Four-foot rattlesnake.
Sunning herself.
Right in the middle
of the road. Strange,
how terror can also
breed awe. For long,
silent moments, I offer
her all my attention.
After she slips into swaths
of sweet clover,
the sky, such a startling blue.
The scent of wild roses,
so stirring, so sweet.
Posts Tagged ‘paradox’
Walking Back from Sanborn Park
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, awe, fear, paradox, snake, terror on June 12, 2025| 6 Comments »
The Opening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, love, opening, paradox, salvation on June 8, 2025| 6 Comments »
There is a terror that claims us,
that snaps its strong jaws around us
and thrashes us till we are limp.
Who could guess such a maw
is a portal to grace?
There are wounds so great
no amount of salve or prayer
or kindness or care can heal them,
and through them we find gateways to love.
It is after the wailing and howling with ache
that we hear, as if for the first time,
the almost inaudible song of our breath
and know it as home.
How is it that what saves us
feels so far out of reach
but is here, bone close?
There is an infinite blooming inside us
we come to know only as we wither.
Even now, in this chill,
it is opening.
By What Strange Truth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, grief, marriage, paradox on March 24, 2025| 6 Comments »
Walking in the field
or touching your cheek,
eating a thin slice of pear
or listening to you breathe,
I understand now
how everything, everything
is stitched through by grief
and somehow that makes
the weave of this quiet moment
beside you even more
unbearably beautiful.
One on Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, prayer, thanksgiving on November 29, 2024| 13 Comments »
one hand opens in grief
the other in gratitude
pressing them together to pray
Visiting the Place Where My Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attentiveness, feeling, grief, paradox, place on November 18, 2024| 24 Comments »
Please, I tell myself,
don’t take this lightly.
Don’t walk into this room
as if it’s just another room.
Come with reverence.
Please, I say to myself—
all of my selves—
please don’t stride
across this wooden floor
as if it isn’t the last place
your son brought the world
into his lungs,
the last place he loved
and ached and wept.
So I sit and breathe
until I feel it rise in my chest
how sacred it is, this place.
I sit here until I feel
my attention split.
I notice the urge to leave.
I choose again to stay,
and the choice baptizes me.
Please, I say to myself,
please slow to the pace of stone.
Nothing to do but be here.
And the crying comes.
And goes. And comes again.
And goes. I close my eyes and
let the shadows grow.
Then open my eyes and look
beyond the window to the sky,
the cliffs, the lake.
Please, I tell myself,
do not refuse to see it is beautiful.
What is the part of me that dies?
And what is the part that rises,
slow and new, to walk again
into the world?
Inner Dance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, dance, paradox, stillness on October 26, 2024| 8 Comments »
Dancing inside me is the one
who has spent her whole life dancing,
the one who leaps up
the moment the music begins
and starts to twirl and leap
and give herself over to moving
in any way her feet
and arms and shoulders and spine
want to move. Sometimes
she needs no music at all,
just moves for the wild joy of moving.
She is just starting to notice
the other woman inside,
the one who looks more
as if she’s standing still.
The one who whose movements rhyme
with limestone, whose eyes are clear
as deep mountain lakes.
Only recently has she
begun to see
this, too, is
dancing.
Positive Side Effect of Exhaustion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, delight, fear, paradox, tired on October 6, 2024| 8 Comments »
Inside me fear and delight take a nap.
They have wearied each other
with their wrestling. Look how sweet
they are there, curled into each other
like two cats, one white, one black.
Look how their chests rise and fall
in unison, as if they can’t help
but attune to each other—
like two heart cells
that can’t help but sync.
The moment I’m more awake
they will be at it again,
pouncing, batting, tussling.
But for now, the easy duet of their purr,
the limp weight as they curl deeper in
as if for once there’s no question
they both belong.
Paradise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, paradise, paradox, pleasure on August 21, 2024| 9 Comments »
after “Pleasure” by Rick Barot
It was a garden, they said,
with an apple tree and one
man and one woman,
always blissful.
And while I don’t doubt
this, too, is paradise,
I know well the paradise
when one woman is alone
in the garden pulling up
bindweed by the roots,
knowing she’ll never get it all.
And somehow there is pleasure
in the endless pulling.
I know the paradise
when fifty-thousand people
sing together a song
about heartbreak.
And the paradise of a lover’s
arms when I’m weeping
is somehow even more paradisical
than when the world feels easy.
I’m not saying I want
things to go wrong.
I, too, pray for peace.
But I know now that pain
does not preclude paradise.
The bruised apple
makes a sweet sauce.
The arm that aches
still holds the beloved child.
And after a fire,
the world grows back
with such startling green.
Why I Should Hike Every Day No Matter What
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, hiking, mountain, paradox, stream on July 21, 2024| 10 Comments »
I didn’t know how trapped I was
in my own busyness until,
walking past a quiet lake
and up through a lush spruce forest
I felt how with each step toward tree line
more calendar squares disappeared
and all my lists dissolved until
I was nowhere but wading
through waist-high bluebells
with corn lilies rising above my head.
