for my daughter
I want to give you what I could not give you,
a world where there is no hurt or grief.
a world where you don’t know
ravaged and sleepless nights,
don’t know mornings too quiet
or the color of dirt in the cemetery.
Because I cannot give you this,
I want to give you the certainty
that you can live fully in a world
where there is hurt and grief,
that you can meet what is most painful
and at the same time
turn toward what is beautiful.
I want to give you a love so safe
that you grow into yourself
certain that there is nothing
you can do or not do
that could keep me from loving you.
I have been loved like this, too,
and did not know the enormity of the gift
until I longed to give it to you.
I want you to take it for granted
that love is so vast, so unshakeable,
so true. I want to give you the belief
in your resilience, want you to know yourself
as a flower that grows more vigorously
after it’s been cut back.
I would keep the hands from cutting you,
but since I can’t do that,
I want to be the soil, the rain, the sun.
I want to give you what cannot be given,
want to give you what you have given me—
the astonishment of living with you
in a time of hurt and grief
and the miracle of watching you grow.
Posts Tagged ‘love’
Impossible Generosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, grief, love, parenting on March 27, 2023| 12 Comments »
A Blessing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, grief, loss, love, presence, time on March 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
In the dream, you are ten
and your slender body
curls into my side. We
lie on a purple bed.
Our awareness wings
at the edge of sleep,
our bodies more stone
than bird, your head
on my arm as heavy as time,
and I think, I love this
sweet sapling boy.
In the dream, you are alive,
and I sink all the way
into the sweetness
of the moment
the way I sometimes don’t
in life. I sink full weight
into the tender present
and no part of me wishes
to be anywhere but
in the low golden dream light,
your body warm and gentled,
my body quiet and easy.
Two days later,
I feel it still, the heft of love
unending and generous
close against my side.
It invites me to be more here
with the ones I am with.
With that same arm that held you,
I hold them. Time lifts.
The Great Reframe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, frame, grief, love, reframe on March 16, 2023| 11 Comments »
Let this sorrow
that has opened me
to love
be like a frame
that has no photo—
so I might know
how to be this broken open,
this tender, this compassionate
with anything,
not only toward the one
who first filled the frame.
Let me not try to control
what is worthy of framing.
Let me trust everything
is worthy of prayer,
of consideration.
Let sorrow continue
to teach me generosity.
Let the frame be big enough
to hold it all.
One Impossible Hug
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, death, hug, loss, love on February 25, 2023| 4 Comments »
my arms still recall
the slender stem of your body—
oh, sweet empty circumference
Ineffable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, friendship, love, texting on February 24, 2023| 4 Comments »
—for Kayleen
I couldn’t name
the brilliant red flower
in full bloom,
couldn’t smell it
nor touch it,
but when my friend
sent me an image
of soft ruby petals
all dewy and open
there was no way
I couldn’t believe
in beauty—
and though I couldn’t
hear her velvety voice,
that made her message
no less true—
loving you—
so sitting in a room
alone
in the midst of miles
of snow and cold
I felt so sweetly tethered
to a world beyond
the world I know—
and long after
her message arrived
I continue to believe
in something wonderful
and sweet,
something true
I can’t quite touch,
I continue to believe
in what words
try to point to,
words like beauty,
like friendship, like love.
Eternity in an Hour
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Joi Sharp, love, nothing, peace on February 16, 2023| 13 Comments »
with gratefulness to Joi Sharp
Not just to know the self
but to know the nothing
that surrounds it, to feel
how vast that nothing is,
how inside that nothing
is more nothing, and
inside that more nothing
is even more nothing.
To know that. To feel
the self held by infinite
nothing, to feel the nothing
held by the self. How quiet
everything is then. How
easy it is to believe
peace is not only possible,
it is already here. How
beautiful to meet this
truth with another.
Sweet paradox: imbued
with all this lavish nothing,
the moment overspills
with love. It’s everything.
(title from “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake)
Though I Respond to My Name, I Am Aware
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kindness, love, name on February 14, 2023| 12 Comments »
how completely the love of others
has made me who I am. How the work
of their hands is more me
than the swirls of my own fingerprints.
I am the project of love,
the product of compassion,
the sum total of kindness
and sympathy. Of course,
the cruelty, too. Of course,
the ugliness, the shame.
But it is love that rises in me,
like yeast in the living bread.
It is love I’ve received
that stands when I stand,
love that responds
when you say my name.
*
Friends, I have to tell you I went to the most powerful poetry reading today. Organized by a local high school girl, there were high school girls, teachers and community members who read in support of Shatter the Silence. Poems by Joy Harjo, Maya Angelou, Audrey Lorde, Ani deFranco, Marge Piercy and more … and it was so deeply moving to see the courage, the engagement, the support for each other. Conversations are happening now I never dreamt could happen–about empowerment, deep listening, meeting what is painful and celebrating what is good. There is support in the school from teachers and administration to have these conversations. It was absolutely heart-opening and soul nourishing and I am so amazed by this generation of young women. Change is happening, real, beautiful, just, fierce, loving change.
Hearth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, love on February 13, 2023| 4 Comments »
A fireplace is made for flame.
Even when dark, empty, cold,
its purpose is unchanging.
It was made for flare, for flicker,
for blaze, for light; it was made
to cast warmth, to hold glow.
The soul is a kind of fireplace.
Love itself the flame.
Even in our chillest hour,
it’s clear what we are made for.
What the Dark Might Say
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, love, night on February 12, 2023| 4 Comments »
What I love tonight about candlelight,
is the way it teaches me about the night—
how the night presses against the windows,
how it cradles the room in a dusky embrace.
How the dark is not like a palm that,
when pressed to a chest,
must stop when it meets the skin—
no, the dark is more like love
that moves through any boundaries
to touch everything.
If there is a longing in me
to be anywhere but here,
it does not show up.
It has lost its feet
and does not try to run away.
Tonight, the darkness offers to smooth
the parts of me that want to run, to hide.
Tender as a womb, the dark kisses my fears.
It says, Sweetheart, I will hold you.
No matter how small your light tonight, I will hold you.
One Without a Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, love, mother, path on February 8, 2023| 7 Comments »
no footsteps, no matter
there is nowhere, not even death,
where my love will not follow