Before my father died,
he bought me a boxy
cream knit sweater
with crisp straight lines
and an elegant collar,
the kind of sweater
I imagine would be worn
by a woman more polished
than I. But my father insisted
on buying it, as if he
could see in me something
I couldn’t see myself.
Over a year after his death,
I still thank him every time
I slip my arms into the neatly
cuffed sleeves.
I thank him for dressing me
in his great belief in me.
It doesn’t matter
that I never left the house today—
that no-one else saw
how fine the weave,
how smart the cut.
If the sweater could speak
for my father, I imagine it would say,
Roxanne, you’re going to knock it
out of the park today.
All day as I do what life asks of me,
I am held by the love of my father—
a love that continues somehow
to grow. A love I still feel as close to me
as the sweater I’m wearing—
closer than that. Love as close
as the breath in my lungs,
as close as the words thank you
before they even reach my lips.
Posts Tagged ‘love’
All Dressed Up
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, daughter, death, father, love on February 6, 2023| 15 Comments »
To Everyone Who Beamed Me Love, But Felt Apologetic for Not Writing or Calling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, grief, love, silence, spaciousness, support on January 30, 2023| 22 Comments »
Now I know there is a sacred cathedral
made of unspoken love,
a most beautiful cathedral
built of generous silence,
a healing sanctuary created
by open hearts that reach out wordlessly.
I have been living in this cathedral
that your love built, and I am changed.
Now I trust loving silence
is a generous response
to another person’s pain.
When I am alone, I am not alone.
When you, in your own home,
open your hands as if in prayer,
I feel your hands holding me.
Your compassion touches me
the way light slips in through stained glass
to touch a face.
The pure hush of your hope
arrives in my heart like plainsong—
more breath than voice, as holy as any syllable.
Thank you for the ways your thoughtful silence
has lit in me thousands of candles
as I meet the darkest hours.
Now, I can’t unknow this: I trust love,
how it flourishes in the vast spaces
across miles, across time.
Such sweet, intense healing perfume—
like lilies on an altar—
the scent of your loving silence
as it opens me.
After Peeling the Beets
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alone, beets, connection, love, mess, stain, touch, vegetable on January 22, 2023| 6 Comments »
I resist peeling beets,
hate wearing their red tint
on my hands,
but today, the thought
of sweet roasted beets
was enough to make me
overcome my reticence.
Later, I notice it is impossible
to feel separate and alone
when my hands wear the evidence
of what they have touched.
I find myself wishing
everyone could see on my skin
how my life has been marked by you,
how everywhere we touched
I wear the stain of love.
Tonight, When I Turn Right on Ogden
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged father, grief, love, mother, past, present, time on January 21, 2023| 10 Comments »
Another part of me turns left,
and it is fifteen years ago
and I am driving to my parents’ new home
and my son and I will spend the night with them
because they live there and we can.
By the time I turn onto the highway toward home
it is fifteen years ago
and my father is sitting in his favorite chair
and my son curls into his lap
and dad tells him his ears are his mouth
and they laugh
and my mother and I make tea and chat.
And I am almost to the stoplight in Ridgway
when it is fifteen years ago,
and we go outside and make a fire in the pit
and sit in a half circle and sing camp songs
and snuggle because we are there.
And when I get home, an hour later,
it is fifteen years ago
and I am so full of their presence
and roasted marshmallows and
joy and loss that I lift my son
into his crib and kiss my father
on the cheek that is now ashes
and hug my mother now far away
then walk into the house
where my son no longer lives
and I have never been
so here.
Centripetal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, love, mother, science, unseen forces on January 14, 2023| 8 Comments »
While we stand at the stove
making potstickers
my daughter leans into me
and drops her head on my shoulder
and those twelve seconds of stasis
become the center of rotation
on which the whole day spins
and F equals mv squared over r
is just another equation for love.
I have ridden enough roller coasters
through the loops so to speak
that I trust how this works,
trust that in this wildly spinning world
there’s a force that pulls us
to the center, that won’t let us
be pushed off the path.
I trust it so much in this moment
I don’t even try to hold on.
On a Thursday Afternoon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, love, moment, mother, photo, surrender, wholeness on January 13, 2023| 7 Comments »
We sit on the carpet in the entry,
and Vivian balances her ring
on the head of the cat and
for a long time we stay like this,
speaking of school and friends
The phone doesn’t ring.
The texts don’t chime.
The afternoon light
seems to hold each thing in its place
like photo corners in a scrapbook
and minutes stretch into forever.
