If the day is a hinge,
then loss is the hand
that swings the door
so that what I would never choose
becomes my opening.
What I would never choose
becomes the thing
that makes me need to be
a better person.
What I could not choose
becomes the spring board
to devotion.
So let me open.
In this time of broken hope,
love says to me,
Be the yes.
And if you cannot be the yes,
then stop trying anything
and let yourself fall
into to the opening.
Posts Tagged ‘growth’
The Opening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, growth, loss, opening, surrender on March 23, 2022| 5 Comments »
On Discovering I’ve Grown
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beaver, growth, personal growth, tree on December 15, 2020| 2 Comments »
It’s not forever.
When we fence a tree
down by the river,
some slender tree
that a beaver could easily
gnaw through, the fence
only stays up until the trunk
grows big and thick,
wide enough to discourage
any who would try take it down.
Just today, I realized I’d built a fence
around me. Noticed it
only because, while routinely
clearing out,
I dismantled the fence
and took it away.
How invisible a wall can be.
What amazed me:
how enormous I’ve become—
vigorous, robust,
sturdy enough not to worry
about little bites.
I remember how, not so long ago,
I was so vulnerable.
You could hug me now,
now that the fence is gone,
though your arms wouldn’t quite reach
all the way around.
Perhaps that’s as it should be.
Part of me belongs to you.
Part of me is still growing
into the world.
More Love, More Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged equality, growth, love, sorrow, sunflower on May 31, 2020| 3 Comments »
Sorrow is how we learn to love.
—Rita Mae Brown, Riding Shotgun
If sorrow is how we learn to love,
then let us learn.
Already enough sorrow’s been sown
for whole continents to erupt
into astonishing tenderness.
Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant,
like sunflowers along the highway.
Let each act of kindness replant itself
into acres and acres of widespread devotion.
Let us choose love as if our lives depend on it.
The sorrow is great. Let us learn to love greater—
riotous love, expansive love,
love so rooted, so common
we almost forget
the world could look any other way.
Flourish
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, essence, growth, larkspur, rebirth, wildflower on May 27, 2020| 2 Comments »
Flourish
Whatever it is inside the larkspur
that says grow, grow, grow,
I want to know it, too. Want
to obey the voice that urges me on,
even in frost, even in rain.
I want to rise out of my own dried debris,
want to know how it is to die and return,
new and yet somehow the same.
And what is it that fuels the drive?
I want to know that— the divine
encouragement that knows
when to wait, when to push,
when to wilt, when to flourish,
when to swell into oh! bright bloom.
I want to know myself as wick,
to be lit, to be the fire itself.
The Annual Mother’s Day Project
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, garden, growth, mother, mother's day on May 11, 2020| 4 Comments »
My daughter plants nasturtium seeds,
two per hole, four inches apart.
Meanwhile, two rows away, I drop carrot seeds
four to the inch, into the soft dark soil.
Oh, the secrets of dirt, this kingdom
of earth with its cool and damp quiet—
how quickly its finite borders pull me
into the infinite. What joy to travel here
with my girl, though she is a hesitant traveler.
One could say the main thing we did today
was measuring—how deep, how many seeds,
how far apart. Perhaps. When we finish, it will look
the same as when we began. But
I look at my daughter across the rows,
humming with her hands in the dirt
and I see already in her the fiery petals,
the peltate leaves like green flags
that know how to play with the wind.
Springing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grass, green, growth, imagination, resilience on May 2, 2020| 6 Comments »
Last summer’s grass still stands in the field,
dry and fringe-like. It shushes against my thighs
as I walk. How is it still upright? After the weight
of last year’s snow? How has it not fallen, decayed?
Though I can break the brittle stems in my fingers,
it bends in the wind, more resilient than I could imagine.
What inside me is dead, yet still standing?
What old thoughts, their seeds long gone,
are filling the fields of imagination?
The new grass already is emerging into spring.
Soft. Deep green. Unable to be bent or broken,
its scent sweet and sharp in the nose.
Let me find in me this freshness, this new growth,
this willingness to push up through what’s dead.
Let me roll in it like a dog, till I come up stained green—
green thoughts. Green words. Green wonder.
Green learning what it is to be green.
Big
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged big, growth, poem, poetry, self on January 4, 2020| 12 Comments »
This is, perhaps, the year to learn to be big.
Spruce tree big. Cliffside big. Big as mesa,
as mountain lake. Big as in cosmos, as in love.
Being small has never served me—constricting,
contorting, trying to fit into a room, into shoes,
into a name. Let this be the year to escape all those little
rules with those little shoulds, all those little
cages with their little locks. Time to make of myself
a key, time to lean into immensity. Time to supersize
communion, time to grow beyond self. Time to
open, to unwall, to do as the universe does,
accelerating as it expands, not rushing toward
something else, but changing the scale of space itself.
This is the year to be big .
End of Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broccoli, gardening, growth, patience, poem, poetry, ripening, self talk on October 18, 2019| 2 Comments »
The broccoli was a disappointment this year—
planted from seed, it had finally begun to sport
small knobby green heads when the frost came.
And though the broccoli didn’t die, it stalled.
Perhaps I fear I am like this broccoli—destined
to grow but never to fruit. Perhaps this is why
I feel such urgency, this need to write faster,
heal quicker, mature sooner, love more. Because
what if the freeze comes? What if I die before
doing what I have come here to do?
