the night unzips
its long black dress—
a million stars slip out
Posts Tagged ‘night’
One Infinite Night Stand
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged night, poem, poetry, stars on March 7, 2019| 4 Comments »
All This Worry About How to Paint the Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged black, dark, night, painting, poem, poetry on November 2, 2018| 4 Comments »
in part a response to Ferlinghetti’s “Instructions to Painters and Poets”
Teach me to paint the dark, the infinite
shades of the infinite dark, the basis of all
the light that is, the origin, the ink bright spark
that leaps from the great black well,
the darkling spring, the raven luck, the mother
from which the big bang sprang, the womb
of dawn, the only cloak measureless enough
to hold everything, everything in its folds.
Teach me to paint the inner midnight,
the moonless rooms, the lavish corners,
the mighty dark inside the fist, the vastness
of limitless space that links
with no effort the everything that is,
the everything that ever was, the everything
that will ever be. Teach me the song of soil,
the song of deep winter, the pure dark song
of the sea. All the dark that’s been terrorized
by light, and all the dark that’s been pushed away
and all the dark that’s been feared,
teach me its valor, its ferocity, its kindness,
its gentleness, its blinding generosity.
Walking Alone at Midnight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alone, communion, night, poem, poetry, rabbit brush on October 24, 2018| 2 Comments »
The moon was hidden and the scent
of rabbit brush was thick, so thick
a woman could be hypnotized by it—
it seemed to come from everywhere,
the garbled light, the sage-sharp scent,
the sound of every step she took, and
every step she took felt like
a baptism, though into what, she could
not say—herself, perhaps, but more
the world, and yes, it was
the kind of tenderness
one only meets when we’re
alone and somehow lost
inside the night, amazed that it
can be so warm, so gentle,
shocked that we can be so slight
we almost, almost disappear—
but ah, the sound of every step she took
reminded her that she was here—
and sage-sharp scent of rabbit brush
caressed her every everywhere,
and led her deeper into night,
soft sound of footsteps, garbled light,
the snarl of squirrel nests in the trees
made visible through silhouette,
and every every step she took felt
like a baptism, like a rite
though rite of what, she could not say,
the moonlight gave itself away
the rabbit brush said here, here, here.
One for the Lengthening Days
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, night, poem, poetry, wishing on January 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
First Thought
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged night, poem, poetry, presence on December 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Not thinking tonight
of what I could have done
or what I could have said.
Instead, night wraps
around me like a shawl
and holds me close
and says, Yes,
you are here, just here.
One Blessing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, night, poem, poetry on November 6, 2017| 2 Comments »
When You Are Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, night, parenting, poem, poetry on August 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »
The night is enormous—
big enough to hold us both
in a way that make us
seem close.
This is why I speak to you
through the stars—
not because I think
that they can hear,
but because I pray
you can.
Nocturne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged language, night, poem, poetry on September 12, 2016| 1 Comment »
Even after everything is said
there is so much left unsaid.
I have measured the nights in stars
and lost track. I struggle to say
something true. When I stop
trying, I notice the how night
comes in and fills my throat.
Though no one can hear it,
it says everything I wish to say.
There is a Moment When
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, darkness, night, poem, poetry, self, union on January 28, 2016| 3 Comments »
the dark is less dark
and the shapes of the world
reveal again their singular shapes—
I know they don’t really lose their lines in the dark,
but I like to imagine all those newly
illumined silhouettes
have spent the night blurred, puddled
into one immense darkness,
forgetting for a while
that they have any lines
worth preserving.
It is enough to make a woman
wish that the light
would never come
if that is what it takes
to make us all remember
how arbitrary they are,
these boundaries we like
to call ourselves.
Said the Mother to the Child, to Herself
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, fear, night, parenting, peotry, poem on November 9, 2015| 2 Comments »
So dark out there,
of course you’re scared
and want to hide
inside,
but notice how
when you turn off
the lights—I know
it sounds unwise—
that’s when you’ll find
that it’s not black
but gray, the night,
and you can see
quite well once you
let darkness open
slowly up your eyes.
