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Posts Tagged ‘hope’

Hope, Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 26, 2024| 8 Comments »


 
 
I wanted to wear it,
this shawl of hope,
but today, it scratches
against my bare skin.
It is beautiful.
The kind of loveliness
that makes even
the plainest of wearers
feel beautiful just because
they wear it.
Hope is warm.
And the world is cold.
But today, I feel the call
for there to be nothing
between me
and the nakedness
of what is.
Even when I’m shivering.
Even when it hurts.
I want to feel
the slice of fear
because it is true.
And isn’t it strange,
when I let myself
feel it all,
then I can wear it again,
that beautiful shawl.

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One When It Seems Impossible

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on February 19, 2024| 3 Comments »




this surprising hope—
like finding in this old, familiar house
a new room

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In a Time of Little Hope

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 23, 2023| 18 Comments »

In one day, the paperwhites
surge into life—
this heart, too,
has been forced to grow quickly.
Is it any wonder I thrill
to see this leaping up
toward light?
Any wonder I’ve begun to believe
in impossible things?

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The Small Stuff

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 13, 2023| 8 Comments »


There is kindness in the way
he goes to four stores until he finds
the pink and purple tapers I asked for.
Kindness in the way he folds back
the sheets on my side of the bed
when I’m late to come to sleep.
Kindness in his hands
when he rests them on my shoulders.
Kindness in how he fills the hot pot
with water in preparation
for the next time I make tea.
And there is in me wild gratefulness
for such kindness,
the kind beyond the grand gesture,
the kind that arrives so quiet, so humble
it could almost be overlooked,
the daily gesture that says I see you,
I know you, you matter, I’m here.
The kindness so small it can find its way
into a heartache so big
and somehow tip the scale
toward hope, toward love.

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Terce

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 11, 2023| 9 Comments »


 
It’s the light this morning
that opens me. How is it
a certain changing angle of gold
 
can make the heart leap up
all nimble and sprightly and eager to praise
as if it’s never before seen such beauty,
 
as if it doesn’t happen every day,
this radiance that reaches
through space to find us
 
wherever we happen to stand
on this unlikely planet.
I don’t know how it is the light
 
works as a luminous key to unguard me
and swing wide my gates,
but on this morning filled with news
 
that makes me shutter, shut down,
close off and clench,
this stroke of light, it’s everything.

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Evidence

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 9, 2023| 15 Comments »

After almost two years
of growing only leaves,
the orchid that sat
on the back windowsill,
the one I have dutifully
watered and whispered to,
the one I had finally
resolved to throw away,
sent up a single spiraling stem,
shiny and darksome green,
and I who have needed
years to hide, to heal,
felt such joy rise in me
at the site of tight buds,
the kind of irrational joy
one feels when something
thought dead is found alive,
not only alive, but on the edge
of exploding into beauty,
and now it doesn’t seem
so foolish after all, does it,
this insistent bent toward hope.

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Longing to Be Seen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 1, 2022| 6 Comments »



after the painting “The Bedroom” by Vincent van Gogh and the piano composition “Yellow Bed” by Kayleen Asbo

In the tilted room with the yellow bed,
hope waltzes on the wooden floor—
one, two, three, one, two, three—
 
not that you see it there,
it’s not obvious like the windows,
the paintings, the mirror, the pitcher, the chairs.
 
Hope is what you don’t see.
But it is there, beside the water glasses,
beside the long towel.
 
Hope sways so keenly
to snatches of melody
the whole room seems to sway.
 
And it’s one, two, three,
one, two, three; Who, hope says,
will dance with me? It promises
 
friendship. It promises rest.
Will you dance? it asks, a dizzy mess.
It promises community. It promises fame.
 
Will you dance? it asks, but it smells
of paint and faraway dreams.
It smells of madness and longing to be seen.
 
Will you dance? it says, its arms flung out.
Here is where Vincent said yes.
Some see a still life, but others see
 
the whirling, the twirling, the beautiful
spinning of hope, reeling hope,
fragile hope.

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Almond Blossom

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 28, 2022| 6 Comments »



inspired by Almond Blossom by Vincent van Gogh and music by Kayleen Asbo by the same name

I want to hang a painting
of almond blossoms
above your bed
so when you wake
the first thing you see
are delicate white petals
and a sky a thousand shades of blue.
I want you to wake every morning
into an ever-emerging sense of spring—
wake into sunshine,
wake to a world of splendor
and extravagant blossoming.
 
Of course, the fall.
Of course, the struggle.
Of course, the difficult days.
And of course, the almond blossoms,
painted in creams, pinks and greens
each one an insistent grace note
that lingers beyond its season,
promising something improbable
and utterly necessary,
like ever-blooming beauty,
like the light and airy perfume of hope.

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Proof

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 18, 2022| 6 Comments »




So insistent
the apricot petals
press against
the winter buds
to emerge
first white
then pink,
like millions
of tiny proofs
for hope:
somehow
the softest
parts of us
struggle and
swell against
the hardened shell
of I can’t
and open
anyway.

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Becoming the Bird

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 14, 2021| 13 Comments »




Once on a bridge
I had met a hope,
a radiant maybe,
a glint of perhaps,
but I am so far
from that glint today
that when I stand
again on that bridge
I almost hate hope
with its stupid wings,
always promising
to carry us toward
something better.
I stand on that bridge
and stand on that bridge,
my inner perch
empty, silent.
I turn to face
the autumn wind.
It batters my bare skin. 
I sing full-throat into the gale.
 




*This poem is in conversation with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” which you can find here

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