Every day I tend it again,
this fence around our hearts.
I rebuild it each time I say no
to things that would take me away
from you. I rebuild it each time
I choose to be right here.
I rebuild it and thrill in the rebuilding,
each post of the fence is a love letter,
this fence I once tried to burn.
Posts Tagged ‘freedom’
Once I Wanted Only Openness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged commitment, connection, fence, freedom, paradox, priorities on January 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »
One Stifled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, restraint, river, singing, voice on January 27, 2025| 8 Comments »
this winter
I’ve turned into a river
beneath the ice, so much song
Steadfast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, connection, freedom, inauguration, resilience, voice on January 19, 2025| 12 Comments »
Though a cold
wind is howling,
we’re not birds
without wings—
and as long as we
have voices
let us sing together,
sing of freedom,
sing what’s true,
let us sing.
- “birds without wings” is from John Lewis’s speech, January 9, 2005, at the Kennedy Center, at a choral tribute honoring Dr. Martin Luther King
Generous Assumptions
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged armor, buddha, freedom, generous assumptions, self-protection on December 9, 2024| 16 Comments »
I would like to open my heart to you
and keep it open, but the truth is
sometimes all it takes is a glance,
or the lack of a glance, or a certain tone,
or a serrated word, and instantly the heart
puts on its armor, which is something like
a coat of porcupine quills, only
the quills go inward, too, and the instant
I wear it, I am aware of how much it hurts
to wear it. How in that moment when I seek
to protect myself, I wound myself.
What if I believed you are doing the best you can
considering the forces that have shaped you?
What if I listened past your words, looked through
your actions to see how you, too, feel threatened?
The Buddha said we are always moving
toward or away from freedom.
Could I, in that moment before the prickly coat
has started doing its prickly work,
could I move toward freedom
by refusing to put it on? Could I choose instead
the silken robe of generous assumptions,
the one that allows for compassion, connection,
even kindness toward you, toward myself?
Already, just thinking about it being possible,
I notice a softening, a curiosity about how I might
change not you, but myself. Already, I feel
how fluid this robe is, how gently it swirls around me,
how strong its fibers are, how freeing it is, cool
and breezy, this gift to myself.
When I Was Feeling Alone After My Father’s Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, connection, fear, freedom, grief, seamlessness, vision on July 22, 2024| 6 Comments »
In a vision, I knew the universe as seamless—
a place with no horizon, no anchor,
no tether, no foundation. And though
it was beautiful—a water-color wash
of pinks and blues and grays and greens—
I was terrified, feeling myself formless
in the vast sea of space, too free, too free.
I wanted an object, a person, a shape,
a something to belong to.
And Love spoke in words I did not hear
but somehow felt, and said,
The only thing that will ever ground you
is not the object of love, but love itself.
Now, sitting in my kitchen, I feel it again.
Though my feet are on the ground
and I hear the hum of the cars on the highway,
though there is a cat that desperately wants
to sit in my lap and I taste the dark and bitter leaves
in my tea, though I am undeniably in a body,
I feel it again, the seamlessness, the communion
of the great everything that is, the underlying all-ness,
the domain of no division. But in this moment,
I know freedom not as terrifying, but as generous,
as uncontainable love that runs through everything.
The only thing that will ever ground you
is not the object of love, but love itself.
To write this is to touch the truth again,
a beauty that can never be broken or fractured.
Every cell of me disassembles into beauty,
opens with awareness, even as the cat yowls,
even as phone rings again.
Why I Should Hike Every Day No Matter What
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, hiking, mountain, paradox, stream on July 21, 2024| 10 Comments »
I didn’t know how trapped I was
in my own busyness until,
walking past a quiet lake
and up through a lush spruce forest
I felt how with each step toward tree line
more calendar squares disappeared
and all my lists dissolved until
I was nowhere but wading
through waist-high bluebells
with corn lilies rising above my head.
How still my mind was then, still,
as I traversed creeks and clambered
over fallen trees. Still as I climbed
to the place where the clear water
streams down gray cliffs and yellow
monkey flower flourishes on the banks.
I was bathed with gratefulness.
Is it true that to know this freedom
once is to be able to carry it
like a touchstone in my body?
