When they asked
for my identity card
I looked in my purse
and found someone else’s.
And someone else’s.
And someone else’s.
But not mine.
But it’s me, I said.
I turned to my friends
so they could vouch for me,
but their word was not enough
to prove I was myself.
When I woke,
I leaned deeper
into my being, my breath
giving me what no card,
no word could do.
Even the flesh is a trick.
Oh, how the morning shines.
Posts Tagged ‘identity’
Identity Check
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, dream, identity on June 6, 2021| 2 Comments »
Dear America,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged America, American Flag, community, election, identity, United States of America on November 6, 2020| 8 Comments »
I am your daughter.
I have marched in your main street parades,
and in my yard I fly your flag.
I pledge allegiance and sing your anthem.
My uncle and grandfather fought in your wars.
My other grandfather came to your shores
as a young boy and stayed to raise your powerlines.
I climb your mountains and work your soil
and pick up trash on your highways.
I love you, America.
I vote in your polls and raise your children
and volunteer in your schools.
And because you are America,
I pay your taxes and call my senators
and protest in your streets.
I read your poets, relearn your history,
travel your back roads and cheer your teams.
You made me, America.
And I pray for you. And I pray in the way I choose to pray
because we can do that in America.
America, did we forget
our differences are what make us great?
Remember, America, the dream!
The wind is fierce today,
and I love the way it inspires the flag to wave into life.
Whatever is fierce around us is an invitation
to show up. Whatever is difficult
is a call to bring our best.
Whatever is uncertain is a chance
to be clearer in our thoughts, more generous in our speech.
America, it’s not a president
that makes our country great—
it’s us. How we treat each other.
How we meet our mistakes.
How we become the wind that raises the flag.
How our own hearts must be the home of the brave.
One More Layer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, identity, losing the self on June 5, 2020| 4 Comments »
the more I wear this story
of myself, the more
it grows thin, ravels,
a sweater filled with holes—
I fall through them
Other Shoes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, friendship, healing, identity on May 5, 2020| 8 Comments »
We all belong to the same galactic oneness.
—Carlos Santana, Master Class
I could be the doctor who, overwhelmed
in the ER, went home and killed herself.
I could be the sixteen-year-old boy
who had to cover his father with a white sheet
before the coroner arrived.
I could be the white sheet.
I could be the lawmaker unable to sleep,
or her pillow that hears her cry out in fear
when at last the sleep arrives.
I could be the rhythmic hissing of the ventilator
or the wail of the wife, or the weary hum
of the custodian beneath her mask
as she wipes the surfaces clean.
It could be me, the eleventh death
in the town next door to mine.
It could be me, the one who
unknowingly makes you sick
because I don’t know I carry
something deadly inside my breath.
And so I don’t hug you when I see you
across the post office lobby,
though my heart leaps up to hold you.
Because you could be the flat line
on the EKG.
Because you could be number twelve.
Losing It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, loss, poem, poetry, self on August 25, 2018| 4 Comments »
It was a tiny percentage, I knew, but still
there was some French royalty somewhere
in my blood. I would spend hours imagining
myself in my proper place: in a long pink dress
and thin gold crown in a castle on a green hillside,
doing needlepoint, no doubt, and nibbling bon bons,
and so when I again asked my mother to tell me about
that part of our heritage, she told me,
It’s so little blood, and you’ve had so many
skinned knees, I’m pretty sure you’ve
bled it all out by now. And I was instantly
less grandiose. That was, perhaps, the first identity
that I was aware of losing. But soon after that,
I was no longer blonde. And soon after that,
I no longer lived in Wisconsin. And soon after that,
I was no longer a Scout. Everything I thought
I knew about myself didn’t last. Ah,
the litany of losses. Those notions of who we are,
how they shed, they spill, they slip off.
As they’re lost, we usually rush to replace them.
I became worker. Lover. Parent. Friend.
We wear them so close, these identities ,
that we no longer see them as separate. We think
they’re who we are. But what if we skinned
not just our knees, but our thoughts,
and let those roles escape? Who would
be left to walk through the field this evening
to see the double rainbow stretched across the east?
