not here to teach me
but to bring beauty
this red nasturtium
Posts Tagged ‘humility’
One Instruction
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, humility, nasturtium, teaching on July 22, 2023| 4 Comments »
Ambition
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ambition, goals, humility, simplicity, surrender on January 10, 2023| 16 Comments »
I am so far from the woman
I want to be, so far
from humility and simplicity.
I dream of clearing
not only the shelves,
not only the closets,
but also the cluttered inner rooms
that crowd out the divine.
Every day I search for ways
to best meet the day—
with poems, beautiful meals,
with songs, with praise—
so many ways to be radiant,
but I suspect all the day wants
is for me to meet it
and all that comes into my path
with kindness, with spaciousness.
In my effort to be good, to be whole,
I make it so difficult, this life.
The day doesn’t seem to hold
my exuberance against me.
It shows up as always,
generous as a new tomorrow,
quiet as dawn.
Elegy for Laurie
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged elegy, humility, inspiration, Laurie James on September 19, 2022| 8 Comments »
“Who am I to inspire someone else and prod a good poem out of them? I don’t see myself in that light.” —Laurie James, poet, friend, performer, organizer, member of the tribe, in an interview with Eduardo Brummel, Write More Now, 2017
A cantankerous sparrow of a woman,
I imagine her rolling her eyes at death
as she lights up a cigarette and says,
“Let’s get on with it.”
A relentlessly generous bear of a woman,
already I hear rumors she’s visiting people
from the other side, asking them to dance.
She was the one who would build the nest
big enough for us all to fit.
She was the one who’d carve us a space—
carve it out of nothing, if that’s what she had—
so we could gather and rock each other’s worlds.
She was the one who knew the weight of moonlight,
the one who went from mute to muse.
She was the one with the mischievous smile,
the nomad with poems for a road.
She was the one who inspired us
to be family as we write.
She was perhaps the only one
who didn’t see herself in that light.
Seeing Clearly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eyes, forgiveness, gaze, humility, love on July 18, 2021| 4 Comments »
Forgive me for wanting to fix you.
As if we could be anything
but who we are.
Forgive me for every time
I have looked at you with hawkish eyes,
eyes with talons, eyes that hunt.
Forgive me for thinking I know
what you need, for thinking I am right.
For scrutinizing, for judging,
for using my gaze to build walls.
I want to look at you with eyes
as soft as the light in the field after dawn.
Want to meet you with eyes
as benevolent as rain. Want to see you
with eyes as open as sky, open as innocence.
Want to see myself this way, too—
then, it is easier to soften, to lean in, to bloom.
This is how I want to look at you—
not with eyes that fix, but eyes
that dismantle defensiveness,
eyes that say let us meet in our flawedness,
eyes unstintingly generous,
a gaze that says you are safe with me,
a gaze born of humility, a gaze made of wings.
How the Mystery Arrives Today
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged god, humility, mystery, paradox, poem, poetry, spirituality on November 10, 2013| 1 Comment »
Power to the paradox.
–Jack Mueller
Today you are the cut on the finger
and you also the knife.
You the bandage that wraps the wound.
You the Advil, the ice.
You the sun, and the burn that comes.
You the aloe salve.
You the moon and the absence of moon.
You the children’s laugh.
And you the scent of old dead leaves,
and you the stubborn green.
You the red wine and the empty cup.
The song, the one who sings.
And you the silence between the notes.
You the coat and the chill.
You the uncomfortable anger, the blame,
you the one who sees through.
And you the lines I will never write.
And you the eraser, the lead.
You the peace and you the unrest
the beginning without end.
All of It, Every Bit
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, humility, Issa, poem, suffering, tea on September 9, 2013| 2 Comments »
Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
The world of dew —
A world of dew it is indeed,
And yet, and yet . . .
—Issa
Thank you for this world of dew,
for dew enough to fill a cup,
to fill my small cup to brimming,
though some mornings all the dew’s been spilled.
It matters not the hand that spilled it,
though there is a tug toward blame.
In the story, the Hindu master pours the cup
too full, and when the tea begins to spill
the scientists appeal to him in shock.
You are too full, he says to them.
Come back to me when you are empty.
Then we’ll talk.
World, thank you for emptying me.
And thank you for my cup, for this
fragile cup with it’s long thin cracks.
Thank you for my thirst,
this thirst so deep sometimes
I beg for one more sip.
And thank you for these lips
that beg, thank you for the empty cup,
and thank you for the sometimes dew.
love haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, humility, love, poem on August 22, 2013| 3 Comments »
you the ocean
I keep trying to measure
with my tea cup
Waiting the Diagnosis
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, body, bow, humanness, humility, poem, practice, suffering on June 26, 2012| 3 Comments »
I bow to the ache of it,
the deep inner eating
away at itself, I bow
to the shivers, the gooseflesh,
the waves of nausea and pain.
I bow to the unnamed,
to question, to dark.
And I bow to the fear
that swells in small spaces
and the vast quiet
that dissipates the fear.
I bow to every other human
who hurts and I bow
to the yellow flowers tonight
blooming in the muck
where the river used to be.
I bow to the ache, goddammit,
I bow to it and I bow
to the reluctance to bow to it,
bow to the longing to shove
it all away, and I bow,
hush now, just bow.