There is a part of me who is patient. A part of me
who says, Sweet One, you could not possibly be
any more you than you are right now. She tells me,
You are exactly enough. And sometimes I believe her.
But sometimes I roll my eyes at her and tell myself,
Hurry up, hurry up. I know myself as barren stalk.
I try to will my own ripening. Not once has it worked,
not once, and still this strange drive:
go faster, do it better, do it now.
When I Thought I Wanted Things to be Different
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged discomfort, growth, poem, poetry on February 23, 2018| 4 Comments »
Sometimes, she said, being uncomfortable
is what we need to do.
And I think of the scald of hot water,
how it cleans the stain.
How being covered in abrasive fuzz
is the only way to harvest the peach.
How the seed is carried by the burr.
It is human to seek pleasure, shun pain.
But think of the tree, how it lets
the gale rip away what is dead.
And the grape, how it bubbles
and foams before it becomes wine.
And the cactus, how it needs the drought
as much as it needs the rain.
One Almost 5’10
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, parenting, poem, poetry on October 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »
the tree I planted
now taller than I—
my empty hand
still remembering
the weight of the acorn
When It Looks As If Our Path Has Ended
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged community, growth, interdependence, peas, poem, poetry on August 10, 2017| 2 Comments »
More and more, I have come to admire resilience.
—Jane Hirshfield, “Optimism”
And when the snap peas ran out of fence to climb,
they created a living trellis of leaf and vine
and climbed up themselves and each other,
winding and twisting toward the sun.
There’s green inside our limbs, friends.
There’s braiding to be done.
One Stretch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, light, poem, poetry, shadow on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
In Late Spring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, growth, nourishment, poem, poetry on May 30, 2016| 2 Comments »
The garden rows are visible now,
the slender shoots of carrots,
the succulent leaves of calendula,
the curly beginnings of kale—
after many years these first green shapes
feel like old friends.
I greet them as I walk the rows,
tell them they are doing fine.
And then there are the gaps
between the sprouts, the places
where I can only guess about
why the seeds don’t grow.
A lack of water? Planted too deep?
A shadow? A dud of a seed? A slug?
Of course I take it personally
and wonder what else I should have done.
And then I pull out the extra seeds
and fill in the spots where there is no green.
There is no use in blaming. Just plant the seed
where nothing is growing. It’s so simple,
the task, so lacking in blame.
There are gardens in me begging
for me to do the same—to notice
where there is failure to thrive,
and to seed again, then bring water,
bring nourishment, wait.
How Soon Things Change
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, growth, miracle, poem, poetry on January 9, 2016| 1 Comment »
for e.m.m.
The amaryllis
you gave us
three weeks ago
grew two inches
just today—
so much life
in such a short time.
Already, the two
thick buds
are swelling,
twin green
chambers.
So much of
any miracle
is invisible,
though it happens
right before
our eyes.
I can hardly stop
watching the buds
and thinking
of you, wishing
for a miracle
and knowing
that even if
one is rising
up right now,
it wouldn’t
be like the amaryllis—
miraculous
as this flower is,
we know
it’s red petals
that emerge. No,
what I wish
for you
is something
I couldn’t possibly
know—something
I couldn’t name
or predict, something
that will rise out of
what seems to be
nothing and render
us astonished,
humbled, delirious
with its impossible
grace.
Four Surprises
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, poem, poetry, shedding, surprise, transformation on October 9, 2015| 2 Comments »
carrying that sled
uphill for so long, I forgot
it was for riding
*
shedding the roof
when the house no longer fits—
now nothing between us and the stars
*
but I miss the weight
say the hands, too free after
setting down the stone chest
*
running full speed
into my own fear, I ricochet
into the arms of god
While
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, honesty, love, poem, poetry on July 7, 2014| 1 Comment »
saying the words
I knew you did not
want to hear I tried
to shape my voice
like the flowers
we know will
eventually
come in more fully
only after the stem
has been
broken.
I forced myself
to keep my eyes
open.
A Small Proof of Heisenberg’s Theory of Uncertainty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bud, change, growth, loss, poem, poetry, uncertainty on February 12, 2014| 3 Comments »
In the loss
is a branch
with a brittle
stem
where an old
fruit hangs
rust-colored
and dried
beside
a tight cluster
of rose-tipped buds
where something
fragile
and white
is just
beginning
to form.
Because I Thought I Knew What It Should Look Like
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, love, patience, perspective, poem, poetry, rose on August 25, 2013| 1 Comment »
I grieved
that the rose had stopped blooming
when in fact
it was opening
only very, very, very slowly
At the Edge of the Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, losing the self, pinecone, poem, self on January 24, 2013| 4 Comments »
Like a pinecone
after it’s been trod on
and snowed on and
summered and rained on,
that is how I find myself.
Softer now, and with less
sense of separateness.
The earth has a fine way
of saying here, here.
And gravity, it makes things
so easy. I would not have thought
it sounded so good,
all that wearing down,
lessening to dust.
I could not have imagined
sharing my browns, much less
losing my sharpness, my articulate
serration, spilling my seeds.
Though spilling, that is what seeds
are for. And the opening beyond.
And losing the self, that is perhaps
what a self is for.
two
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged adios drama, blossoming, growth, haiku, poem, reality on January 10, 2012| 5 Comments »
we are like roses
in winter—we should not be
blooming but we are
*
when I don’t need the
storm, I fold it up and put
it in my pocket