Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘forgiveness’

One Warm Discovery

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 6, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

that fence I built

around my heart

makes real good kindling

Read Full Post »

Two Realizings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 2, 2015| 1 Comment »

 

with gratitude to Rachel Kellum

 

 

holding out the olive branch,

surprised to see the end’s

been set on fire—

oh foolish woman who hesitates

to drop it before she is burned

 

*

 

olive tree,

may you grow many branches,

may I prune you often

but not to the point of risking the roots—

for now, here is water, time

Read Full Post »

How it Might Happen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 6, 2015| 4 Comments »

The baby black swift is born behind a waterfall.
It never leaves its nest until one autumn day
it leaves the damp familiar and starts to fly.

Though it has never flown before, it will not land
until it reaches Brazil, thousands of miles away.

There is, perhaps, a wing inside forgiveness.
Just because it has never flown before,
just because it’s never seen beyond the watery veil
does not mean that it won’t instantly learn
what it can do.

Like the baby black swift, it has no idea
what it’s flying toward. It only knows
that it must fly and not stop until it is time to stop.

It sounds so miraculous, so nearly impossible.

It is not a matter of courage. It is simply
what rises up to be done, the urge to follow
some inaudible call that says now, now.

Read Full Post »

Which One to Try First?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 31, 2015| 2 Comments »

In the book of spells

I do not find the one

that helps you forget

what you want

to forget. There is one

for making the bees

come out midwinter

and another to make

the walls speak what

they’ve seen. There’s

a spell for making

minutes go slower, and

a spell to turn a woman’s

skin green. But no spell

to forget what we wish

not to know. There are

thirty-one spells for

forgiveness, though.

Read Full Post »

One Way it Could Look

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 2, 2015| 3 Comments »

for B

I would like to pour light
into all your frightened spaces,
and wherever you are tired,
I would like to bring a beautiful dream.
And your wounds, still festering
beneath scars, I want to bring salve
that will heal even the past
through a blend of forgetfulness and grace
so that you can walk back into the world
with your own pitcher of light
and dreams and salve to share,
perhaps you could even spare
a little light, a little softness,
a little grace
for me.

Read Full Post »

Two Portraits of Patience

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 6, 2015| 3 Comments »

waiting for forgiveness
as if it were a train
and the rails are long gone

*

my heart an apple blossom
afraid it doesn’t know
how to become apple

Read Full Post »

Christmas Morning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 26, 2014| 3 Comments »

What was it under the tree
I was hoping for—perhaps
forgiveness, not the kind
you can tie up with a bow,
no, rather the kind
you don’t even know is there,
except you notice you can’t
stop laughing and everything,
even the awkward scale
you carry in your breath,
even that seems luminous,
some small, amusing scrap
of heaven.

Read Full Post »

Isn’t That What We All Want?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 21, 2014| 3 Comments »

Kneeling in aisle three,
in front of the red hots,

colored sugars and non-pareils
reading their labels

and shopping price,
I did not know what I wanted

until a stranger with a dark beard
and brown coat walked around me

and said in a soft, smiling voice,
“I forgive you.”

Read Full Post »

What the Parenting Books Can’t Teach Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 13, 2014| 2 Comments »

Easy enough to love them when they are snuggling
with us and making up songs or stories. Easy to love them

when they are sleeping and still. But deeper the love
that blossoms when they are kick or shout

or recoil from our gentlest touch.
And deeper still the love, love like a pellucid, icy

mountain lake that we choose to jump into and swim
when we learn to forgive them for not forgiving us.

Oh how it takes our breath away, and painful as it is,
we can’t help but think how good it feels, how clear.

Read Full Post »

It’s Been Growing In Me, This Feeling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 12, 2013| 3 Comments »

Today forgiveness is like the tracks
in the snow at the park where the skis
might follow, and the following is easy.
There are many other ways that one
might go, but it seems simple to move
through the trees in these slots that
were made for people like me who
are afraid of getting hurt. I’ve been injured
recently. I imagine painful things. Though the path,
it hosts no mountain lions, no volcanoes,
no dragons, no skunks, no traps.
I have to laugh at how straightforward it is
to forgive. You do nothing and it arrives.
And around the corner, it’s still there.
Of course it happens in its own time.
How pure the impulse to want
to share its grace. So much freedom!
Isn’t it ironic, what now feels safe.
But we cannot lead a horse to water
nor a friend to mercy nor clemency.
God, the sun is incredible here, the way
it sifts through the empty trees, the way
it catches in expanses of snow rife with facets
made by transitioning warm to cold to warm to cold.
It’s warm. We all transition. There was a time when
I was so full of anger I didn’t even know that forgiveness
was part of the landscape. And today,
it is effortless—so effortless I nearly didn’t name it
as I shifted my weight from one ski to the other
in grooves I didn’t need to reinvent, my poles
moving almost of their own accord, a rhythm
not so unlike the beating of your heart, my heart.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »