Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belief, Corona Virus, impossible, love on April 8, 2020| 4 Comments »
Like the giant rock, balancing in the desert
on a slender pillar of sand. Like the way
the full moon seems so much larger
when it first rises. Like how the bluebird,
smaller than my open hand, migrates
up to two-thousand miles in the spring.
Every day, the world bewilders me,
as if daring me to believe in other
impossible things. Like how closeness
to death makes us more alive.
Like people all over the world
choosing kindness over chaos.
Like love, that against all odds,
continues to grow.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, fibonacci sequence, golden spiral, humanity, love, math, nature, pattern on April 5, 2020| 7 Comments »
Eadem mutata resurgo
Latin motto: Changed, I rise again
Sometimes in spring
I can still find the dried seeds
of the mountain mahogany
clinging to the ends
of the branches—
feathery golden spirals,
logarithmic and light.
How the universe
loves a pattern,
an elegant mathematics—
this same spiral is found
in spider webs, sunflowers,
snail shells, cyclones, the arms
of galaxies, the human ear,
even in the nerves of my cornea
that help me to see
the very pattern that
gives me the ability to see.
I want to find the self-similar spiral curve
that informs kindness and strength
as it spreads through a people. I want
to find the equation that calculates
an exponentially growing radius of love.
I want to find the dynamic beauty in us
that amplifies as it moves out
with ever increasing speed
from the infinite center.
I want to embody the trustworthy constant
that inspires our species to be better,
want to know the recursive courage that drives us
to thrive in difficult times.
Our potential, endless, yet humble
as last year’s seed in my hand, ready
to be planted, to sprout, to grow.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged einstein, epistle, letter, love, science on March 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
*Dear readers: Sooooo. After really investing myself in the letter (linked below) and writing the poem below, I found out the letter is a fake. And I thought about just taking down the poem. And then I thought, well, even though Albert didn’t write the letter, I still believe in what it says. So I changed the title and made note here that the letter is fake. I guess my poem just turned into fan fiction??
***********
If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.
—a fake letter from Albert Einstein, in a letter to his daughter, Lieserl
Thank you for your letter.
I know you wrote it
for a daughter,
but I read it as if
you wrote it for me.
You spoke of making a love bomb,
a device powerful enough
to entirely destroy the hate,
selfishness and greed
that devastate the planet.
I want to believe it’s possible.
Now. Somehow, because it is
your assertion, it feels
more possible than something
the poets propose.
But count me in. Let me help
verify your equation in which
the energy to heal the world
is obtained through love
multiplied by the speed of light squared.
Let the experiment begin
in my heart. Let me always
let love write the proof.
Let me find the infinite energy
inside me waiting to be released.
Let me be driven by love.
Let me remember everything
is in relation to everything else:
Planets in their orbits. A virus. Black holes.
How I meet the world. The bending of light.
*to read the full letter, click here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, Corona Virus, friendship, love on March 22, 2020| 10 Comments »
Just two weeks ago, it was sufficient
to say, hello, good morning, good bye.
But now, in every text, every email,
every phone call, I tell my friends
and family how much I love them.
I tell them life is better because
they are in it. I say it with the urgency
of a woman who knows she could die,
who knows this communication could be our last.
I slip bouquets into my voice. I weave love songs
into the spaces between words.
I infuse every letter, every comma, with prayers.
Sometimes it makes me cry, not
out of fear, but because the love is so strong.
How humbling to feel it undiluted,
shining, like rocks in the desert after a rain,
to know love as the most important thing,
to remember this as I keep on living.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, love, mother, quarantine, son, touch on March 18, 2020| 2 Comments »
This morning, my teenage boy and I
sit quiet on the couch. He does not move
to pick up his phone. I do not rise to work
or rush to make a meal. We sit, leaning
the trunks of our bodies into each other.
We do not say much. I close my eyes
and cherish his sapling weight.
There are so few people I dare now hug—
our hands, our bodies dangerous—
but here in this house so still I can almost
hear him growing, here in these minutes
that fell off the clock, here I remember
how surely we baptize each other with touch.
Such simple blessing. Silence. The metronome
of breath. The leaning in. Infectious love.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged devotion, ekphrasis, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe, love on March 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I didn’t know then that devotion
was jumping off the high dive into a pool
though there was no life guard,
though there was no telling
what or who else was in that water.
I didn’t know devotion would mean
tattooing another’s face to my forehead
the way Frida once did with Diego—
how the whole world would be able to see
what I thought was invisible.
I didn’t know devotion meant walking barefoot
into the wind, a wind so strong it shredded my coat.
Didn’t know my destination
would become so unknowable,
would remain so far away.
Perhaps I thought it would be more mechanical—
as if the nuts and bolts of you
would meet the nuts and bolts of me,
and through sun and rain we would fuse together,
belly to belly, nose to nose.
Instead, I meet devotion now
the way I once met Georgia O’Keefe’s clouds
in the stairwell of the Chicago Art Museum.
I stared at the giant painting, thinking to myself,
That’s not at all what it’s like.
Years later when I visited Abiquiu,
I saw the sky so true to what she’d painted,
gasped to see that herd of perfect ovals
flocked white above the red land.
Perhaps this is what devotion is like—
being willing to trust I know nothing at all
of what it looks like. That the only way it reveals itself
is when I meet it with wonder, the way I might meet
the work of a master, willing to be curious,
willing to be awed.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exhaustion, love, self love on February 23, 2020| 7 Comments »
Just today I did not fall in love with the long hallway,
or the faithful radiator or the steadfast brick.
I did not fall in love with a calculator or
with lavender soap. I certainly
did not fall for a loyal wooden ladder,
not for a mirror, not for the underappreciated spider,
not for a door, no matter how open it was.
So many chances, lost. So many invitations unanswered.
There are days when the heart forgets its work—
not out of maliciousness, more perhaps, because
it is tired. These are the days when I hope
that I will remember to sit quietly until
once again the heart finds the energy to love itself.
Then it is only a matter of time before it loves again
the red thread, the socks, the chipped blue cup.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kitchen, love, partnership, tenderness, vulnerability on February 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Today I wish I were a potato peeler,
able to remove the outer layers of myself,
able to shave off any toughness I’ve developed
to protect, to safeguard, to shield. I want to give
myself to you, the inner sweetness,
the tenderest parts. I want to unpeel
any husk, any rind, any barrier
that would keep you from the heart
of me. I want to meet you vulnerably.
Today I want to take the long thin blade
and make ribbons of my resistance,
make strips of my defenses and watch
them fall like burlap veils. And if I cannot
find the courage to be the one who peels,
let me put the tool in your hand. I’m afraid,
but I am ready. Be sure, love. Be quick.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beach, bird, cormorant, love, sea on February 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And while I am at it, I should like to send you
a postcard from the shores of my body,
wish you were here, it is warm and there
are so many places for us to explore
together—but even as I write these words
the letters grow ink dark wings and fly
over the sea, a colony of cormorants,
silent as they soar, and I a beach with no footprints,
the waves lapping, everywhere the scent, the sting of salt.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged frienship, hummingbird, love, positivity, thoughts on February 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for Colette
Beside my bed, she left
a beautiful beaded hummingbird
and a story about how the Mayans
believe that these birds will transport
all of our good wishes and desires
to another. Tonight, there is no one
I wouldn’t send this bird to—
not just to my loved ones,
but to my unloved ones, the ones
I would rather forget, the ones
I would rather ignore. Oh little bird,
with your bright body and shining wings,
let’s get to work. Let’s send out
extraordinary beauty tonight,
extraordinary love.
