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.
Posts Tagged ‘letting go’
Preparation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged knife, letting go, loss on January 19, 2022| 6 Comments »
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
Porous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, porous, vase on May 12, 2021| 3 Comments »
with thanks to Joi Sharp
Yesterday I widened to hold it all—
made room in the heart
for every pain, every joy,
a vase infinitely large
to hold an infinite bouquet of feelings
Today, all it took
was two beautiful questions—
Why do you think you must
hold it all? What if you let
it all pass through?
In that moment,
the vase didn’t shatter,
it simply disappeared
and the infinite feelings
I’d been stretching to hold
I felt them, I felt them all,
then felt them move through me
the way water runs
through a colander, the way
oxygen moves through
the thin walls of alveoli,
the way sand moves through
the center of the hourglass.
When I Want to Hold On
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dawn, holding on, letting go on May 7, 2021| 4 Comments »
Teach me
to trust
the hope
that blooms
inside
the loss,
the love
that’s at
the heart
of fear—
teach me
to molt,
to slough,
to shed,
to doff,
to meet
the first light
and then
let even that
go.
A Dream of Goodness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged holding on, letting go, monkey fist on February 7, 2021| 4 Comments »
After holding something tight for just minutes,
it takes ten more for the fist to unhold,
to let what it has been grasping
simply balance there in the palm.
I have heard the story of how they trap monkeys
by putting a treat through a hole just big enough
that the monkey’s hand can slip in, but
when clasped around the sweet,
cannot slip out.
I have been one of the rare monkeys
who knows that to be free, it must let go.
It takes time, but eventually the fingers unfurl
the way a leaf unfolds out of its bud—
not all at once, but in spurts, little jerks
of the knuckles, until at last the hand is open
and the fingers remember
what they can do besides clench,
besides clutch, besides clamp.
Today I wonder if the head might learn
what the hand knows, might to slacken and relax
to release a dream.
It never knew holding a dream
could become a problem—
it was a dream, for heaven’s sakes.
Something good. Something wonderful.
Something sweet.
When did the dream become a trap?
A tightening, a snare?
Oh dream, can I let you go
the way a hand might release a piece of paper?
Such a beautiful dream—
that those around me might truly be happy
if only I am good enough, if only I hang on.
A Little Pep Talk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged endings, heart, letting go, transformation on December 9, 2020| 2 Comments »
The swirling ash
doesn’t try
to be become
log again.
The flying leaves
don’t attempt
to return
to the tree.
The girl
can’t untwist
her genome
back into
separate strands.
The flour
in the bread
can’t return
to the sack,
can’t undo
the kneading
of hands.
In all things
lives a memory
of letting go
and the chance
to transform
into what
it can’t know.
What do you say
to that, heart?
Good self,
what do you say
to that?
Could I Say It and Really Mean It?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, thoughts on December 4, 2020| 4 Comments »
A pomegranate, tennis racket,
wide open lily—basically anything
can act as a Trojan horse to get
those old ideas close to me,
and dang, I’m confronted again
with all the ways I’ve let down
the world and all the ways
I could have, I should have
done better. How many times
have I tried to escape these thoughts?
I’ve run mountain races and
written thousands of pages
and wept a spring flood and
confessed and bled and still
they find a way back to me.
Sometimes they come knives drawn,
but more often they come
wearing fluffy robes and slippers,
making themselves at home.
I cornered one today, looked it
right in the eye. What? I said.
What do I have to do?
It shook its head and said,
All I ever wanted
was for you to say thank you.
Just When I Had an Armful of Blessings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, lightly on November 30, 2020| 4 Comments »
Lightly, lightly. It’s the best advice ever given to me.
–Aldous Huxley, Island
Eventually I learn
that anything I would hold onto
will weigh me down—
sorrow, of course,
but even delight.
And there is no predicting
when the next step
will find me travelling
onto thin ice—
so I remind myself
each step, each breath,
each grasp, each hope,
go light, go light.
At the National Gallery of Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, letting go, love, museum, picasso on October 27, 2020| 2 Comments »
on seeing The Lovers by Pablo Picasso when I was sixteen
Perhaps because I was in love
I fell in love with The Lovers—
fell in love with the way
the man held the woman from behind.
Fell in love with his red,
with her yellow and green.
Fell in love with his gaze,
with the tilt of her head.
I knew what it was like
to be that woman.
Even now, looking
at the painting in pixels,
not in oil on linen,
I feel it—the harmony
of the blue sky behind them,
a sky somehow boundless
inside of them, too.
Thirty years later,
I’m still charged with that blue.
And whatever it is
that forces the woman
to look beyond the frame,
I remember that, too.
It’s as if she can’t quite see
what’s about to happen,
so with one hand,
she holds on to her lover.
With the other, she reaches,
or is she holding herself?
And here’s what I grasp
that she doesn’t yet know—
how hard it will be, how hard
it will be to let go.
