I thought I wanted
a harmonium of answers,
a key of certainty,
a hymn of how to,
but silence gave me
the most beautiful gift—
one true question.
Posts Tagged ‘meditation’
Who Am I?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poem, poetry, question, silence on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Inner Locating
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poem, poetry, silence on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Close to the waves,
I hear only waves.
Close to the cars,
I hear cars.
Come closer,
says the silence.
Come closer,
says the heart.
Instead of Getting Riled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, bird, meditation, pelican, poem, poetry, stillness on December 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The pelican dives
into the water,
rises again. Hovers.
Dives. Rises.
Each time, the water is quick
to forget the intrusion
loses its ripples,
stills. A thought
is a kind of a pelican.
A woman is a kind
of a bay. The pelicans
will always dive.
The bay will always
return to stillness.
A woman might
learn to live this way.
Remembering How I Got Here in the First Place
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breathing, meditation, meditation retreat, mind, poem, poetry, Susie Harrington on September 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »
“Focus on your breathing,” Susie says.
“Imagine this next breath is your first.”
And for a while, it works. I feel the inhale move
from nose to throat to lungs, feel the new air travel
through my legs and arms. Then breathe it out.
I’m curious. I follow as the breath becomes my
daughter, and I wonder how her first day
of climbing went yesterday. And that was so weird
how she was in my dream last night when
I swallowed a spider. Oh yeah. Exhale. Inhale.
The breath. My chest is rising, my hands are still,
and wouldn’t it be nice to go walk in the redwoods?
How long has it been since we were there? ’97?
’98? And inhale. There it is again, the invitation
to take the first breath, and wow, feel all that air
as it rushes in and fills the body like
the balloons at Finn’s birthday party last weekend.
That was so fun, the boys in the waning sun
playing out on the lawn. I can’t believe how sweet
they were to each other and breathe. Right. Here.
Paying attention to the places where my body
meets the ground. Butt. Knees. Shins. And isn’t
it wild how the hum of the cars on the highway outside
at first sound just like a gong. Wrong. Wrong. Think breath.
Or not wrong. Just an other invitation to embrace the process,
each thought like wind, and I, I’m rowing a small canoe.
Is silence always this loud? Someone across the circle
is snoring, and from the kitchen it smells like, mmm,
Thai curry. And Susie says, “Return to the breath,”
and for another moment, I breathe in, breathe out.
And I thank you, mind, for all this practice. You’re
so good at what you do. It matters, this dance,
this chance to be present, to show up and meet
the all that is. I so want to know what is true.
One Walking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, midnight, poem, poetry, wallking on September 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »
One Freedom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flower, garden, meditation, poem, poetry, stillness, transformation on September 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Filling My Purse with Commas
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged comma, meditation, mindfulness, poem, poetry, punctuation, relaxation on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
All afternoon, each time
I think I should hurry,
I pull out a comma,
such humble punctuation,
and invite it into the moment—
and the comma does
what it always does, which
is to invite a pause, a small pause,
of course, but a pause long enough
to breathe, to notice what else
is happening, a slight
suggestion that right here
is a perfect place to rest,
yes, how funny I never noticed
before that the comma itself
looks as if it’s bowing, nodding
its small dark head to what is,
encouraging us to find
a brief silence and then,
thus refreshed, to go on.
Primary Relationship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poem, poetry, silence on March 17, 2019| 2 Comments »
Consider the generosity of silence,
how it holds the space between icicle drips,
how it meets squawk and howl
and laugh and sob with the same acceptance,
the same respect. How it asks nothing of the world
and yet is always there waiting
beneath the passing car, the passing thought.
I don’t want to live my life without knowing you,
silence, you the great loom on which all life is woven,
you the wisdom with nothing to say.
I want to invite you into all the rooms of my heart,
want to know the ways you permeate me,
how you inform every cell.
I want to find you inside every word, to know
in all my speech the silence that supports it.
I want to know you, silence, you who was here
before the big bang and you who continue to grow.
You who touch the seas and the barren rock,
the snow covered mountain, the meadow of mud,
who touched the first leaf and met the first cry,
who will touch the last leaf, who will meet
the last song. And go on.
I Finally Understood Why I Meditate
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, peace, poem, poetry, silence, stillness on February 14, 2019| 4 Comments »
Nothing happened today
as I sat for five minutes in the dark,
but all day I could feel the everywhere of it,
even as the car was sliding sideways down the hill,
even as my daughter wept, even as my singing group
laughed until we cried, I could feel it still there,
the silence that holds up all sound, the stillness
that cradles all motion, the peace that supports
every disaster, the blue sky behind the clouds.
Colette Suggests I Sit for Five Minutes Five Times a Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, nothing, poem, poetry, sitting still on December 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »
And do nothing, she says.
I think about that as
I shuffle the kids and
make doctor appointments
and edit the pages and
drop off the gifts and reply
to emails and shovel the drive
and read to my daughter
and peel the carrots
and hang up the coats
and all that time, I imagine
sitting for five minutes.
Doing nothing.
Yeah, I should add that
to my list, I think,
as I open the cat food
and stack the bowls.
And there, on the shelf,
between the bowls
and the salad plates,
I feel the nothing
waiting for me, feel
its infinite patience,
feel how it is always here
supporting all this everything.
How generous it is,
I think, suddenly unable
to feel anything
but a longing for nothing,
a longing that lasts at least
fourteen seconds
before I remember
that call I am supposed
to make, that plant desperate
for a drink.