Sister of silence, you give back to the world
the shadow of every sound you are given.
You reshape the air to unsharpen the shout.
You unshrill the scream until it’s quieter,
quieter,
then nothing at all.
There is no sound so harsh you can’t soften it.
And come song? You re-sing the melody
so beauty will linger like the rich shimmer inside a gong.
Not once have you said your own words.
Not once have you intoned your own tune.
Not once have you heard your own voice
or spoken your own truth.
Not once have you lied.
Not once have you made a promise
you could not keep.
Sometimes, when I am brave,
I try to echo you, which is to say
I let silence enter my inner walls,
where it bounces in me like sound in a cave
until all I hear is the resonant repeat
of the most ancient of languages you speak—
silence, silence, silence.
There is no part of me uneroded,
no part your waves don’t touch.
Posts Tagged ‘ode’
Ode to the Echo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged echo, ode, silence, sound on November 4, 2022| 10 Comments »
Ode to the Shingles Vaccine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, medicine, ode, rash, shingles on April 28, 2022| 6 Comments »
I remind myself I have chosen this—
this lethargy, these aches, these chills,
I remind myself I paid
for this sore arm,
I paid for this chance to shiver.
I wanted the broken down parts
of the virus to enter my body,
wanted special molecules to make
my immune system stronger.
Oh Shingrix, you have done
what my husband, my mother
and my doctors cannot—
you have put me in bed before nine o’clock.
You are like a school marm
with gray hair pulled back tight
and a ruler in your hand
to smack my antibodies to attention.
When I do not get a painful, red blistered rash,
I will likely forget to thank you,
just as I forget to be grateful
when there is not a plague
of grasshoppers in the field,
forget to be grateful when I make dinner
without slicing off my fingertip,
forget to be grateful for the tire
that didn’t fall off of my car.
So I’m thanking you now,
now while I feel it, now when I’m aware
that a half milliliter of prevention
is worth seven pounds of rash free skin.
Thank you for stimulating my T cells.
Thank you for days when I will smooth
my hands across my thighs, my hips,
when I will trail my fingers across my ribs,
for nights when I will slip into soft cotton sheets
and never once think of you.
*
hey friends, I will be camping in the desert the next couple of nights, so no poems for a few days, then I will return with a small desert bouquet
Ode to the Onion I Didn’t Have Tonight
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, loss, ode, onion on February 5, 2021| 3 Comments »
And there you were not
on the shelf with your shiny red skin,
and there you were not in the pan
in thin pink rings filling the air,
and there you were not
in the sauce, that warm underlayer
that grounds the bright tomato—
all night I missed you.
All night, the red wine kept asking,
Where is it? Where is it?
All night, I thought of how
what is missing is sometimes
most here.
Ode to Lighting the Candle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged advent, candle, Christmas, flame, ode on December 14, 2020| 6 Comments »
Tonight when we light
the third candle,
the candle of joy,
I remember
I am a girl
sitting beside
an evergreen wreath,
giddy with advent,
and I breathe in the scent
of spruce and wax
and fall in love
with the growing
of the light—
how each week
the tapers burn brighter—
and such a surprise
to find I am also
in love with the unlit candle,
in love with the wait,
in love with the part
of me that even
in darkness
knows itself
as flame.
Ode to the Cherry Cough Drop
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cough drop, medicine, ode on October 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Too sharp to be candy,
and yet you manage
to trick the tongue
into willingness.
Other’s may have
better medicine,
may get to the heart
of what’s wrong.
But you, you bring ease,
you relieve.
Your whole purpose:
To soothe until
healing can happen.
To insert a little sweetness
into misery.
To relax what wants to erupt.
To make the moment bearable.
To keep peace.
Ode to the Letter I Didn’t Write
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, letter, ode, wind on June 8, 2020| 2 Comments »
In the spaces between
the words I didn’t write,
there was a pour of poison.
A wall-full of bricks.
The barbs from a hundred hooks.
I almost forgot how in the writing
some of that poison would
slip into me, how I despise
a wall, how each hook
demands a bit of my blood.
I spent hours not writing it,
used up reams of thoughts.
It was a relief when the wind
blew away all the words
except these: I understand.
Those, it let me read again
before they, too, blew away
and I didn’t chase after them.
The Paper Clip
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ode, paper clip, tool on April 19, 2020| 4 Comments »
Something splendid about the way
it holds things together
with elasticity and torsion,
Such simple invention—
a steel wire bent on itself.
Less violent than a staple.
Less permanent than glue.
But effective and elegant,
it does what I’ve so often
wished to do—it unites.
It gently connects what is separate.
It doesn’t leave a scar.
It maintains order and humbly
keeps the messy world composed.
But then, and here is where I fail,
it easily lets things go.
Ode to the Patty Pan
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, garden, ode, poem, poetry, vegetable on August 20, 2019| 2 Comments »
I can imagine not everyone would look
at this plate of grilled pattypan squash
and start to salivate. I was one of them once,
those who think they dislike zucchini, crook necks,
patty pans. I, too, shunned the spongy flesh,
the seeded core. I was a scorner of squash.
I don’t exactly remember when it changed,
when I stopped wishing it off my plate,
began to grow it myself. Began to crave it—
and not just grated into sweet bread.
Not just sliced and forgotten in a rich tomato sauce.
No, I came to delight in the very squash-ness of it—
the way it embodies the abundance of summer.
The way it takes on other flavors but never
abandons its own. And here, tonight,
stacked on my plate like small green suns,
blistered and sweating from the grill,
the pattypan squash are luscious, delightful,
so utterly themselves. How hard it used to be
to appreciate them. I remember. How easily
it comes now, this thrill in what summer provides.