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Posts Tagged ‘honoring’

Blessing for Those Who Are Willing to Be Vulnerable

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 8, 2026| 6 Comments »


                  with gratefulness for all the bees
 
 
When you are soft, when you lay bare
your innerness and unfold your layers
for the world like a voluptuous, purpling
O’Keefe iris, it is true, there will be some 
so threatened by your opening they will attack, 
will sow fear and hatred into the warm field
of the gentle night. When it happens, may you 
be surprised by how others rise to protect you
like a humming, swarming swirl of bees 
that baptize the air with a wild and fierce 
aliveness, a rousing acrobatic vocalizing 
that shields you from that which would trample 
you or cut you down. May you be astonished
by the power of the hive as they surround you. 
Even as fear ripples through you, may you 
be so enthralled by the buzz of their joy 
that you don’t snap shut like a fist, like a trap.
And in honor of the gift you’ve received,
the gift of belonging, may you stay open. 
May you be so stunned with gratefulness 
that every word that falls from your mouth 
tastes of truth, raw praise and dark, secret honey.
 

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The Opening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 11, 2022| 18 Comments »

Finn dancing, April 2021




Like this lily on the table
giving its everything to the world,
that’s the way I see your life.
For seventeen years, I watched you
open and open and open—
watched you hurl your body
off cliffs on skis. Watched you leap
on the stage more gazelle
than boy. Heard you weep
when your friends broke your heart.
Full on, my love, that’s how you lived,
the way so few others dare.
I saw you fail and try and fail and try
and fail and try again—every morning,
your petals outspread as you learned
how to be in this world, this world
that does its best to close us down.
You were the perfume of the wide open lily—
in every room you entered,
even when you were quiet,
everyone knew you were there.
Your presence. Your presence.
I honor the way you lived,
splaying wide, then wider,
your heart on full display until
you could no longer live this way.
I want to give myself
to this opening, though it hurts,
though I am left with the absence
of your bloom. I want to honor
the way you charged every room
of my heart with the beauty,
the pain of your being.  
I want to open
to the every memory of you—
to the memories where you shine,
to the memories where you
say goodbye to this world,
this world that asks for everything—
though the opening makes me weep,
though the opening asks me,
oh please, god, oh please, no,
not this,
the opening asks me for everything.

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One Gospel

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 14, 2018| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

lavishly splendid,

the purple tulips in their vase—

there is nothing they don’t bow to

 

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