The Lovers by Pablo Picasso
Another Reason to Be a Gardener
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, garden, letting go, practice on July 2, 2020| 7 Comments »
Though it’s July, the grass is iced
from last night’s frost, and the heart-shaped leaves
of the pole beans hang limp and dead.
And so the chance to practice letting go.
It’s too bad, of course,
but the stakes are low.
It was only one row,
a handful of seeds,
a hankering for fresh green beans.
Not a livelihood. Not a child.
Not a hope. Not a dream.
Just a small row of leaves
that do what leaves do.
No one to point a finger at.
No one to pick a fight with.
Just this practice of meeting
the world as it is. This chance to start again—
the work of the living.
After Talking to My Teacher, I See the Invitation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, failure, invitation, Joi Sharp, letting go, poem, poetry, teacher on July 12, 2019| 2 Comments »
What wants to happen?
—Joi Sharp
Today it is the tow truck
that leads me back to myself.
For though I call the driver
and though I receive
a text that says he is coming
and though I have paid
my AAA bill on time, the tow
truck does not arrive.
Though I did everything right.
Though the same actions have worked before.
Still the world has not turned out
the way I expected, the way
I want it to. The car
is still stranded. The tow truck
is still not here. Oh failure,
how clearly it shows my attachment
to outcome. How clearly it
shows me the world is in charge.
I look for more doors to knock on,
try to plan more ways to control.
Meanwhile, I am the door.
Meanwhile, this chance
to let go.
The Blizzard Reminds Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, parenting, poem, snow, spruce, tree on March 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The way the spruce tree
holds the wet snow—how
in a blizzard its branches
will bend and bend
and bend until they release—
that is the way I want to love you,
want to trust that I can hold
the weight of you as you fall,
as you continue to fall,
hold you until it seems I will break
and then, just when I’m sure
I can’t take any more,
release you back into yourself—
not in anger, not in fear,
not with guilt—release you
with green resilience
so that come the next storm
I am prepared
to catch you again, again,
and let you go.
After Being Given the Assignment to Forgive
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, friendship, letting go, poem, poetry, time on February 26, 2019| 8 Comments »
It took five days, but at last I thought of you, old friend,
friend I loved and wanted to trust, friend
who burned every bridge I tried to build between us,
who turned gratitude and apology to smoke, to ash,
who taught me that love is not enough—a lesson
I never wanted to learn, which is why I am grateful
you helped me to learn it.
No one gets through life without injury.
Still, I wanted to believe that a kiss and forgiveness
could make things better, but some things
are better left broken. Thank you for teaching me
that all passes, that even without a road, without
a bridge, without a track, the train of time
finds a way to keep moving, eventually
speeding by so fast that what seemed
unable to be overcome becomes a blur
and that hope gives way to something even
more beautiful: saying yes to what is real.
So though you will never know it, I forgive you
for your scissored words and sharpened
silences. I forgive you for giving up on love,
for saying no, goodbye. It takes almost no effort now.
Even uranium has a half-life—albeit 4.5 billion years.
How much sooner forgiveness has come. More like a lawn
that went unwatered and dried to brown, to dust,
but then when seasonal rains returned, turned green.
Yes, thriving and lush, here is the new lay of the land,
ready for anyone to arrive. Anyone. Even you.
How to Let Go of Being Right (When You’re Sure You’re Right, But So Is The Other Person)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, letting go, poem, poetry on November 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
As summer leans into the fall,
as sunflowers that lose all
their petals—though it takes
some time. As rhyme
that slips toward normal speech.
As evening drifting toward the night.
And when you’re really sure
you’re right, let go as snow evaporates,
as puddles dry, as clouds
disperse, as waves unwave,
as light rehearses shadow.
And if you’re still sold
you are right, then practice
quietude. Like dirt. Like
bark. Like pearl. Like grass.
Like the moon, so dark, so new.
Without A Map
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, poem, poetry, sea, ship, uncertainty on September 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Silly me, I thought the boat was empty.
Thought there was no one else here to paddle
or steer. Thought I was alone and too small
to reach the rudder, too weak to lift
the great oars, somehow not seeing
the sea itself as captain, the sea itself as crew,
its waves carrying me places I never knew I needed
to go until, on that strange new shore, I found
myself exactly where I needed to be,
shipwrecked and wildly alive.
One More Chapter in Letting Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, daughter, garden, innocence, letting go, mother, parenting, poem, poetry on June 24, 2018| 1 Comment »
Today it slipped into my daughter,
the seed that all is not right in the world.
In a matter of hours, already
the tap roots had grown beyond
my ability to pull them out.
I wonder if I have been wrong
to keep her garden so tidy.
I wonder how to best teach her
to tend her own rows.
It will be endless now,
the onslaught, as every gardener knows.
And there is some pleasure in tending.
I think of how I would rather
be aware of all that grows.
I think of how sometimes
we change our minds
about what is wanted
and what is a weed.
Some part of me longs
to swing the sun back to yesterday.
Some part of me rejoices
that now all the world
is her garden.