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Posts Tagged ‘lose the self’

Autumn Walk

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 25, 2023| 3 Comments »

 
Perhaps it is the autumn light
that makes the walk up
this familiar old dirt road feel
so lucky, so fortunate? This is how
 
I want to meet life—as if
there is no way to contain all
the beauty so it leaks out and floods
the world with gold. Simply strolling
 
up this gravel road, already I
am less whatever I thought I was
and more what an autumn evening
is, something at the edge
 
of impossible. I want to know
the beauty that comes from
release, the radiance of loving what
is, and with tenderness, letting it go.

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Seven True Stories

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

Seven True Stories

divided highway
late night, coming in my lane
head lights, a story

*

the sky and I,
both of us opening—
peal of unrung bells

*

the old cottonwood
tell me, when is the last time
you climbed it?

*

that ornery face,
yep, I folded it up,
put it in a safe place

*

laying in the grass
our bodies altars—
gold leaf offerings

*

everything shimmering
how could I not French kiss
the chill air

*

that bird, wonder if
he too gets so stunned by sky
he forgets how to sing

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The Proper Care and Feeding of the Self

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 7, 2012| 3 Comments »

Step One: locate a room, a lovely room,
perhaps with Persian rugs, the softest kind,
and pillows, lots of pillows. You will find
the silken ones feel best. And maybe blue
delphiniums, and pink hydrangeas, too.
Two glasses, one for water, one for wine.
Dark chocolates. Bach. And lots of books to line
the shelves, and pictures that your children drew.

Oh yes, a lock to fasten on the door,
a heavy one. You’re set. Step Two. Now pull
together all your thoughts about the needs
the self perceives, I’m sure that there are more.
Arrange the thoughts until they’re comfortable.
Forget them. Lock them. Lose the key. Step Three.

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For What? The Possibilities are Endless

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

When they ask you what you’re thinking of, say love.
–The Avett Brothers

It is messy,
this readying
cherries,
dark skin
resists
to give
up the pit
and the flesh
it drips
and the juice
it stains
and isn’t
this a bit
like love,
my ripe heart
beating
as if
to escape
my own
dark skin.
It is messy
this preparation.

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Who’s the One Doing the Praying?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 13, 2012| 9 Comments »

How’s the dissolution going? –Joi Sharp

Flatten me.
Shuck me.
Dissolve
and melt me.
Disperse me
in the air.

Scatter me.
Shatter me.
Fling and
unmatter me.
Shred, slough,
shear, split, tear.

Loose me.
Reduce me.
Erase and
untether the
small self
who compares.

Help me
abandon
any hope
I’ll ever
arrive
somewhere.

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Communion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2012| 3 Comments »

As salt dissolves in ocean, I was swallowed up in you beyond doubt or being sure.
—Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

Glisten and wet lick
and thick river scent—
that is everything.

Swords. Shields.
Stories of who did what
to whom and when—

and all those hows, whether
divine or horrendous—
gone.

Even these words
you and me
reduce to vacant syllables

in the face of such
movement, such shine—
I could never explain but

it rushes in so clear
that whatever
we once thought

of as other is here
in the clamor
of snowmelt, here

in the river birch
waiting for green,
here in the shove of tumbling

breath as we realize wave
and lose
all we were sure of,

lose the path
that got us here,
lose even the loss of it.

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What’s Working on Us Even Now?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

the snowmen
make it look
easy
to lose the self

they do not
ask how

nor does
the sun
ask permission
to help

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