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Posts Tagged ‘honesty’

With Tears as I Write

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 1, 2025| 8 Comments »




Dear Charles Bukowski,
This morning when my student wanted to share a poem,
I was disappointed when she said the poem was yours.
I didn’t want to hear about whiskey and whores.
And there they were in stanza two,
but also, singing its way through the whole poem
was the bluebird that lives in your heart,
and Charles, I wish you could have heard it,
the living epiphany in her voice as she read the poem to me,
because she, too, has a beautiful animal trapped inside her.
She, too, realizes she can be too clever or too tough
to set that beautiful animal free.
And I fell in love, Charles, with her courage, yes,
but also with the honesty in your words
that winged through any cage
I might have put around my own heart.
In fact, I was shocked to realize I had a cage in place
with bars so stubborn they almost
kept your bluebird from flying in.
This began as a thank you letter, Charles,
but it’s also, I see, an apology.
To you, of course, and also to myself,
and most especially to that little bluebird
I tried to keep out. Look, now there’s a little
cup-shaped nest in my heart where that cage once was,
a nest woven of humility and genuine gratefulness.
And your bluebird now lives in me, too. I know you
wouldn’t cry over a bird living in the heart.
But Charles, you remind me, I do.

Love,
Rosemerry


to read “Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski, visit here.

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Stage 4

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 29, 2025| 6 Comments »


                  for K
 
Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength.
                  —Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. J. Macy and A. Barrows, “Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29”
 
 
Oh friend, as life batters you,
again, you make music—
not the music you’ve practiced,
not the gentle strains of hope
you longed to share,
but a naked ringing.
Oh, how you teach me.
There is so much goodness
in fear when it is shared truly—
not the innocence of a lullaby,
but the brutal shine of a gong.
How essential and urgent it is,
your song, my bell.
You change my ideas of what
it means to be strong—
not that we don’t get battered,
but that we let ourselves feel
and meet such moments
unrelentingly, beautifully real.
 

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That’s Right

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 20, 2016| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

I’ve shown up naked

to tea. I know it’s not

the proper thing to do.

In fact, I am a bit surprised

myself to be wearing

nothing more than a pink scarf.

I was wearing more

when I left the house.

At least it is soft, the scarf,

and at least it is warm,

the tea. You don’t have

to pretend you don’t notice

and I’ll not pretend

either. No, let’s go on.

Yes, that’s right,

it’s a bit uncomfortable

I suppose, as all things are

at first. We’ll get used to it.

Who knows, maybe

by the time we pass the cream

you’ll have slipped off

your own button up shirt,

your embarrassment, your belt.

Maybe by the time

we get to the bottom

of our cups we’ll wonder

why we ever spent an afternoon

any other way.

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While

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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Playing Charades with Finn and Vivian

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 1, 2013| 2 Comments »

Mommy, she says, walking up
to me and my son as we gesture

and guess and giggle,
Mommy, she says, I feel

like I want to hurt someone
right now. And she lays down

between my son and me, and
offers me her eyes. I think how

brave she is to identify
a feeling and stare it straight on.

It’s not hard to uncover
she feels left out of the game

and wants to join in. Oh give
me such candor, such willingness

to say what I mean and lay myself
down to rest in the middle of things

with such (one word, five syllables,
fifth syllable sounds like plea)

vulnerability.

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