And maybe
though there
is no floor
you find
the grace
in falling—
after all
those years
of baby
steps, with
one plunge
you’re
evolving
Posts Tagged ‘loss’
The Big Lesson, Part II
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evolution, floor, grace, loss, poem, poetry, trust on May 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Details
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, friendship, gratitude, life, loss, poem, poetry on March 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I fell in love, today, with the black
and blue marker stains on the table
made by the two-year-old boy—
he colored in the circles he’d drawn
with so much enthusiasm that the ink
seeped through the paper
and into the lemon cream paint on the table
where no amount of scrubbing could remove it.
It wasn’t so much the stain though, no,
and it wasn’t the color. What I fell in love with
was the way his mother didn’t see
that the table was ruined. She saw
that he did such a fine, precise job,
that he took so much pleasure in the coloring.
And when I apologized for bringing markers
that didn’t easily wash, she looked at me
with so much surrender and said,
“On a day like today,
who could worry about a table?”
It was yesterday they found the dog
waiting beside the car.
It was this morning the skier’s body was found
in a massive snow slide.
It was all day, through the stupor of loss,
I fell in love with the shape of empty branches,
the scent of black tea, the sound
of my son’s voice, fell in love
with the grace in the way my friend shrugged
when she saw the table, the way she hugged
her son. She offered me chocolate from London.
We ate the squares slowly. All day the gray edge
of grief made every little thing
more precious, more sweet.
One Great Loss
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, dog, grief, loss, poem, poetry on February 23, 2019| 4 Comments »
—for Jack
such terrible silence
when the dog isn’t whining at the door—
the space on the dog bed empty
Losing It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, loss, poem, poetry, self on August 25, 2018| 4 Comments »
It was a tiny percentage, I knew, but still
there was some French royalty somewhere
in my blood. I would spend hours imagining
myself in my proper place: in a long pink dress
and thin gold crown in a castle on a green hillside,
doing needlepoint, no doubt, and nibbling bon bons,
and so when I again asked my mother to tell me about
that part of our heritage, she told me,
It’s so little blood, and you’ve had so many
skinned knees, I’m pretty sure you’ve
bled it all out by now. And I was instantly
less grandiose. That was, perhaps, the first identity
that I was aware of losing. But soon after that,
I was no longer blonde. And soon after that,
I no longer lived in Wisconsin. And soon after that,
I was no longer a Scout. Everything I thought
I knew about myself didn’t last. Ah,
the litany of losses. Those notions of who we are,
how they shed, they spill, they slip off.
As they’re lost, we usually rush to replace them.
I became worker. Lover. Parent. Friend.
We wear them so close, these identities ,
that we no longer see them as separate. We think
they’re who we are. But what if we skinned
not just our knees, but our thoughts,
and let those roles escape? Who would
be left to walk through the field this evening
to see the double rainbow stretched across the east?
Sitting Beside My Brother at the Funeral
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, death, family, grief, loss, poem, poetry, sister on June 1, 2018| 3 Comments »
There was a time when I’d pull his hair out
if he sat too close to me on the couch.
Now, I curl into his right side,
lean my head on his shoulder,
feel the trembling of his chest
as he weeps. How good it feels
to be close to him as we grieve.
How familiar, the shape of his head,
the heft of his hand as he reaches for mine.
How deeply right, this leaning
into sorrow together.
Some Days Are Difficult For Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loss, poem, poetry, tears on May 16, 2018| 3 Comments »
Longing is the hardest thing to give up.
—Jim Tipton, “What is This Place I Have Come To?”
Some days can’t end soon enough,
when the heart, so full of love,
breaks and breaks again—
for beauty, for loss.
And the eyes can’t cry
another damn tear
but they do anyway,
I would rather not
cry anymore, but God,
thank you for letting me
be one of the ones
who can’t help but weep,
whose house is built
too close to the water.
What a gift to feel this horrible ache
like a lantern, golden
and soft, guiding us
deeper and deeper
into our humanness,
leading us closer
to each other, even
though we have never felt
farther away,
and though the stars
are out and at last,
thank god, it is night,
we have never
been more awake.
Getting On Board with Ms. Bishop
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Elizabeth Bishop, loss, poem, poetry, rondeau, surrender on March 11, 2018| 2 Comments »
Lose something every day.
—Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”
Lose something every day, the poet said—
and how I laughed the first time that I read
her words. My keys? My gloves? My place in line?
My favorite socks? A name? My glass of wine?
I’ve got that down, I thought, and shook my head.
But then I thought of passing time, the threads
of dates unraveling—and how I try to wind
them back, reclaim those squandered hours as mine.
Lose something every day?
And then I thought of certainty, how wed
I am to thoughts, convictions, faith. Instead
of losing them, I cling. Then they confine.
Some things are better lost—my rigid mind,
my prejudice, old chains of shame, my dread—
lose something every day.
Modigliani Remembers Anna Akhmatova as He Sketches Her Naked, Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anna akhmatova, ekphrasis, loss, modligliani, poem, poetry on January 28, 2018| 1 Comment »
She said my eyes had a golden gleam,
but it was her eyes, her eyes that redeemed
the world—the way she translated all she saw
into slender verse. I still hear her voice, soft as rain,
as she’d say, 0 Il faut, voyez-vous,
nous pardonner les choses—reciting Verlaine
as we sat beneath my old black umbrella
in the Jardin du Luxembourg. I knew,
even then, she would leave me. Knew
that although she threw red roses onto my floor
she would always return to Russia, her home.
Oh, but the tapered length of her. Like a candle,
a dancer, an Egyptian queen. How
her figure astonishes me. I draw her always
by memory. She, with the poise
of a Siamese cat. She with her stray dog soul.
When she left me, she took a single scroll
with her portrait sketched in pencil.
She tells me she’s taped it above her couch.
But she never returned. She never
returned. Now all my lines are ghosts.
To see some of Modigliani’s images of Anna Akhmatova, visit:
One the Day After
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, death, emptiness, loss, poem, poetry on October 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »
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