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Posts Tagged ‘Kyra Kopestonksky’

Through Her Discipline of Kindness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 13, 2026| 4 Comments »


                  for Kyra
 
She brought her cello to the desert,
playing long, slow notes to cactus,
canyons, the night, knowing
it matters to bring music
wherever you go. She taught me
to sing in the face of fear,
even when the mountain lion
held her with his amber eyes.
She taught me to plant
a weed in a pot and wait
with great patience to see
what kind of flower might bloom.
To bring something chocolaty and sweet
to share with others wherever you go.  
She taught me to share scars,
even when they make others wince.
To use more garlic,
to read poems to strangers,
to dance barefoot in the grass.
I did not want to learn how quickly
a life can go from vibrant to silent
to gone. Did not want to learn
how great a hole one human can leave
in so many lives. But I am grateful
for all that she teaches me still—
the beauty in the ache, how to hear
the missing laughter in the silence,
how to read the letters that
don’t come anymore, how love
is so much bigger than a poem,
how she is no less herself now
than she was when she was here,
how even in her absence
she still teaches me discipline.

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In a Difficult Time, I Remember

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2025| 6 Comments »


for Kyra
 
 
In a corrugated metal culvert, tall enough
to walk in, Kyra made us a nest of warm blankets.
We entered the steel tube from the same side
the flash floods enter each fall, and we curled
into the softness she’d prepared. Meanwhile,
she settled on a stool and began to bow her cello,
a Brahms lullaby meant to lull and soothe.
Above us, cars hummed along on the highway.
Beside us, daylight glowed from both round ends.
Inside me, what was broken was still so deeply broken,
but I felt, too, the gentling that arrives with surprise
beauty. There are times someone tends to our hearts
with such warmth, such goodness, our hearts
cannot help but bloom. Even when the heart soil is barren.
Even when there’s no chance for rain. Even in the midst
of breaking—there, just at the edge of perception—
the heart a wildflower in spring. It is simple kindness
that grows us, the kind she brings with her everywhere.
Even now, I can see her swaying as she played,
her body a radiant pendulum draped in red velvet.
Even now, I hear the long, sonorous notes of her song.
Even now, I think of her smile, humble and shy, and
how that moment still reverberates—her cello, our sighs,
the laughter that somehow finds its way to our lips
in the saddest of times. Years later, her kindness still echoes.

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Stage 4

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 29, 2025| 6 Comments »


                  for K
 
Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength.
                  —Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. J. Macy and A. Barrows, “Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29”
 
 
Oh friend, as life batters you,
again, you make music—
not the music you’ve practiced,
not the gentle strains of hope
you longed to share,
but a naked ringing.
Oh, how you teach me.
There is so much goodness
in fear when it is shared truly—
not the innocence of a lullaby,
but the brutal shine of a gong.
How essential and urgent it is,
your song, my bell.
You change my ideas of what
it means to be strong—
not that we don’t get battered,
but that we let ourselves feel
and meet such moments
unrelentingly, beautifully real.
 

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Olfactory

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 26, 2020| 1 Comment »

 

for Kyra

 

February ends with the fragrance of change—

not quite the fresh earthy scent of rain,

but no longer the white sterility of winter.

It’s the damp aroma of long dead grass

and the must of soil as it starts to unfreeze,

the bright tang of Gemini distilled from the sky

and the hint that someday there will be green.

 

This is the perfume I imagine you wearing today

as you move from the darkest hours of fear

into the chapter of healing. Yes, I smell it

as I hug you, the scent of making room for the world,

the scent of resilience, of beauty yet to come.

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How to Slice Open an Avocado

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 18, 2020| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

After cutting open hundreds, thousands

of avocados, I marvel as my friend Kyra

cuts off the top. Slices it right off.

And I stare at her, at the knife, at the tip

of the avocado listing on the cutting board.

How easily she scoops out the creamy green flesh.

How simply she cuts more rounds around the pit.

 

All these years, I’ve sliced avocados lengthwise.

It’s as if I’ve just learned a new word for yes.

As if the sun itself just rose right here in the kitchen.

It takes so little to open us, to help us

see everything new. Even that prayer I pray

the same way. These hands. This common fruit.

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Just Playing Around, this time with the link

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 31, 2016| 3 Comments »

Hi friends,

Yesterday my good friend Kyra Kopestonsky came over to play cello … she has a grant application due so we were making videos of collaborative pieces we’ve performed together before. What a great way to spend a morning hour, reciting poems and making music. It’s a little echo-y, but here’s a playful version of “Post Script”. I love the way the cello underlines all the fragility–proof somehow that through resonance we can support each other in our most vulnerable places. Good luck, Kyra, getting that residency!

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