Where We Are Headed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, flowers, identity, naming, poem, poetry on October 18, 2017| 3 Comments »
I resist any kind of discourse that anchors itself in identity and proceeds from there. As I said before, I want to get behind categorical distinctions and find and work with what human beings share and how, potentially, people can coexist in a world that is extraordinarily diverse.
—Michael D. Jackson, “The Politics of Storytelling” in the Harvard Divinity School News
At first we just say flower. How
thrilling it is to name. Then it’s
aster. Begonia. Chrysanthemum.
We spend our childhood learning
to separate one thing from another.
Daffodil. Edelweiss. Fern. We learn
which have five petals, which have six.
We say, “This is a gladiolus, this hyacinth.”
And we fracture the world into separate
identities. Iris. Jasmine. Lavender.
Divorcing the world into singular bits.
And then, when we know how to tell
one thing from another, perhaps
at last we feel the tug to see not
what makes things different, but
what makes things the same. Perhaps
we feel the pleasure that comes
when we start to blur the lines—
and once again everything
is flower, and by everything,
I mean everything.
Just After I Told Someone I Felt Quite Fine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, mask, poem, poetry, release on June 30, 2015| 1 Comment »
I had worn it so long, that mask,
I didn’t notice it no longer fit.
In fact, I didn’t notice I wore it at all.
Every day I woke up wearing the mask.
I wore it all day, then returned to bed wearing
the mask. I don’t even remember putting it on,
what, was it as a child? Slowly, we come
to take habit as truth. Besides, on the outside,
it was pretty enough. Placid and happy.
It was only today I noticed how on the inside,
the mask had hair of snakes, how I was being
surely turned to stone. I did not want
to break the mask. I did not know
what the face beneath it might be.
I was afraid to not like what I saw.
There is a call to be ruthless, our hands
rising to do what must be done,
though some voice we thought
was our own shouts at us to stop.
And there is another voice. Perhaps
you’ve heard it, too. I notice
it’s easier to hear it when the mask
isn’t covering my ears. It’s strange
today to walk down the street.
I don’t know what I might say.
I don’t know what I might do.
Waking Up Grateful
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, ownership, poem, poetry, woman on February 16, 2015| 3 Comments »
You have to remember this isn’t your land.
It belongs to no one
—Philip Levine, “Our Valley”
I am not your land. Not your woman, either.
Not your girl, not your scapegoat, not your Juliet.
I can’t be mapped, can’t be trapped, can’t be pinned.
Can’t be bought, can’t be caught, can’t be won.
But here I am, open handed, and here
you are. I don’t know this valley,
though I’ve walked it many times.
Let’s learn it again together. This time on our knees.
And Meanwhile There’s Something Simply There
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged essence, identity, moon, poem, poetry, self on February 3, 2015| 4 Comments »
While the moon watcher stands
out on the porch in her towel
and stares at the almost full moon,
the practical one starts to fuss
about how she’ll catch cold with wet hair,
and the list maker is already thinking
of all the things to be done
when she gets back inside,
“Like go check on your kids
to be sure they’re asleep,” says the mother,
and that’s when the laid-back one says,
“Oh relax, they’re fine, drink some wine,”
and the optimist notes what a sparkling
night it is, how the snow in the field
has never, ever been so luminous,
and the pleaser agrees with her
and says, “Never, ever so luminous,
you’re so right, oh it’s beautiful out here,”
at which the budding wise ass says,
“You’ve seen one moon, you’ve seen ’em all,”
and moon watcher almost sticks out her tongue,
but that is not like her, not like her at all,
and she marvels at the impulse, how it seemed
to rise out of nowhere, just like that gorgeous
enormous shining orb. “Oh yes,” says the scientist,
“Did you know that the moon’s surface
has exceptionally low albedo, giving it a reflectance
only slightly brighter than that of worn asphalt,”
and that’s when the reporter jumps in and begins
to take notes. And the little girl says, “There’s a bunny
in there, do you see it, do you see it tilting on its side,”
and the lover, feeling lonely, wishes she had someone
with her to watch the shining moon as it slides
all the way across the visible sky, somehow
never noticing all that company she’s keeping
on this luminous, cold night.
What Matters
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, identity, poem, poetry on January 29, 2015| 3 Comments »
in empty branches
the red-wing blackbirds
chirrup and trill—
is she a woman who is listening to them
if so, she has, for now at least, forgotten