There is a wholeness to the moment
so perfect I almost try to escape it.
Instead I stay and fall deeper
into the pages of this simple story.
A girl. A mother. A cat. An afternoon.
The certainty there’s nowhere else to be.
The Morning After
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dancing, dream, grief, love, mother on January 7, 2023| 8 Comments »
Though I knew it was a dream,
I thrilled to see you and your sister
tap dancing together,
performing in a bowling alley of all places,
each of you standing in front of your own lane,
both of you smiling, your arms scissoring in unison,
your bodies tilted forward, your legs kicking back,
the bright tap, tappity, tappity, tap of metal on wood,
your movements perfectly synchronized.
Then off you both danced down the lanes,
flapping and turning and leaping and shuffling,
two glorious blurs as you traveled toward the pins,
long legs flying, arms extended, your faces lit up,
no music but the rhythm in your feet.
I watched you both, breathless, thinking, I love this dream.
I love it even more this morning after,
still lying in bed, eyes still closed,
heart full of wonder, cells pulsing with love.
I keep unwrapping the dream like the gift it is.
There are some who would say I’m unlucky.
I know I am wildly blessed to have known you so closely,
blessed to love you and your sister,
blessed to have been changed by you both,
blessed to know your agony and your beauty,
blessed to know by heart the sound your feet make
as they dance across this world.
On Epiphany
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, miracle on January 6, 2023| 4 Comments »
I take my heart
to the frozen pond
and together
we walk on water.
This act, we’ve been told,
is a miracle—
today it is as simple
as one foot
in front of the other.
How the Light Came
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged epiphany, firefly, light, love, sharing our gifts on January 4, 2023| 4 Comments »
The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.
—Shakti Gawain
And it was in the darkest time
when she was most lost,
before she even knew to ask for help,
it was then the light arrived—
as a firefly, it so happens,
a radiance so tiny
she might have missed it
had it not lit up right in front of her face
at the very moment her friend spoke of love.
Perhaps she would have resisted it
if she’d had energy for resistance.
Even the smallest brilliance can be terrifying
when it asks us to see life as it really is
instead of the way we wish it would be.
As it is, the love light entered her,
humble as a beetle, significant as a star.
It glowed so brightly others could see it.
It responded to her trust.
It met her in silent rooms and lonely days.
It shined into deep uncertainty,
It offered her no answers.
It suggested a thousand right paths.
We could say the light didn’t change a thing.
We could say the light changed everything.
Who was she to receive a miracle?
Let’s not call it miracle, then.
Call it wonder. Call it unlikely luck.
But there is no way to pretend
it didn’t happen.
Even now, she tends that light,
marvels at how it glows even brighter
the more she gives it away.
*
Oh friends, this was a difficult poem to write. I am reminded of the quote from Marianne Williamson, Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. So I wrote the poem in third-person past tense–which helped.
I wrote it in preparation to co-lead an online exploration of epiphany. Perhaps you will join me on Friday, January 6 to wrestle with your own story of being led/wanting to be led/not wanting to be led by light, of being lit from within, of sharing your gifts.
Epiphany: Stories Written in the Stars
Friday,January 6, 10:30 am -Noon PST
Mythologist Kayleen Asbo, poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, artist Johanna Baruch and archetypal counselor Ingrid Hoffman explore how we can follow our inner star to bring light to the world in a celebration of Epiphany from Dionysus to Jesus and the Magi through art, story, poetry, music and creative writing practices that liberate our inner gifts.
And here is the link for registration:
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07ejjic613b83e1aa4&oseq=&c=&ch=
*
Saying Goodbye
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged goodbye, grief, love, physics, quantum on December 28, 2022| 17 Comments »
To say goodbye to one person you love
is to say goodbye to part of yourself.
I must have them, you think. You think,
I can never be whole without them.
But in that gap of the fabric, that tear made of love,
is a place you can climb into at any time
and know the true shape of yourself, which is infinite.
Sometimes it takes the sharp ache of loss
to feel into the truth of our interconnectedness,
to know what the quantum physicists know—
how woven we are with each other,
with the universe,
how woven we are with all that is living
and all that is what we call dead.
Though it’s science, it’s also a kind of faith.
And it’s dark. And it’s sweet. And it’s beautiful,
and it’s terrifying, this thread that reminds us
just how much we belong to the rest of the world,
this thread we can’t untie even if we want to,
this thread that tethers us to one another, to eternity.