Without Thinking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged long marriage, love, night, poem, poetry on July 24, 2015| 4 Comments »
All night we turn
into each other’s arms
between dreams,
readjusting our bellies,
our backs, our toes
so they touch each other
lightly. Not the fumbling
of the newly met,
but the tenderness
of the long married,
we who know the
other’s body—all
the angles and softnesses,
all the positions where we
gently fit if only we bend an elbow
just so, if only we move
our leg just here—
how easy it is
to bend together
through darkness, how
beautiful to find you,
to be found.
Still Practicing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, night, poem, poetry on May 16, 2013| 8 Comments »
I have wanted
to love you. Not just
to love you, but to love you
in the way you want to be loved.
This is not always the same thing.
A woman walks out into night
and it holds her. Sometimes
this comforts her. Sometimes
she is terrified. Sometimes
she loses her own edges
and becomes night.
There is no loss in this.
There is a moment
just before we say
I love you when the feeling
is truer than the syllables
that follow. That’s what
I am trying to do.
What night does.
two new
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, new moon, night, poem, shadow, unity on December 8, 2012| 2 Comments »
night so dark
not even my shadow
walks with me
*
fooled you
said my shadow
the shape of the night
Two at Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, night, poems, stars, unity on October 5, 2012| 2 Comments »
staring at stars
with these eyes made of
old stars
*
what is your address?
I ask my girl, hoping she’ll say
earth
All Around Us
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, Denver, night, poem, poetry, separation, unity on July 30, 2012| 3 Comments »
The hotel’s sixth floor balcony
is high enough to see the Denver lights
and low enough to look up at the Double Tree sign,
which outshines the exile moon.
The air wears the thickness of city rain
recently fallen with nowhere to seep.
What loneliness cannot be met by the night?
Does dark travel as fast as the speed of light,
or is it the given, the track, the slate?
On Quebec Street, the buses are empty.
They stop at the corner and wait, then go on.
And the night, it somehow holds us all
on our separate stoops, in our separate doors,
on our separate lawns with our separate lives,
hold us all, doesn’t even ask our names.
Not Even a Slip of Moon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dark, love, night, oneness, poem, sound on July 10, 2012| 4 Comments »
Sometimes the night
comes with a quiet,
although the crickets
are riotous.
Although the machinery
in the distant field
makes eddies in the dark.
Even the stars
are ohming in octaves
eight scales below
what the human ear hears
and still, there is this quiet.
I was so busy praising light
that I missed how the dark
will tenderly, slowly, with no song
open the heart. Like tonight.
How first it drains the blush
from the peaches. Then steals
the deep green from the pines,
the red from the rock walls,
the mud brown from the water,
the violet orchids that nearly
bloomed in my thoughts,
until all is gray, then grayer,
then pitch. The pine,
the wall, the water and the woman
all lose their individual shapes
and become one vast dark.
This too is a way to love.
Dissolution Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged become one with everything, dissolution, haiku, illusion, night, poem on January 31, 2012| 3 Comments »
I asked the night to
swallow me, it said, Darling
I already did
seven haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged accident, birdsong, geese, haiku, knitting, night, poems, searching, silence, stars, thoughts on January 24, 2012| 2 Comments »
those wild geese
edging the clouds, my thoughts fly
beyond their wings
*
just one more row
I think, and knit one more and think
just one more row
*
the night pressed
its darkness into me, what
could I do but open
*
these ears
go on a long walk looking
for bird song
*
while no one’s watching
I trade all my molecules
with the night
*
did someone sow
all those stars, or did someone
trip and spill the bag
*
walking at two below
both questions and answers
come out as clouds
It Was Something about Hungry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, darkness, daughter, mom, mother, night, poem, poetry, window on January 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
In the backseat,
Vivian says, Mom,
I want to know
the darkness,
and so rolls down
her window
and shouts,
Hello Night!
And then she
whispers something
to the air
that I can’t hear
though I strain
against the rush
of road noise
to decipher her words.
The conversation belongs
to her, though, and
to the night, and to
the window that
already she has learned
to open herself.
if the stars were mine tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, night, poem, shooting stars, tanka on December 8, 2011| 2 Comments »