Will the larkspur have any dominion
tomorrow while I’m trapped in a deadline?
Will the scent of summer’s last wild roses
return when I’m scrambling
for just ten more minutes?
Oh freedom, I long to contain you.
That thought makes me laugh.
Yet it’s true. I long to find myself
mid-hustle still linked to the gurgling stream,
its waters so cold I can’t help but gasp.
This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, spaciousness on January 24, 2024| 8 Comments »
Sit with the freedom in your heart.
Feel it expanding into your palms—
in this moment whole galaxies
seem to fit inside your fingertips. How?
When did you become this vast?
Was this spaciousness always here?
Could you have felt this way yesterday
if only you had gotten out of your own way?
Sit with the freedom in your heart—
more beautiful than any story—
feel it surge through you
until your body forgets any limits
and knows itself as infinite.
Freedom will do what freedom does—
invite you to touch the source of the universe,
replace, for this moment, your fear with awe.
How the Heart Remembers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, eagle, freedom, righteousness on January 9, 2024| 4 Comments »
When I was sure I couldn’t be happy,
not in that moment, anyway, that was when,
at the edge of my vision, I saw the dark wing
and looked up in time to see a bald eagle
with its white head and white tail
as it soared toward me,
low enough I could see the bright yellow
of its beak, and I swear I, too, took flight
in that moment as my eyes lifted and my heart
wheeled and my senses stretched out—
and I couldn’t stay clenched. I couldn’t.
Not that some part of me didn’t try.
It felt too good to be angry, betrayed.
There are ways the world brings us
back into its arms, saves us when we
pretend we are small, invites us back
into greatness through wonder.
Oh the miracle of wing, the marvel
of bird as it weaves through air,
the thrill of the heart as it remembers
what it is to be free.
Revelation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, death, freedom, life, skate skiing on March 27, 2022| 10 Comments »
After skate skiing on groomed track for months,
following only the preset path, today
I wake early enough to ski on the hardened crust
of spring morning snow. Suddenly,
the whole valley is a playground. And
it’s freedom. Freedom to move in any
direction. Freedom to loop or climb or follow
the river. Freedom that seeps into breath, into smile,
into my understanding of what it means to be alive.
And the whole time I skate and pole
and propel myself over snow
I hear an inner refrain from Romans:
And death shall have no dominion.
Not a still small voice, but a resonant boom.
And I, so alive in this sweet slip of time,
know that though my son has died
and my father has died, here I am,
carrying their love, and alive. Alive!
Alive through the winter.
Alive though I grieve. Alive. Alive as I skate
through willows and aspen and wide open white.
Lungs burning, legs striding, heart beating
hard in my chest. I know myself as breath
and return to the wholeness that never left.
Skating across the frozen world, the sparkling crust,
I live into this life that so wants to be lived,
this life that asks everything, everything of us.
After a Graduate School Reunion on Zoom, I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged education, freedom, friendship, lake on December 18, 2020| 2 Comments »
for Jennifer and Jennifer
And once again I am twenty-four
and I walk out the door
of our master’s exam and meet
my classmates down by the lake
and the day is hot and we drink cold beer
until we think jumping off the end
of the pier is a great idea, so
we kick off our shoes and run fully dressed
to the edge and launch and splash
and swim until we arrive at a party barge
full of men who pull us dripping
and life-giddy into their midst
and we do shots of something
that blissfully burns before laughing we
return to the open lake and side stroke back
to the shore where nothing’s the same
as it was before, though it still looks the same—
metal chairs still orange, our hair still brown,
the humid sky hazy, loud cheers all around—
but our lives will soon hurl us
in different directions—
to lovers and children and unanswerable
questions where the real tests cannot
be studied for with friends, and life’s master’s
degree doesn’t end till life ends, but oh,
for those few moments on the terrace,
soaking and shivering and whooping in glee,
my god, we were free, we were free, we were free.
Taking Root
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fourth of july, freedom, wildflowers on July 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
a freedom bouquet—
scarlet gilia, blue larkspur,
and small white daisies—
may these flowers of the field
grow wild in your heart tonight
Freedom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, road, walking on April 17, 2020| 6 Comments »
To walk alone
on the dirt road.
