hiding in this cage
felt so safe until
I began to notice
what else
was hiding in this cage
Posts Tagged ‘freedom’
Love Bent the Bars
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cage, freedom, hiding, poem, poetry on September 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »
And the Polar Bear Sat in the Shade
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, humanity, poem, poetry, sea lion, zoo on August 10, 2014| 2 Comments »
The sea lion swims in the glass-framed pond
with his eyes closed. Lap after lap, he barely
seems to move his great webbed feet, his smooth
gray body flexes and curves. I try to imagine his eyes
are closed in contentment, but that is such
an utterly human wish. It is human to wish—
to see what we want to see, to believe what we want
to believe. The sea lion swims in his cage
with his eyes closed. I can’t stop watching.
It’s an Inside Job
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, freedom, paradox, poem, poetry on June 29, 2014| 1 Comment »
Before we can be what we are meant to be, we must accept what we are not.
–Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening , June 29
Bird in a cage
every day she drops the seeds
till beneath her
then all around her
a tangle of wild things.
Rich Beyond Wishing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ee cummings, freedom, poem, poetry, unknowing on October 7, 2013| 7 Comments »
(though love be a day
and life be nothing,
it shall not stop kissing)
–e. e. cummings, Thy Fingers Make Early Flowers
Make me then a flower
that is unashamed of blooming.
And make me a river undammed.
Make me a leaf that surrenders to death
but surrenders even more in life.
And make me a dawn that keeps
unfolding, a book that has no last chapter,
a phone that rings only love.
Paint me rose and then unpaint me.
Make me the door that forgets
how to latch, and just in case,
make me the skeleton key.
Make me a black wing that gathers
the light and gathers the wind,
and make me the light as it breaks on the wing
and make me the homeless wind.
One More Escape
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, love, poem on August 28, 2013| 1 Comment »
I made a cage
out of my story—
love bent the bars
Finn Learns Cursive
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, creativity, cursive, freedom, handwriting, parenting, poem, poetry on February 21, 2013| 2 Comments »
It begins as a dark wing arcing up,
then cart wheeling high, swooping
down, then back up to a point before
diving as falcons do toward the earth
with great straightness, curving up
at the very last moment, in this case
before meeting the blue solid line, climbing
to intersect the first long arc,
then doubling back on its path.
The pencil wheels across the blank
page, it flies into another loop,
and another, pushes into a bow
and then bends, sweeps and circles again,
and the boy moves his hand, entranced
by the leaden record of its dance
as his thoughts appear on uneven horizons
until the whole page
is a flock of slender black wings
all of them rising at once,
that beating, that beating, his heart.
Same Dream, New Ending
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, improvisation, poetry, recurring dream on February 13, 2013| 2 Comments »
I don’t know my lines.
That is always the case,
only this time, the props
were not set, either,
and I am frantically
baking popovers
for the first act.
Five minutes before curtain,
I tell the other two actors,
“I’m going to have to improvise.”
They look at me in astonishment,
not because they are disappointed
but because they can tell
I only just this moment
knew that was an option.
Five Undoings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, haiku, illusion, poem, poetry, story on February 11, 2013| 5 Comments »
wearing that story
for so long I forgot
I had slipped it on
*
bad hem day—
tripping on my own
once upon a time
*
rumors of my self
catch on morning sun, snag on
the wake of herons
*
with one hand, I stitch
the small tears, with the other,
I rip out the seams
*
naked
the scent
of hyacinth
Ecstatic Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, personal responsibility, poem, prison, tanka on February 6, 2013| 3 Comments »
for years
thinking you were my jailer
these unyielding bars
today finding the key
in my own pocket
Of Leaves and Ideas
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, autumn, fall, freedom, letting go, poem, poetry on October 3, 2012| 3 Comments »
so small
the weight
and yet
too much
to hold
and so
it falls
not that
it is
not lovely
not that
it is
not wanted
not that
we could
force the
liberation
just that
it is
time
for it
to fall
Six Orbits
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, circling, freedom, losing the self, poem, poetry, sound on June 29, 2012| 5 Comments »
So busy watching my feet
move over the small stones,
dried leaves, paths of ants,
it is a long time before
I see the birds.
*
What is it I am circling?
What is this longing
to name it?
*
The slats of shadow
and light only look
like prisons.
We slide through the bars
like song.
*
The bell does not ring
when we call it bell. It rings
with the playing of it.
*
And what is playing me,
this too-solid bell of a
flesh called woman,
Hollow me, I am
diligently practicing
my one note
in the symphony.
