Just after midnight
we stand beside the stove
holding each other,
your thumb slowly relearning
the portal of my spine.
Satie’s first Gymopédie
slips stepwise through the room,
the tune like starlight emerging
after a storm blew down all the trees.
We are almost, but not quite, still.
How little movement it takes,
plus an opening in the mind,
to know the body as dancing.
How little beauty it takes
to know a sad moment
as a moment both sad and beautiful.
And what of a year? What of a life?
How much beauty can we bring
with the days we are given?
How would the years change
if we believed we were not
just moving through them,
but dancing?
Posts Tagged ‘new year’
At the End of the Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, dancing, erik satie, new year, paradox on January 1, 2026| 7 Comments »
At the Bonfire on New Year’s Eve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, bonfire, falling in love with the world, new year, wonder on January 1, 2025| 4 Comments »
To the list of things I will likely forget,
add the color of the sky tonight
as we stood around the bonfire,
the way the deep blue gave way
to a deeper blue, to a deeper blue,
until it was blue no more—
every moment more lovely
than the moment before.
How many moments of wonder
have I forgotten in just this past year?
The forgetting makes them no
less wondrous. In fact, as I stood
at the bonfire, I was aware of all
the wonder stored in this body,
how it has shaped me, created me,
as much as any food I’ve eaten,
as much as every walk I’ve taken,
as much as any vitamin. And so
I gathered it in me, the vision of sparks
against the clear night sky, and Venus
perched atop the barren tree. The heat
of the flames and the crackle
of trapped moisture turning to steam.
There will be times this next year
when I desperately need wonder,
and though I will likely forget
the particulars of this night,
let me not forget how to be stirred
by beauty, remade by it, even.
So I practice now, this art
of falling in love with the world.
Come tomorrow, I will practice again.
Unresolution
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged new year, opening, resolution on December 30, 2024| 6 Comments »
Because after all these years
of focusing on the goal as if
happiness is a thing I attain
or a place I might finally reach,
now I thrill when I see through
the myth of arrivals.
I see where I have grasped
and clutched and clawed
and scrabbled to be somewhere
not where I am. Not that I regret it.
The memory of grabbing
helps me feel how beautiful it is
each time the hand opens
like a morning to what is here,
opens as if the opening itself
is what I am here to do.
One End of the Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged new year, openness, permeability, river, thoughts on December 29, 2024| 1 Comment »
these solid thoughts—
the river flows
right through them
Questions for the New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged new year, questions on January 1, 2024| 17 Comments »
Why not believe in magic?
Can I soften? Can I soften some more?
Does truth exist? How are stones alive?
What if I never learn
what happens when we die?
What’s the next nice thing
I can do for someone else?
What’s for breakfast? What’s at stake?
When I dream of my beloveds, is it them?
Where am I in my own way?
How might I be more river, less dam?
Which comes first, forgiveness or the peace?
Which comes last, unknowing or the known?
What is love? What is now? What is home?
What is it in us that knows how to wonder?
What is it in us that knows how to grow?
Who are we really? What is courage?
What’s worth it? What’s asked of me now?
Should I be in this moment a blade or a bloom?
What’s the nature of higher ground?
Can I ask without longing for answers?
Can I feel I am one with it all?
How does life live through me?
Can I be in service to that?
What do I believe I can’t give away?
What if I say nothing and listen?
Will I choose awe today?
On the First Day of the New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, new year, stress, twist, yoga on January 2, 2023| 2 Comments »
On the First Day of the New Year
I twist.
My knees
go right,
my gaze
goes left.
I pause
like this—
in deep
release,
wring out
old stress
like water.
I inhale
and lengthen,
exhale, squeeze.
How quickly
new thoughts
rush in.
I twist
again.
One Peacefulness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, new year, quiet on January 1, 2023| 8 Comments »
so quietly this new year
slips through midnight—
our breath the most precious of cheers
At the Edge of a New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged future, grief, new year, self acceptance, time on December 31, 2022| 8 Comments »
I think of a year ago
and all I did not know.
I do not hold my innocence
against myself.
If there is a future me,
I toast her tonight.
May she look back at me
as I light this white candle
and whisper love into the flame.
May her thoughts be generous
as she remembers
how it is to live
with this heart,
both ruined
and burnished by loss.
As I toe the edge of the year,
the edge of the moment,
I imagine her waiting
on the other side, saying,
Jump, sweetheart, jump,
I’ve got you.
Or perhaps she says
nothing at all,
but stands there as I do now
looking back,
arms impossibly open.
With Violet Petals Strewn Around
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, cleansing, new year, ritual, self care, trust on January 2, 2022| 4 Comments »
Somehow the body knows what it needs.
Like how, minutes after the change of the year,
I find myself in the hot shower washing off
the old year’s skin with a violet sugar scrub.
I didn’t plan to scrape away the self
that no longer fits, but here I am,
sharp crystals in hand, my everywhere
feeling the tingle, the thrilling sting of the new.
What magic a simple ritual can do.
Can’t change the losses, no,
but I feel surprisingly willing to meet it all
as I step lighter, softer, back into the world.
For Auld Lang Syne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cup, friendship, new year on January 1, 2021| 4 Comments »
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet,
says the song, and I would give you
the cup, friend, would fill it
with whiskey or water or whatever
would best meet your thirst.
I fill it with the terrifying beauty
of tonight’s bonfire—giant licks
of red and swirls of blue that consume
what is dead and melt the ice
and give warmth to what is here.
I fill it with moonrise and snow crystal
and the silver river song beneath the ice.
With the boom of fireworks and with laughter
that persists through tears. With
Lilac Wine and Over the Rainbow and Fever.
I toast you with all the poems we’ve yet to write
and all the tears we’ve yet to weep,
I hold the cup to your lips,
this chalice of kindness, we’ll drink it yet,
though the days are cold, the nights so long.