this old heart
wrinkled and graying
still learning to walk
Posts Tagged ‘love’
One Near a Mud Puddle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, heart, love, poem, poetry on September 14, 2019| 2 Comments »
Every Thursday at 2 for Five Years
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, love, poem, poetry, student, support on September 12, 2019| 2 Comments »
for Phyllis
I remember the day she chose me.
It was fall. I didn’t know then
I would come to love her, didn’t know
how trust would grow, like catnip, like oregano,
more robust, more wild every year.
I didn’t know how I’d been waiting to be chosen,
that she would help me find the wings I’d never felt,
never seen. That she would dare me to fly.
That she would be the wind.
To the Person in the Red Station Wagon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, love, mistake, poem, poetry, strangers on September 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I was so excited to drop the impromptu Valentine
in through the car window—a white heart
with a big blue eye at its center that I’d ripped
into shape from an old magazine cover.
It slipped through the open window
and landed just right on the driver’s seat,
the eye facing up, the heart facing the door.
Imagine my surprise when my friend Kyra
told me she hadn’t been in town today.
Really? I asked her, stunned. Really, she said.
Because who would think there were two
red station wagons in town with the passenger door
bashed in and the back full of camping gear?
Dear stranger in the red station wagon who parked in town,
I know I didn’t give you the heart on purpose,
but I’m so glad I did. Sometimes our mistakes
have so much to teach us. Now I know
how I want to treat strangers: Like beloved friends.
Like people I thrill to shower with love.
One While Reading Rumi
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, love, poem, poetry, Rumi on September 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Making Choux Pastry for Eclairs with My Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cooking, daughter, kitchen, love, mother, parenting, poem, poetry on August 31, 2019| 2 Comments »
First, you must weigh everything.
Precisely. The butter. The water.
The sugar, the salt. You must
catch the mixture just as it boils,
then add the flour, sifted and weighed.
You must set the timer to dry the dough,
must add the eggs slowly, must not
let it be too dry, too wet.
There’s more, my friends. The angle
of the pastry sleeve, must be 45 degrees.
You need to use the French star tip.
And then, you must not open the oven
lest the steam escapes and the eclairs
don’t crust. So many musts. So many dos.
And still they don’t always turn out.
It is not at all the way I love you. Though
sometimes I’ve tried to find the recipe.
Though sometimes I’ve wished it
were as easy as measuring well and using
a timer. I have wanted to do it right.
I have studiously wanted to make yours the best life.
But the only way to be a good lover
is to love. It has nothing to do
with following directions. Has
everything to do with the doing.
Like making choux pastry dough
together. Taking turns at the stove.
Reading the directions out loud to each other,
four times. And then watching the dough,
astonished as it goes from slimy to smooth
to something sturdy that shines.
Shining
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged erik satie, love, night, poem, poetry on August 28, 2019| 2 Comments »
inspired by Erik Satie, Gnossienne 1
let me speak only in starlight
and let me wear only song
teach me to love in a minor key
and let the night
be long
lightly, with intimacy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged erik satie, love, poem, poetry, song, time, time signature on August 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »
after Erik Satie’s Gnossienne 2
for you a song
with no measures
and this tessellating metronome
that ticks only love and slips
into each moment a forever
Dear friends,
You have perhaps guessed by now that I am doing a whole series of five-line poems on Satie’s Gnossiennes—five lines for the five lines of the staff. And each poem is titled based on the directions he wrote above the staves instructing the musician how to feel the music. There will be quite a few more … they’re really fun.
r
And Yet It Is Always Itself
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged biology, body, love, new beginning, newness, parenting, poem, poetry, stomach on August 13, 2019| 2 Comments »
The stomach replaces its lining
every four days. Every four days.
Because it’s so highly corrosive,
every four days it remakes itself
and becomes completely new.
Love, this is what I want to do.
Because sometimes we are acid.
Because sometimes we are cruel.
I want to start over every four days.
Every four days, let us be new.
What I Did Not Write in the Card
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, friendship, love, poem, poetry on July 30, 2019| 6 Comments »
for S
I don’t want you to die.
I know that is selfish,
but it’s the truest thing.
I know we don’t speak of it.
I know I am supposed
to find acceptance,
to find metaphors about
rebirth and letting go—
the trees are always good that way—
but I don’t want to.
I hate that you are hurting.
I hate how far away you are.
You and I both know
that I would never write this
in your card. No, instead,
I send a metaphor about birds,
about resilience and
the gift of wings. Instead,
I tell you I love you.
It’s the other truest thing.
I Cried to Dream Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged betrayal, caliban, heart, love, poem, poetry, shakespeare, the tempest on July 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »
title from William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III, Scene II
I have a Caliban locked in my heart,
a child of the moon. He reminds me sometimes
of all the beautiful places he’s shown me—
the heart’s clear springs and its riches.
How we loved each other then.
There was a time he would offer
to lick my shoes. There was a time
I would follow him everywhere.
I invited him to sleep in my sheets.
I would rub his wild scruff till he purred.
I poured him my best wine in my best glass.
I sang him to sleep. There are some betrayals
we will never forgive. Or so
we tell ourselves. Now he is insolent.
Now I’ve built walls. Now he’s rebellious.
Now I’m master I’d rather not be.
It was so much more wonderful then
when we were friends, when I trusted him
and delighted in the most primal parts of me.
And though I lock him up now, he reminds me
through his cage of the sweet airs of the heart
and the music inside us that longs to be obeyed.
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