Forgive me for wanting to fix you.
As if we could be anything
but who we are.
Forgive me for every time
I have looked at you with hawkish eyes,
eyes with talons, eyes that hunt.
Forgive me for thinking I know
what you need, for thinking I am right.
For scrutinizing, for judging,
for using my gaze to build walls.
I want to look at you with eyes
as soft as the light in the field after dawn.
Want to meet you with eyes
as benevolent as rain. Want to see you
with eyes as open as sky, open as innocence.
Want to see myself this way, too—
then, it is easier to soften, to lean in, to bloom.
This is how I want to look at you—
not with eyes that fix, but eyes
that dismantle defensiveness,
eyes that say let us meet in our flawedness,
eyes unstintingly generous,
a gaze that says you are safe with me,
a gaze born of humility, a gaze made of wings.
Posts Tagged ‘forgiveness’
Seeing Clearly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eyes, forgiveness, gaze, humility, love on July 18, 2021| 3 Comments »
the other track
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, love, mercy, record on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
on the b-side of love
a song of mercy—
sweet groove of forgiveness,
beat of a thousand
soft wings
One Forgiveness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, stone, transformation on May 24, 2021| 2 Comments »
how quickly
this basket of stones
becomes
a basket
of feathers
One Very Quiet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, phone, quiet on August 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Three Slow-Moving Wondrous Things
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, slow on July 15, 2020| 5 Comments »
The heart of the blue whale
is in no hurry, only four to eight
beats per minute. And the glaciers
move their brilliant blue mass
less than three hundred meters a year.
And forgiveness, it can move even
slower than that. It may be months,
even years before it blooms.
But how wondrous, when at last
we recognize that, perhaps through
no effort of our own, it has released
its unhurried perfume into our thoughts—
oh sweetness we thought might never arrive,
oh surprise when it touches us everywhere.
One Unforgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged basil, death, forgiveness, garden, poem, poetry on May 31, 2019| Leave a Comment »
basil on the porch
the morning after a frost
leaves limp and black things—
how greenly it met yesterday
no amount of I’m sorry will do
After Being Given the Assignment to Forgive
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, friendship, letting go, poem, poetry, time on February 26, 2019| 8 Comments »
It took five days, but at last I thought of you, old friend,
friend I loved and wanted to trust, friend
who burned every bridge I tried to build between us,
who turned gratitude and apology to smoke, to ash,
who taught me that love is not enough—a lesson
I never wanted to learn, which is why I am grateful
you helped me to learn it.
No one gets through life without injury.
Still, I wanted to believe that a kiss and forgiveness
could make things better, but some things
are better left broken. Thank you for teaching me
that all passes, that even without a road, without
a bridge, without a track, the train of time
finds a way to keep moving, eventually
speeding by so fast that what seemed
unable to be overcome becomes a blur
and that hope gives way to something even
more beautiful: saying yes to what is real.
So though you will never know it, I forgive you
for your scissored words and sharpened
silences. I forgive you for giving up on love,
for saying no, goodbye. It takes almost no effort now.
Even uranium has a half-life—albeit 4.5 billion years.
How much sooner forgiveness has come. More like a lawn
that went unwatered and dried to brown, to dust,
but then when seasonal rains returned, turned green.
Yes, thriving and lush, here is the new lay of the land,
ready for anyone to arrive. Anyone. Even you.
Forgiveness 101
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, poem, poetry, sleep on February 21, 2019| 7 Comments »
The first person I forgive today is myself
for staying up too late last night—how
I loved reading into the late hours, the story
crooking its finger at me, tethering me
to its pages. What good does it do
to call myself stupid, to lash out at the part of me
who thrives on those slender moments
when I am alone and the house is quiet
and I am the sister of words. No, better to tell
that late night reader that I’m tired.
Better to smile at her, though she thwarts
the morning me who loves to rise feeling rested.
She does not apologize. I know I will have
to forgive her again. Somehow, when I start
with myself, it makes it easier all day long
to practice forgiveness for others—
the slow drivers, the complainers, the bullies,
the pouters. They probably have happier,
calmer, more rational selves, too,
that they are also thwarting. All day I practice seeing
the heart of a person. All day, when I yawn, I smile.
Becoming Crystalline
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, poem, poetry, salt, transformation on December 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Forgive me. I do not mean
to be sharp, stark, sterile.
I’ve read of the salt mines
at Salzburg, how if you throw
a stick, leafless and dead,
into one of the abandoned workings,
then return months later and pull it out,
it will be covered in crystals,
“a galaxy of scintillating diamonds,”
writes Stendahl, “the original
branch no longer recognizable.”
I want to be like that stick.
Take my winter soul
and throw it into the mystery,
though it’s dark and cold
and easy to get lost.
What knows how to attract
the light will grow, will change me
until I barely recognize myself.
I do not mean to be short,
but I hear it in my words.
Stranger things have happened.
What is dead is sometimes
a chance to find new life,
to become a thing shining,
something the same, only fresh,
a thousand times more brilliant.
On a Day When I Realize I’ve Scheduled Two Meetings for the Same Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged busy, failure, forgiveness, poem, poetry on March 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Self-forgiveness is not the first impulse.
In fact, I curse. Run my hands through my hair,
tug at my scalp. Sigh. Again. My shoulders fall slack
in the place where my wings would be.
In my gut, the seed of apology starts to root.
Perhaps that is what changes things,
what allows me to let failure look me in the face,
let it trace my cheeks, the barest caress.
It never asks me to be beautiful. It never
expects nor wants perfection. It touches me so tenderly,
is it any wonder that soon the apology
spills from my lips like the clearest stream,
and I stand in the cold clear rush of it.
The whole world looks different from here.