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Posts Tagged ‘nakedness’

December 14

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 15, 2025| 11 Comments »


 
 
A week before winter solstice,
we explore in our room a spilling
of low-angled sun, a deep pool
of light the darkness has not
yet devoured. Our bodies,
pale pilgrims traversing the night,
wade in, then dive, surprised
by this warm, naked hour.
Our hearts have been wrecked,
but we yet survive, washed up
like flotsam on this radiant
shore, this place we’ve known
thousands of days before.
But somehow, today,
this bright measure of sun
helps us more truly arrive—
sometimes it’s the unremarkable
gifts that keep us alive.

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The Mirror

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 17, 2025| 12 Comments »

Overnight, every red leaf on the maple tree
has fallen to the ground and formed
an imperfect pool of red around
the solemn trunk, the dark bare limbs.
This is how it was the day you died.
In an instant, the tree of me went
from radiance to nakedness.
Impossible to hide.
Years later, I see what I couldn’t
see then—how beautiful to be that bare
when all that is lost is still so close,
when the limbs of the body
still remember the exact texture
and weight of what they once held.
How sacred that nakedness,
that opens us to the world.
I have grown so many new leaves.
That sacredness has never left.

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Hope, Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 26, 2024| 8 Comments »


 
 
I wanted to wear it,
this shawl of hope,
but today, it scratches
against my bare skin.
It is beautiful.
The kind of loveliness
that makes even
the plainest of wearers
feel beautiful just because
they wear it.
Hope is warm.
And the world is cold.
But today, I feel the call
for there to be nothing
between me
and the nakedness
of what is.
Even when I’m shivering.
Even when it hurts.
I want to feel
the slice of fear
because it is true.
And isn’t it strange,
when I let myself
feel it all,
then I can wear it again,
that beautiful shawl.

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Taking It All Off

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 25, 2020| 4 Comments »

In order to swim, one takes off all one’s clothes—in order to aspire to the truth, one must undress in a far more inward sense, divest oneself of all one’s inward clothes, of thoughts, conceptions, selfishness, etc., before one is sufficiently naked.
         

   —Søren Kierkegaard

And so I attempt to slip out

of the shirt of defensiveness,

slip off the belt of shame.

I wriggle against the jeans

of righteousness and tug

off the socks of distrust.

It’s scary to take it all off,

but everything else feels too tight

these days, and damn,

I just want the truth so bad,

want to wear it like my own skin,

want to step into it like slippers

I will never take off, want to

wear it like boots that will

carry me over any terrain,

want to wear it like

an eternal perfume—

something I am sure is there

even with my eyes closed,

even in the dark.

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Less

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 25, 2020| 6 Comments »

 

 

Today I can see how I wear it

like a velvet dress, the dream

 

of wanting to be somebody.

It’s so easy to forget I am wearing it.

 

Because it is lovely. Because

it feels good. But life

 

hands me a hanger and asks me

to take off the dress

 

and move naked today

through my inner rooms.

 

It’s not as if anyone else can see,

but I notice, as I must,

 

how much easier it is now to know

the self as sunrise, as apple seed,

 

as cinnamon, as you.

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Wonder About Yourself

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

inspired by Erik Satie, Gnossienne 1

 

 

may everything I think I know

about myself slip to the floor—

straight jacket, hair shirt, corset—

may whatever remains stay naked,

unable to don even cashmere, even silk

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haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

quickly now it ravels,
this garment of everything
I thought I knew

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The Real Gift

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

I give you bread.
You no longer eat wheat.
You give me a shirt.
There’s a small grease stain.
We both laugh. Neither
of us bothered to wrap.
Tonight I wear the shirt
and feel pretty.
Tonight you eat the bread
and it tastes like buttered love.
I keep thinking of how
we walked today,
the snow so deep, the air
so warm, the sky as clear,
as beautiful as your face
when all the masks come off.

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