Whatever the weather,
to be grateful for it.
To step and step
and step again—
not toward an end,
but for the joy
of stepping.
Squirrel tail.
Creek scent.
Swish of last year’s leaves.
Nowhere to be
but here.
And the next here.
And next.To know
the self as traveler.
To know the self
as road.
To know each step
as freedom when
there’s nowhere
to go.
The Guru Said Stop Putting on the Brakes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, dream, flow, freedom, poem, poetry on September 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »
from a dream inspired by Sharon
And I tried. I tried.
Except steep hills. Except
stop signs. Except fear.
Then one day,
the brake simply
didn’t work anymore.
I thought perhaps
I’d forgotten which pedal
was the brake.
I tried flooring the pedal,
anyway, though I knew
it wouldn’t work.
At first, I hated it. Was terrified,
really. Then—right through
the intersection,
right down the steepest hill—
there it was, I was in it,
the flow, the flow.
Just Before the Credits Roll
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, lawnmower, movie, poem, poetry on May 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »
In the movie,
that’s not being made,
the one I star in,
my character, who looks
exactly like me,
is mowing the lawn,
exactly like me,
only when I go
to put the lawnmower
away by the barn,
she just keeps walking,
pushing that red Toro
down the side of the highway,
oblivious to the drivers
who stare and honk.
And there’s no orchestra
swelling, just a single
bassoon with a dark,
warm reedy timbre.
There she goes,
in her flip flops
and sun hat,
obviously not ready
for what’s about to happen
and not caring a whit,
leaving in her wake
a trail of freshly cut weeds,
and the scent of spring grass,
her figure getting
smaller and smaller
on the horizon.
Runoff
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, plover, poem, poetry, security on June 10, 2016| 4 Comments »
We are perhaps
like the plover
who made her nest
in the rocks
too close to the river’s
edge. The water
is rising rapidly.
We never
expected loss.
We almost
forgot that we
have wings.
While Her Stoic Portrait
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged escape, freedom, housewife, milk, poem, poetry on August 15, 2015| 1 Comment »
This morning when she pours the milk
into the child’s cup, she doesn’t stop.
She pours until the cup is full, until
it spills across the counter, ’til it spills
onto the floor. She pours and pours
until the kitchen is flooded in milk,
it is up to her knees, it is up to her waist,
it is dammed against the kitchen door,
which she opens, then she floats the creamy tide
into morning, riding atop the pearly tide.
With one hand, she waves at her neighbors,
with the other she continues to pour the milk.
She is surfing now through the streets of town,
past the bank, past the school, past the crowd
who has gathered to stare. “Oh,” they say,
with a shake of their heads, “she has really lost it
this time, bless her heart,” and they step
on the curb to keep their feet from getting wet,
and she smiles and blows them a one-handed kiss,
and with her other hand she pours and pours.
Concourse B
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, freedom, perspective, poem, poetry on June 20, 2015| 1 Comment »
She walks so easily down the concourse,
the young woman in the short dress and sandals,
her purse slung across her slender shoulder.
She’s not encumbered by much that I can see—
no children pulling on her shirt, no carry on
rolling behind her, no backpack or heavy purse.
I can’t help but notice how light she might feel,
what with her skiff of a sundress. I can almost smell
the freedom like a perfume she doesn’t know
she is wearing. I was like her, once, at least that
is what I would like to think, though I know better
than to project this way. It is easy to imagine
that she is free in ways I once was, though
never knew. Who can say what invisible chains
weight us down. Looking back, I notice
how little I noticed then. On a whim,
I decide to pretend I am older now looking back
at myself. Oh look, look at her, how light she is.
This Very Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, poem, poetry, present on June 1, 2015| 4 Comments »
And then came the day
when I knew to stop asking
to be anywhere else,
when somehow I no longer
believed any other garden
was better than this one,
when I wanted only
these weeds and this field.
There will come a day,
I am sure, when I forget.
But today, oh the freedom
of being utterly tethered
to this very here with no
other dream, no plan
for other plots, just
a song on my lips
that I sometimes know how
to sing and sometimes
have to hush to hear
how it goes.