured
in case I need protection.
Meanwhile, all around me
the night is peaceful.
The dark spills its generous ink
into every open space.
Crickets rub their legs in bright music.
The misty rain makes no sound.
But the mind is not convinced
the night is safe. It clenches tighter
around its fear. It does no good
to tell the mind not to worry.
Hello, tiny grenade.
I carry it with me as I walk
through a field of fireflies—
and I’m laid bare by the beauty
I find there—thousands of glittering sparks.
Isn’t it a marvel how a person
can be both clenching and opening
at the very same time
while moving alone through the dark?
Walking Back from Sanborn Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, awe, fear, paradox, snake, terror on June 12, 2025| 6 Comments »
Four-foot rattlesnake.
Sunning herself.
Right in the middle
of the road. Strange,
how terror can also
breed awe. For long,
silent moments, I offer
her all my attention.
After she slips into swaths
of sweet clover,
the sky, such a startling blue.
The scent of wild roses,
so stirring, so sweet.
The Opening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, love, opening, paradox, salvation on June 8, 2025| 6 Comments »
There is a terror that claims us,
that snaps its strong jaws around us
and thrashes us till we are limp.
Who could guess such a maw
is a portal to grace?
There are wounds so great
no amount of salve or prayer
or kindness or care can heal them,
and through them we find gateways to love.
It is after the wailing and howling with ache
that we hear, as if for the first time,
the almost inaudible song of our breath
and know it as home.
How is it that what saves us
feels so far out of reach
but is here, bone close?
There is an infinite blooming inside us
we come to know only as we wither.
Even now, in this chill,
it is opening.
One Clearing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, fear, self-care on March 22, 2025| 4 Comments »
every day I dismantle its nest,
that fear that wings darkly
into my thoughts
To the Bunny Who Lives Under the Porch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, elegy, fear, spring, vulnerability on March 9, 2025| 8 Comments »
Snug little lump of timid flesh
whose fur matches the brown
grass of late winter, silent
little being with your long
pointy ears twisted back,
oh, soft little wide-eyed prey,
thank you for returning
to the yard this morning.
After two weeks of not seeing
your fidgety-whiskered nose,
I met your apparent loss like an elegy
I didn’t want to write. I am tired
of writing elegies, though this
is what life asks us to do—
to meet the world of loss
and learn the beauty
that grows from it.
So imagine my joy today when
I was driving in a faraway town
and my husband sent me a photo
of your mild, quiet bunny-ness
nibbling grass beside the porch,
one shiny brown eye open
to the camera. A wild gratefulness
for life flooded me then, keen
as a pasqueflower, bright
as a globe willow greening
on the winter side of spring;
and my heart leapt out
from beneath its shelf of fear,
vulnerable as you, little bunny.
Self-Talk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, opening, self-compassion, self-talk on February 22, 2025| 10 Comments »
Because I know in my body
the power of spaciousness,
I command my heart, Stay open.
Stay open, I growl,
as it clenches and hardens
and granites and steels,
but my terrified heart
keeps clenching anyway,
tighter and smaller and stuck.
I said, Stay open,
my voice a demand,
as if with intensity
I could force a release.
And the heart curls in,
intent on survival, like a pill bug,
like an armadillo, like a heart
that has learned before
it is not safe to love.
And it hurts to be small.
And it takes so much energy
to clench, that finally
it’s exhaustion that helps me
to hear the softer voice
beneath the command,
the quiet voice that arrives
like the slightest of waves, the voice
that arrives like low morning sun,
and the voice enters the clench of me
like gentle rain meeting dry earth,
and it says, Of course, you’re afraid.
For now it’s enough to remember
the possibility of opening.
What I Didn’t Know
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged activism, fear, love, love languages on February 6, 2025| 6 Comments »
At last I am learning it’s okay
to be scared to the marrow
and still show up whole-hearted.
No shame it took so long
to learn this truth,
just giddy relief to finally trust
I can be clenched like a hedgehog
or poised as a snake
and still be open to finding love
at the center of what scares me.
And when I find no sprig of love there,
that is the chance
to offer love to the world
any way I know how—
with a gift, with my time,
with words, with touch,
or with a simple act of kindness.
And if I find I have no love
to muster, then that is the chance
to plant seeds of love in whatever
soil I find. And amend the ground.
And bring light. Bring water.
Letter to the Others in the Dark
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, darkness, fear, maturity, writing on January 7, 2025| 23 Comments »
I am writing not to send you light,
but to let you know you are not alone
in the darkness. I am here, too,
scribbling with no sight, no certainty
that the words on the page are legible,
no confidence you will receive this.
Still this impulse to reach out,
this longing to honor this deepening darkness,
though it is confusing, disorienting.
I find myself reminding myself
such darkness is natural, essential even,
and there is some comfort
in knowing this, in trusting I am part
of some great process, even though
it terrifies me. This is how the world
has been made and remade.
Of course we are no different
than stars. Perhaps you are not frightened.
But I am. Maybe this is why I reach out.
Because it takes so much courage
to trust the dark place, to attend to its demands,
to believe this is not the end, but a pause,
a stage between one world and another.
Please, don’t send me light either.
I don’t think I am ready yet, the pain still sharp,
not yet softened, not yet become wings,
though part of me longs to have already
arrived on the other side of transformation.
Perhaps you are reaching for me, too.
Perhaps you have already written
on this page, and because it is dark,
I can’t read what you’ve said.
Perhaps believing this makes me less alone.
And this is why I write.
Antidote for fear of not being good enough
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, insufficiency, nike on October 19, 2024| 10 Comments »
Sometimes, afraid I am not good enough,
I lie on the grass
back heavy against the earth
and I swallow the sun
in great brilliant gulps
as if it is medicine,
the kind I never got as a child,
the kind that tastes like
whatever it is that makes
strawberries ripen,
whatever it is that makes
feathers grow,
whatever it is that erases
any thoughts of insufficiency
until all that remains
is a human lying in the grass,
a barest smile on my lips.
No wings sprouting from
my shoulders, no magic
transformation. Just
the softening that comes with
giving my body to the earth,
giving my all to the sun
until it overrides every other impulse.
Nothing magical about it
unless you count
all the sunlight dribbling like praise
down my chin.
Cicada
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, cicada, fear on October 10, 2024| 4 Comments »
Fear lays its eggs
in the grooves
of my thoughts
where they hatch
and feed on
the juice of my joy,
then dig to my roots
and eat those, too,
till they emerge
and grow wings
and sing and sing
and ceaselessly sing
to each other
using their bodies
as chambers
and I can’t escape
their song—
sometimes
when I listen,
I tremble
and the ache
makes me feel—
how can this be—
impossibly
more alive.
Positive Side Effect of Exhaustion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, delight, fear, paradox, tired on October 6, 2024| 8 Comments »
Inside me fear and delight take a nap.
They have wearied each other
with their wrestling. Look how sweet
they are there, curled into each other
like two cats, one white, one black.
Look how their chests rise and fall
in unison, as if they can’t help
but attune to each other—
like two heart cells
that can’t help but sync.
The moment I’m more awake
they will be at it again,
pouncing, batting, tussling.
But for now, the easy duet of their purr,
the limp weight as they curl deeper in
as if for once there’s no question
they both belong.