is like the letter that doesn’t come,
the one I would carefully slit open
and slowly unfold,
then hold against my chest for a moment
before letting my eyes take in the first line,
the second, the penultimate, the last,
the letter that would explain everything
in language so plain
it would make my hands shake
with the truth of it,
the one that would arrive with a return address
so I would know where to respond if I dare,
the handwriting even, familiar, easily read,
with no pages missing, no passages indecipherable,
the letter that never once has arrived,
a letter I know only by its absence.
And the emptiness itself
becomes faithful.
And the mystery becomes
the only signature I trust.
Posts Tagged ‘mystery’
Some Nights Missing You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, letter, mystery, trust on December 29, 2023| 4 Comments »
Inner Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged companion, music, mystery, song on November 30, 2023| 4 Comments »
Perhaps you, too, have heard it,
despite the cacophony,
a song that rises in you—
a tune you’ve never learned
that somehow owns you
the way white owns winter,
the way breath owns
our lives. Perhaps you, too,
have marveled as the tune
spills forward, guiding you,
keeping you company
so that even when alone,
you know for certain
you are not alone.
One Inside the Blossoming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mystery, silence on September 26, 2023| 7 Comments »
though I tell you everything,
there is so much I don’t say—
the way an orchid
is nourished by shade,
the way silence is nourished by silence
The Mystery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, falling in love with the world, mystery on March 21, 2023| 1 Comment »
By now I know it’s impossible
to make someone else
fall in love with the world,
so when you say to me,
Look, Mom, the sky, it’s so beautiful,
and you stand there in the glow of sunset,
soft pink shining on your face,
I fall more in love not only with you
but with whatever it is
that opens us to wonder—
whatever grand mystery it is
that breathes warmth on our tight scales
and whispers to us, open,
then helps us get out of our own way
as one by one the petals unfurl,
and my god, the beauty,
the mystery, the beauty.
Changing Wavelengths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged logic, loss, mystery, rainbow, wonder on March 6, 2023| 10 Comments »
The day after you died,
your dad and I stood
on a sidewalk in Georgia
and everything was strange—
I barely knew I was in a body.
I was so in my body.
The muggy air was unfamiliar.
With every sob, I pulled it
into my lungs and it became me.
What I remember:
The sound of airplanes.
The sweet scent of flowering trees.
There were no cars on the road.
It had rained and the night
had not yet come and there,
in the distance, a double rainbow.
I’m a logical woman. I know
what happens when sunlight
enters raindrops in front of me
at a precise angle of forty-two degrees.
And yet.
No one could ever convince me
it wasn’t you, you who had become
more spectral than flesh,
an optical illusion that doesn’t exist
in a specific spot, but, for any who look,
they cannot help but see the real
and radiant truth of it.
To this day, I remember how
those twin rainbows stitched me
back into the world, tethered me
to wonder, to mystery; connected me
to all I cannot understand.
Even now, there are drops falling
down my face. Perhaps, if the light
were just right, one might see
inside them something beautiful.
Why I Stay Up Late
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, mystery, night on December 17, 2020| 2 Comments »
So gently the darkness
curls around the world,
first dusky, then dim,
then lushly black—
so generous, the way
it thickly spreads
the softest of songs
until silence silks
the empty streets
and velvets the vacant rooms—
even this riotous heart
inclines toward quietude
and whatever part of me
that knows something yawns
and the part of me
who falls in love
with mystery
leans more easily
into the ever-unknown
and I meet the starry
grand embrace,
speck that I am,
and marvel
at my insignificance,
marvel at how enormous
it is, this openness,
this gratitude.
To Whoever Gave Me the Crystal Elephant
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, gift, mystery, poem, poetry on November 7, 2019| 5 Comments »
In the box from eBay,
a green crystal elephant
and not one clue
as to who might have sent it.
There are days
when I am amazed
by the goodness of people,
how we are marked by generosity
There are days
when I whisper thank you,
though I don’t know to whom,
and I revel in the mystery.
The Half Century Caper
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mystery, nancy drew, poem, poetry, shadow on November 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I thought I was Nancy Drew,
a girl who stumbled into mysteries
and solved them. A girl proficient
at picking up clues. A girl who knew
her mission. It felt good to crack
the codes, to decipher the signs.
It felt good to know who was bad.
It felt good to know I was good.
And then I learned some signs
have multiple meanings. That sometimes
a mission gets in life’s way. That
bad people are also good,
and good people are also bad.
And that the solution is seldom
as elegant as the mystery—
secrets unfolding in the shadows.
After Reading the Rules
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Clue, mind, mystery, poem, poetry on March 28, 2016| 1 Comment »
It wasn’t that hard to figure out,
Mrs. White with the revolver in the conservatory.
It took less than half an hour—
the right questions asked, the right rolls
of the dice, the luck of being in the right
room at the right time.
Some mysteries persist—you know,
the ones that keep you awake. No cards
neatly dealt to the players. No brown paper envelope
containing the answers. No score sheet
with a finite grid of possibilities. I walk out
and look up at the stars. A voice from nowhere
says the words I do not really want to hear,
but it says them with such tenderness:
some mysteries are not meant to be solved.
I feel some part of me relax, though the mind, well,
it loves a good game. It reaches for a pencil, sharpens
the lead, creates a grid, looks for clues in every room.
Don’t Ask Me How It Happened
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, mystery, parenting, poem, poetry on July 8, 2015| 5 Comments »
Right there on the side street curb,
I did it. I quit. I told my children
to find another mom. I’m done,
I said. Please, go find another woman
who doesn’t get so frustrated, who
lets you do any little thing you want.
I didn’t think about the future.
All I knew was that I had nothing
left to give them. It had not been
a terrible day. We rode bikes
alongside a river. We had panned
for gold in a makeshift sluice.
We had snuggled in bed with a book
to start the day. Sometimes our lowest points
look so shallow on the surface.
Who could see that there was a fathomless dry ocean
inside me, nothing but a basin where once
whole worlds had thrived.
It was habit that saved us. We closed
the doors to the car. I walked
toward the street without looking back.
It was a few seconds later I feared
that perhaps they were not behind me,
but there they were in quiet step.
How could it be, but in those few seconds
some mysterious hand had come
to refill the empty sea, not just with enough
to wade in, no, but with love overflowing,
great tides of love, the kind you can sail on
in boat that only floats with more than one on board.