*
All these obstacles,
and still
the unspiraling line.
Who Knows What Could Happen Tomorrow?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, knot, loss of self, love, not knowing, poem, poetry, rope on June 23, 2012| 6 Comments »
This rope of love
I tied in knots
without knowing
how to untie them.
Knot after knot,
I tied a net
for catching
myself, all the while
longing for freedom.
Why do we play
such games—
one hand open
in prayer, begging
for one thing,
the other hand working
as fast as it can
for the opposite.
You know the old
magician’s trick
when he produces
from his pocket
a knotted rope,
mumbles some magic,
and with his words
all the knots fall out.
Ta da! Well, it was not fast like that,
but slowly and quietly
and one by one
with both hands
open and by some
miracle all the knots came
undone and I
am falling, falling
through the threads
I thought would save me,
falling into the stark
between the stars,
falling through
the fragrance of laughter
and the silence
after that.
Butterfly Effect
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, butterfly, freedom, imprisonment, mothering, parenting, poem, poetry on June 21, 2012| 3 Comments »
Finn comes in, hands cupped
and asks me for a jar. What for?
I ask, and he lets me peek between
his palms to see the butterfly.
He is all aglow with the catching of it,
and I do not try to hide my regret.
Let it go, I say, it will be so much happier, love.
No, he shouts, and looks about
for a jar since I won’t help him out.
Please Finn, I say, let it go,
but he is intent on keeping
what is beautiful. He pokes holes
in the lid so the admiral can breathe,
gives it a yellow salsify and insists
that it’s sipping nectar. The butterfly,
all violent wing, flaps a long time before
settling beside the pretty weed.
Finn stares in the jar at his butterfly.
It is pure, his admiration for the
loveliness he sees, so pure that I squeeze him
tight, too tight perhaps, my arms
around the place he would have wings.
Perhaps It Would Eventually Erode, But …
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, letting go, love, poems, poetry, relationship, Sisyphus on April 3, 2012| 12 Comments »
That rock that we
have been pushing up
the hill—that one
that keeps rolling back down
and we keep pushing
back up—what if
we stopped? We are not
Sisyphus. This rock
is not a punishment.
It’s something we’ve chosen
to push. Who knows why.
I look at all the names
we once carved into
its sedimentary sides.
How important
I thought they were,
those names. How
I’ve clung to labels,
who’s right, who’s wrong,
how I’ve cared about
who’s pushed harder
and who’s been slack.
Now all I want
is to let the rock
roll back to where it belongs,
which is wherever it lands,
and you and I could,
imagine!, walk unencumbered,
all the way to the top and
walk and walk and never stop
except to discover what
our hands might do
if for once they were
receiving.
But I Don’t Need to Do that Anymore Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, healing, poems, poetry, self-defeating behavior, spiritual growth, suffering, tanka on March 8, 2012| 3 Comments »
these scars on my arm?
I used to walk my hell with me
everywhere on a leash
and let it bite me sometimes
just to be sure it still hurt
Seeing It for Perhaps the First Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 84, darkness, freedom, independence, light, poems, poetry, radiance on March 3, 2012| 4 Comments »
It was dim
then
starless
who would guess
this was a gift
now whatever path
there is
is lit
by my own
light
Taking off the Hood
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, freedom, noticing, poem, red riding hood, what is living this life on February 7, 2012| 1 Comment »
It was no wolf
in grandma’s kerchief
that tricked me,
but I thought
it was I who opened
every door, thinking
I knew what was
behind it. Now
I watch as doors
I never knew were there
open themselves,
come unhinged,
fall off.
five haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emptiness, freedom, haiku, love, perspective, poem, shy, stars, sun, words on January 29, 2012| 5 Comments »
I could never say
what love is but often
I say I love you
*
you’re shy? it’s okay—
I can drip love from these words
instead of flooding
*
who says there is
only one sun? let’s think
vaster than that
*
falling through
the spaces between stars
a temple of emptiness
*
a velvet cage
is still a cage she said
scissors in hand
here you are haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compass rose, found, freedom, haiku, lost, map, the path on January 14, 2012| 1 Comment »
four haiku for the first day of the year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, expectation, freedom, haiku, letting go, non-violence, poem on January 1, 2012| 1 Comment »
those crumbs
in your hair, I think I’ll
leave them there
*
it’s not what I
expected, said the fish
when given wings
*
you and I, two
winging birds that just escaped
the terminal
*
these hands, so weary
from grasping, finally open
enough to hold light