Sometimes when I fall long enough,
I stop hoping I will stop falling.
In those moments, when I no longer
wish for the wings of an answer,
or for the solid ground of resolution,
such beautiful surrender
in the dropping through space,
in submitting to the weight
of what it takes to hold a soul.
I wonder if Icarus felt it, too. Perhaps,
if only for a moment, he knew
the rush of air, the thrill of not trying
to inhibit the tumble, the gift of knowing
self as free fall, the skill of giving in,
every prayer coming out as sound of wind.
Posts Tagged ‘hope’
Acceleration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged falling, hope, icarus on May 29, 2021| 4 Comments »
One Dedication
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flat tire, hope on April 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »
hope gets a flat tire—
stubborn, the heart
starts walking
Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, heron, hope, wasteland on January 5, 2021| 6 Comments »
Nudged by hope
the heart rises
from exhaustion.
It’s like the great blue heron
I saw this morning
flying up from a wasteland
on broad gray wings
with strong, slow beats
for a moment charged
with grace
before—did you
see this, heart?—
it chose to land again,
bringing all its beauty
to the desolate place.
This poem is published in the wonderful ONE ART Poetry Journal
Thanking the Christmas Cactus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, hope, news, plants on December 29, 2020| 7 Comments »
Tonight, for a moment,
my world shrinks to the size
of the Christmas cactus,
which, despite the storm
that even now blusters outside,
has opened dozens of voluptuous
red blooms, as if to say,
Here I am, blooming midwinter,
and you can do it, too.
There are days when
the news makes me doubt
the value of blooming—
when the headlines alone
twist hope into a crumpled,
unrecognizable heap.
But then some snippet
of beauty finds me—
a scarlet flower,
a handwritten letter—
and breaks any scale
I would use to interpret
the world. It’s not that the terror
goes away, no. But for a few
moments, I am blessed
with the certainty
that even the smallest beauty matters
and that it is my job
to meet life however it appears—
petal, bomb, sweetness, pain—
grateful for my humanness,
vulnerable and tenuous
though it is.
When the Interviewer Asked Me What I Most Wish for the World
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, light, wish on December 8, 2020| 2 Comments »
“We have a lot of things we are in the midst of. What do you think this moment is inviting us to understand? Where would you like to be in spring? Where would you like to see us as a world be?”
—Kara Johnstad, Voice Rising Host, Om Times Radio
For a sliver
of a moment
I cradled
the whole world
in my thoughts—
every president,
peasant, seamstress,
beggar, businessman,
acrobat, child—
every one of us
a vessel
and I knew
in that instant
the power
of a wish—
as if hope
has a foothold
in reality,
as if a slim glimmer
is inevitable
foreshadowing
of unstoppable radiance.
With quiet clarity
I knew exactly
what I wish
for each of us—
I told her, too—
but I will refrain
from telling you.
Instead, I’ll hand you
the question
so you, too,
might make a wish,
so that you, too,
might glimmer,
might beacon.
Making Applesauce
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apple, autumn, hope, preservation on October 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
To buy three boxes of apples
is to believe the world
will go on long enough
that we should preserve
the goodness of autumn.
Perhaps it is practical
to cook the fruit,
to store it in jars,
but I prefer to think of it
as hope filling the house
with its sweet red perfume,
hope filling the shelves
with the memory
of sunshine, of bloom.
One Arriving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arriving, door, hope on October 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It Just Might Happen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, love, strangers on August 2, 2020| 10 Comments »
Everywhere I go, I find them—
people who bring love to the world.
Reading the headlines,
I sometimes think love is dead
and humans are brutes
and we may as well all give up.
But every time I leave home,
I meet pedestrians who wave
and women who give understanding nods,
and men who offer to pay when the person
in front of them is short a few bucks.
People hold doors for each other with a smile
and I’ve seen folks pick up trash
off the sidewalk and go out of their way
to not step on a beetle or a worm.
My friend Wayne says,
We have to love the world
to want to save it,
and sometimes, I think
it just might happen—
though every day unspeakable cruelty
happens on these same streets.
Oh this world.
Even as I feel my guard go up,
I see strangers chatting on the corner
as they wait for the bus,
notice how their laughter
threads through the noise of the day
like a song, like a kite.
Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, trail on April 4, 2020| 6 Comments »
Hope has holes
in its pockets.
It leaves little
crumb trails
so that we,
when anxious,
can follow it.
Hope’s secret:
it doesn’t know
the destination—
it knows only
that all roads
begin with one
foot in front
of the other.
Sign of Inner Spring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, pussy willow, softness, vulnerability, willingness on April 3, 2020| 9 Comments »
Sign of Inner Spring
Every year the pussy willows
astonish me with their willingness
to be soft in a time when the rest
of the world is stick-ish and harsh and bare.
Sometimes softness is the key to survival.
I search for it in myself—the courage
to shed the hard shell I thought would protect me,
to shuck the hard shell that no longer fits,
and I marvel as something new emerges,
soft as pussy willows, something practical
I can bring to the world,
this vulnerable, practical hope.