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.
Posts Tagged ‘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 »
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.