for Vivian
I want to love you
the way the spool
loves the yarn.
For a time, the spool
gives the yarn shape
before the yarn becomes
its own beautiful form—
a sweater, a sock, a blanket,
something warm,
perhaps soft.
No one thinks then
of the work of the spool.
There is a part of me,
who does not want
to be forgotten.
But I know what it’s like
to be close to you,
wrapped in you,
then slowly spun out
as I let you go.
There’s more joy
in being useful
than I could have known,
bittersweet joy in the unwinding,
true joy in watching you
become more yourself,
true joy in watching you grow.
Posts Tagged ‘letting go’
Song of the Spool
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, letting go, parenting, spool, usefulness, yarn on February 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
Tonight I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, letting go, loss, memory, shoes on November 16, 2023| 18 Comments »
how he resisted learning
to tie his own shoes,
how I cheered
when he learned
to pinch the laces
between his fingers,
knotting and looping
and pulling them tight,
making a bow
that would stay.
How I encouraged
the very thing
that allowed him
to walk away.
Oh, sweet woman
I was then,
beginning to learn
letting go.
Now that he’s gone,
I’m a student
of being loosened,
untied, undone,
still practicing
how to let him go.
On Earth Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Earth Day, letting go, nature on April 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
We walk on the back road
through ponderosa forest
laughing and singing for hours,
and the sky comes down
in tiny white balls
shaped like flowers
that land in our hands
and melt into our gloves.
We don’t get to hold anything
for long—not the snow,
not this fabulous day
with its freedom,
its braiding streams, its mud.
We don’t even get to hold
each other, not forever,
though we try—
but for these hours,
surrounded by trickle and trill,
I feel how surely we are held
by the scent of spring,
by the shadows, by the deer,
by the jay’s bright squawk,
by the sun breaking through.
At Last
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, life, peach on August 10, 2022| 2 Comments »
After a week, at last the peaches
on the counter smell like peaches,
their sweet summer scent reaching
across the room to where I sit
trying to balance numbers.
The scent is like a flirty lover
who won’t take no for answer,
who trails fingertips down my cheek
and neck and lightly tugs at my collar,
then tilts my head back
to whisper into my ear,
Isn’t there something you’d rather
be doing, my dear?
And damn if I’m not distracted
and hungry and all I want
is to sink my teeth into peach
and that’s what I do.
So much of life feels like letting go,
but tonight life says,
Pick me up, sweetheart. Take me in.
And the gold sticky juice
runs all over those numbers.
I lick my fingers clean.
Watching Myself as I Learn to Let Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, why on April 24, 2022| 10 Comments »
She remembers how at the orchard
the wind would sometimes
rip the ripening fruit from the trees.
Not because it was cruel.
It was wind doing what wind does.
And life does what life does.
It takes. It gives. It takes. It gives.
Not because life is cruel or generous,
but because it is life.
Look how the word why forms on her lips—
look how saying the word
requires a small pucker like a kiss.
She doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
Perhaps she is practicing
how to lean into the silence that always follows
when she asks the unanswerable.
Perhaps she is practicing how to kiss the unknown.
If she could have stopped the wind from blowing,
she would have. If she could have stopped
her son from dying, her father from dying,
her friend from dying, she would have.
Instead, she is learning this:
no matter how much she does,
no matter how good, how quick,
how noble, how loving, how well-intentioned,
life will do what life does.
And still the invitation
to bring to every moment her best,
which is to say whatever
the moment asks of her.
See her hair blow in the wind.
The only thing she can do
is choose to notice the place within
that remains still no matter
how hard the wind blows.
Perhaps she will learn how this stillness, too,
is life doing what life does.
Preparation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged knife, letting go, loss on January 19, 2022| 6 Comments »
Not the butcher knife and not the axe—
those instruments that whack and slash.
Oh life, give me the paring knife that fits easily
in the hand. I am wounded from the larger blades,
scarred by all they’ve cut away. Am I the wielder
of the knife? Or the one that’s being carved?
If I had my way, I’d shape my days with purpose
and precision—cut away what’s rotten,
peel and trim what doesn’t serve and still
preserve the whole. I want to be dexterous,
agile, deft. I want to be careful with what is left.
And what is left—it’s become more precious
knowing how quickly it might be sliced away.
Oh, let’s be real. If it were my hand,
I’d be hard pressed to use a blade at all,
no matter how slim, no matter how small.
For each time it moves, I hear the blade sing,
when this work is done, you’ll lose everything.
And it catches the light as it shaves and pares.
And less is here. And less is here.
When Living on a Tiny Island
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, fire, island, letting go on December 20, 2021| 11 Comments »
It was a dream, but I tell you
everything was on fire in the house—
I knew the whole island would burn,
and I had to choose what to take
and I ran past the old records
and thought, I have those songs in me,
and I ran past the books
and thought, I have those stories,
and I ran past the photos
and thought, those memories
are already with me,
so I ran, chased by flames,
toward the ocean
with the only thing
I can really carry, this buoyant love,
and I dove in, hands empty,
able to cup the water
and pull through the tide.
The salt water lifted me,
whispered in waves: letting go
is what keeps you alive
*
Hi friends, sorry the poem is late! We had no internet last night. Happy almost solstice–I have never been so ready for the light.
Love, Rosemerry
Erosion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, land, letting go, undoing on November 29, 2021| 10 Comments »
We are being given the chance to become who we are supposed to be.
—Judith Jordan Kalush, in conversation
I didn’t know I’d found a thin ledge
where I could rest, I didn’t know
I had come to feel settled there
until the ledge crumbled.
I clung to the ground as it fell.
It’s not just the ledge
coming apart, it’s me
being dismantled, undone by loss,
and it hurts, and I’m sad, and it’s hard,
but I notice no impulse to fix it.
Today there is a spaciousness in grief
I could not have known was here—
Ungrounded, I expand in every direction.
I let go of what I thought was solid.
I kiss the letting go.
With the Stars All Around
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, control, dream, letting go, life, sleep, trust on August 4, 2021| 5 Comments »
I wish you the peace of sleep,
your breath a canoe
that carries you
toward the next moment
without any need
for you to touch the oars.
How easily you arrive.
Oh, to trust the world like that—
trust you will be carried,
not just in sleep,
but in waking dreams,
trust no matter how high the waves,
the skiff of grace
has a seat for you.
And oh, to let go of the oars—
there is no steering
toward what comes next.
One Way to Do It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, opening, reading on June 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »
not reading the book
on letting go—
she opens her hand