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Posts Tagged ‘love’

On the Birthday of a Beloved Who Is Gone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 10, 2023| 20 Comments »

for Finn Thilo Trommer, September 11, 2004-August 14, 2021
 
 
Though you said yes to something
that was not this life, your birthday
is no less a celebration. Though you
 
are not here to blow out candles,
not here to wake with balloons,
though you are here as disappearance,
 
though I meet this day with tears,
my heart still rises to revel in ways
your life still changes my life,
 
your life still changes the world.
It will never be finished, this love.
It will never be finished, this learning
 
what it is to be born, to die,
to live into ourselves, to choose love
again and again. Though tears.
 
Though ache. Though crumple. Though clench.
It will never be finished, this practice
of remembering love. Again. And again.

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One in Tune

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on September 7, 2023| 2 Comments »

fitting a meteor shower
into a melody—
this love song

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In a Difficult Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on September 6, 2023| 12 Comments »


-for Christy G. and all who are having a hard time

When you can’t even pretend
to know what comes next,
when what has happened
has stripped your heart
and left you naked and unsteady,
when little seems to tether you
to the world of things, the world
of schedules, the world of the known,
when you are unable to anything,
this is when we might learn at last
how it is we are carried by infinite love—
how we float in the hearts of others,
buoyed by their tenderness, their prayers.
How all the love we have ever given
is still present inside us,
in fact, it has become us.

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Timing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 4, 2023| 11 Comments »

 
Today the heart has forgotten
how to ask questions
such as how do I serve—
instead, it scuttles like a spider
to the edges of the room,
looks for cracks to slip into and hide.
Today, it doesn’t feel safe to love.
It’s okay, I tell my scared heart.
It’s okay to slip away.
But come out again.
Everything depends on this.

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Holding Your Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 29, 2023| 7 Comments »


 
I want to trace the rings of your heart
the way I would trace tree rings—
not to count them
but to honor each season of you.
I want to touch my fingertips
to your scars, want to learn
your heart’s stories, find clues
of how you became who you are.
I want to press my palms
to your heart and praise
how it is we grow,
even in disaster, even in drought,
want to praise the dark center,
the time-thick bark, the record
of the ordinary days. I want
to chart the thin slivers of your wounds
and let my hands speak love,
want to tell you in a language
of quiet touch, I see you.

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What Holds Things Together

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2023| 10 Comments »



            for Karen, Lindsay, Sarah, and the other Rangers and Volunteers in Tuolomne Meadows
 
 
Marcelo says he’s interested in fasteners,
in nails. He likes thinking about how things
hold together. He’s a carpenter and a poet,
and it follows, his fascination with structure.
Because I am me, I think about love.
I think of the ranger station I saw at Yosemite,
the roof collapsed by heavy snows. I think
of the heap of picnic tables I saw,
metal legs twisted like pipe cleaners,
unable to hold up the weight of long winter.
Things fall apart. And yet.
I think of the rangers who love this place,
who return every year to shovel, to teach,
to clean, to rebuild, to organize, to guide—
their devotion essential as any screws,
as any glue, as mighty as high alpine weather.
Love, the force resilient enough
as the world falls apart
to hold what’s been broken together.

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More Sunflowers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 11, 2023| 14 Comments »

The sunflowers, which came from seeds
no hand planted, now overshadow
 
the tomatoes, the eggplant,
the gardener, the beans.
 
They branch out across the pathways
and teem with bees and wasps.
 
Perhaps your heart, too,
knows something of exuberance,
 
knows what it’s like to burst
into an explosion of golden joy,
 
not just savoring the moment,
but growing more wildly into it,
 
reaching in all directions,
certain of its own beauty
 
and living to share it.

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Sympathetic Resonance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 2, 2023| 13 Comments »

All day, I feel the throbbing
of other lives, other pain,
as if I’m a string on the piano
 
that goes unplayed, and yet
vibrates when the hammer
strikes other strings, and then—
 
your ache, my ache,
two strings, one song.
 

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Deep Peace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 31, 2023| 6 Comments »

 
I would carry your ache
if I could. Would carry the throb
and the raw fury, would dress
 
your wounds with a salve of full moon
and the gold of the tall summer grass.
I would wrap you in the softest song,
 
and whisper blood-true prayers
so quietly they resemble the sound
of petals falling—something more felt
 
than understood. And because
I cannot carry your ache, I do
what the helpless do. I love you.
 
With my own broken open heart,
I love you. With every breath, every blink,
I Iove you. There is a peace
 
that comes when we deeply
lean into the ache. I wish you
that courage, that peace.

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When the Ambush Comes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 24, 2023| 8 Comments »

You might be standing in line at the bank,
Perhaps taking out the trash after midnight,
the moon somehow too bright.
If you can predict the quick tears, the tight throat,
that’s not the ambush. That’s just grief.
The ambush comes when you’re laughing.
Or when you’re eating popcorn.
Or when you drive by a parking lot
where once you practiced parallel parking
with the one who is no longer here.
The ambush might come when you’ve just
put on mascara. Or when you’re talking
on the phone to customer service.
Or when you’re dusting the piano
where once your loved one sat
and practiced the theme
to Pirates of the Caribbean
over and over and over. And over.
And then you’re crying again.
Not that you mind it.
Not that you’re surprised.
You don’t even apologize anymore.
This is what happens now.
It’s what love looks like.
You call it life.

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