Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, growing, heartache, holding, river on August 11, 2020| 1 Comment »
Down by the river we sit and talk.
When I think I can’t ache any more,
the world serves more heartache.
And I meet it.
I say no, but I feel myself stretched
by some great invisible hand,
rendering me spacious enough to hold
what must be held.
When we rise to leave,
the river doesn’t stop.
Nor does the forgiving wind.
I swear I feel them move
right through me.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, falling in love with the world, heartache, patience on March 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Again today, the invitation
to fall in love with the world—
with the gray jay who flits
from empty branch to empty branch,
with the sharp scent of rabbit brush,
with the warm spring wind
and the dark buds on the crabapple
still tight with future bloom.
Some days, though the world offers itself,
it’s not so easy to fall in love—
days when heartache twists in the chest
and turns in us like a screw,
leaves us raw and sensitive, until,
too tender to hear any more bad news,
we shutter our hearts, we close our ears.
But if we’re lucky, an inner voice
sends us outside into the day,
and though it is gray, the world does
what the world does—
holds us despite our heartache,
holds us the same way it holds
the stubby pink cactus, all prickly and clenched,
the same way it holds last year’s thistles,
all brittle and flat and gray,
the same way it holds the dank scent of river
and the moldering scent of last year’s leaves,
holds us exactly as we are
until we are ready to fall in love again.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heartache, mother, scent, son on February 2, 2020| 6 Comments »
Allspice. Basil. Bay. Caraway. There were mornings
my boy and I spent on the floor pulling herbs and spices
from the drawer. We’d open the jars and close our eyes
and gently sniff. Cardamom. Cilantro. Cinnamon. Dill.
I took out the cayenne and red pepper flakes
and put them up high on an uppermost shelf.
Some agonies are easy to prevent.
We focused on Fennel. Fenugreek. Mint.
Today, he comes home having breathed in deeply
the scent of heartbreak, a jar I would have hidden if I could,
but all of us know it eventually, feel the burn, the inner sear.
Beyond safety, thyme, turmeric, there is fire, and once inhaled,
it hurts everywhere. Eventually we respect the heat as a gift.
Eventually the heart learns to walk through it.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, goldfinch, heart, heartache, poem, poetry, thorns on May 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »
goldfinch stealing
into the thorn bush—
oh heart, bless you
for being willing, please
don’t follow him in
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cleaning, heartache, poem, poetry, song on October 13, 2015| 1 Comment »
Because my heart is aching,
I clean the stove. It’s covered
in dark brown stains, stains
so burned on they seem
to be part of the stainless steel.
Because I am practical, I wear
plastic gloves while I scour.
I know that the cleaner
would ripple my fingers and dry
my skin for days. And because
I would rather not cry right now,
I turn on my music and play
Joni Mitchell as loud as the speakers
will play. She always knows
just what to say. There are some
places now where the stovetop gleams
so silver it looks nearly new. There
are some stains I know, that no matter
how many hours I scrub,
they will never leave.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heartache, love, opening, poem, poetry on June 4, 2014| 4 Comments »
The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking.
Stanley Kunitz, “Testing Tree”
Like any other muscle,
the heart, when injured,
will clench, and will stay that way
for a long, long time, most likely
long past the time of usefulness.
But when it relaxes again,
perhaps because it has been touched
in just the right way, or perhaps
just because it is exhausted
with its own clenching, well then
it is like when the sun hits the forest
in late morning and releases the scent
of pine and greening leaves.
And it is like when you walk past a spring
and a dozen blue butterflies all brush
you with their wings, a feeling so impossibly
soft and tender that you cannot help
but let the heart stay open, though you know
it will be wounded again. It is not
in the end the heart itself that matters.
It is the practice of releasing again, again.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, hamstring pull, heartache, physical therapy, poem, poetry on November 8, 2013| 3 Comments »
It is not so much
what you do to heal, she said,
but that you stop doing
the things that hurt.
The PT speaks of
my hamstring, but I
think about my aching friend,
and wonder if the heart
responds like any other muscle.
Perhaps if we could
stop from doing what
we know makes the pain
increase, like reaching
toward impossible things,
it would be easier to heal.
We are, perhaps,
slow learners. We
are, perhaps, like the children
who say of a scrape, It only hurts
when I touch it, and then
touch it all day to be sure
it still hurts.
The PT goes on to say
she does not mean
I should do nothing.
You can find other things
that don’t hurt to do.
She calls it active rest.
There are many things
a woman can do without
using her left hamstring.
Read. Laugh. Knit. Sing.
Stand on her right leg.
Kiss. Still the longing
to do what hurts—to run—
as if it’s the only thing.
Just as my friend with the pull in her heart
wants to reach and reach again, as if
it might hurt less, not more,
if she keeps practicing.