learning to hide
in the open meadow—
it’s not hard
just ask
any blade of grass
Posts Tagged ‘hiding’
Ars Poetica
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged creative process, hiding, meadow, poem, poetry on November 27, 2017| 2 Comments »
In Fact, Her Life Depends on It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood, hermit crab, hiding, poem, poetry on April 21, 2015| 4 Comments »
For most life on the planet, being hidden is the default condition.
—Michael Dickinson, biologist
The little girl is not like the hermit crab,
though both live by hiding, finding small
spaces where they can retreat and occasionally
poke out a well-armored claw for transit
or feeding. It’s natural to all living things,
this impulse to survive through concealment,
only this girl, who has tucked herself under the bed,
her soft body curled into itself,
this girl, though she pinches
at anything that draws close,
she desperately, urgently
wants to be found.
Love Bent the Bars
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cage, freedom, hiding, poem, poetry on September 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »
hiding in this cage
felt so safe until
I began to notice
what else
was hiding in this cage
Finding the Girl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, finding the self, hiding, poem, poetry on July 30, 2014| 1 Comment »
She pulled the covers
over her head and hid.
She didn’t really want to hide.
She wanted to be found,
but the only way to be found
is first to be lost.
I find her.
Her body heaves. A little lump, she is.
A little lump that whimpers and longs
to be held, even as it kicks
at whatever warmth comes close.
Oh this terrible loneliness.
It becomes a habit. It is so easy
to see the lie of it
as it ravages someone else.
But this morning
when loneliness rose up in myself
I only pretended I wasn’t hiding.
I’ve learned to wear my covers
on the inside. No one notices. Either that,
or perhaps they’ve learned to pretend
to not see that I am a lump,
a little lump just hoping (or is it dreading)
to be found.
Should It Be a Capital T?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, found, hiding, mother, poem, poetry, truth on February 22, 2014| 4 Comments »
The truth doesn’t care if I try to hide.
It knows exactly where I am and what
I am doing. It is perhaps like the game
I play while walking downtown
with my daughter. She runs ahead
on the sidewalk, then tucks her body
into a breezeway between buildings.
I pretend I do not see. Vivian? I call.
Vivian? Yooo hoooo. I walk past her,
while looking the other way.
I know that she knows that I know
that she knows that I know where she is.
Here, truth, here I am, I could say. As if I could be
anywhere else. As if I am longing for it to call
out my name so I might run toward it,
my arms open, laughing at the very joy
of being found at last, the joy of knowing
I was never really lost at all.
I Used to Blame You for not Seeing Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being seen, hiding, intimacy, mask, poem, tanka on August 11, 2012| 9 Comments »
with one hand
I wave for you
to see me
with the other
I retie my mask
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