How still my mind was then, still,
as I traversed creeks and clambered
over fallen trees. Still as I climbed
to the place where the clear water
streams down gray cliffs and yellow
monkey flower flourishes on the banks.
I was bathed with gratefulness.
Is it true that to know this freedom
once is to be able to carry it
like a touchstone in my body?
Will the larkspur have any dominion
tomorrow while I’m trapped in a deadline?
Will the scent of summer’s last wild roses
return when I’m scrambling
for just ten more minutes?
Oh freedom, I long to contain you.
That thought makes me laugh.
Yet it’s true. I long to find myself
mid-hustle still linked to the gurgling stream,
its waters so cold I can’t help but gasp.
Amen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, gratefulness, holy, paradox, praise, sonnet on July 17, 2024| 8 Comments »
When I forget that the whole world
is holy, even the tiny dark bugs
that slip through window screens
and flock and stick to kitchen lights,
even the charred black remains of forest,
even the river as it floods bright red,
even when my cheeks are tear-stained
and my body tightens with fear,
that is when a kind letter from a stranger
arrives in the mail, or the rabbit will stand
on his back legs to nibble on mint,
or the meadow will blaze with the day’s
last slant of sunlight and my heart opens
so wide that inside the fear rises praise.
One at the Memorial
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eduardo rey brummel, paradox, rainbow on June 29, 2024| 9 Comments »
as if I swallowed
this morning’s double rainbow
all day, smiling through tears
New Eyes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, paradox, perspective, sadness on February 2, 2024| 4 Comments »
But I’m sad, I said.
And the world
was unrelentingly
filled with good.
Weaving into the ache
and loss and dread
was the moon as it rose
in fuzzy white gauze,
luminous behind thin clouds.
Was the woman
who made of her body a circle
to embrace with her love my pain.
Was the laugh of my girl
in the other room.
Was the paperwhite
blooming on the kitchen counter
like an intimate constellation.
But I’m sad, I said,
and the world did not try
to convince me my sadness
was not also true.
And I felt myself open
like a daffodil in spring,
grateful to be touched
by sun, by chill. And
I felt myself open,
naked as a winter tree,
tender as a woman
just learning to see
how everything invites us
to meet what is holy.
With a Glass of Valpolicella
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bittersweet, dining, music, old quebec city, paradox on November 22, 2023| 5 Comments »
at Parmesan, in Vieux-Québec
We hum along as the gentle old man
plays accordion beside our table,
his fingers nimble, his eyes closed,
and we smile as he sings in French
of autumn leaves and how life
separates those who love each other.
This is how the heart learns to break
and to soften at the same time.
With a sway, he keeps coaxing
the sad song from the keys
while we hold hands and
lean into the enchantment,
wishing it wouldn’t end.
Learning to Love Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, falling in love with the world, klimt, love, paradox, trust on November 11, 2023| 14 Comments »
We learn to love by being loved.
—Rafael J. Gonzalez, personal correspondence
There are days now when I feel so embraced by life
it’s as if life itself is pulling me into its great, strong arms,
surrounding me with warmth, tenderness, radiance,
as if life is whispering into my ear, loving and low,
I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you.
Not that I’ve forgotten how fear enters in
with its wide-eyed hunger, how grief gnaws at raw flesh,
how the heart’s walls fall down in cacophonous descent,
but there are, I must tell you, golden hours sparked with joy,
love-dappled days steeped in flowers and song
and I can’t pretend it’s not beautiful,
can’t not share how the same life that ravages us
also gathers us in so gently, so surely
that we, too, become golden, become sun and moon,
become rapturous bloom, become kiss.
inspired by The Beethoven Frieze (1901), Gustav Klimt
Peace in the Middle of It All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, feelings, paradox, peace on September 12, 2023| 13 Comments »
Memories pile on each other
like leaves in autumn,
each one charged with sweetness
or sorrow or worry or bliss.
Soon, the stack is over my head.
I fall in, the way a child might fall
into the pile—letting gravity take me
with no thought of catching myself
from the fall. What surprises is
that even as I am buried in memories,
I am not crushed by their weight.
Even as I roll in all the feelings they bring,
there is a peace that does not leave,
a peace that stays and asks nothing of me.
I once believed I could only know peace
when there was no tumult, no upheaval.
Now, in the wild chaos of it all,
I feel how peace is also here—
a peace so constant that while I tremble,
while I struggle, it breathes me.
Standing Beside the River with Lulu
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loss, paradox, river, rocks on August 9, 2023| 9 Comments »
Within minutes of weeping,
we are tossing rocks
into the river, the bigger
the splash, the larger
our laugh, and we toss
and we toss in a sweet
and urgent ritual of loss.
Slipping in the mud,
it feels right we should
lose our balance. What is
this life, after all, but a constant
slipping, a constant recalibrating,
a constant learning to find
new paths toward each other?
This life, it turns out,
is likely to pick us up
and throw us into the deep
to see what happens next.
But on this night,
we pick up more stones
and toss and toss and toss.
Not one of them floats.
But we do.
Returning to Stillness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged earth, paradox, perspective, stillness on July 17, 2023| 16 Comments »
I can’t unnotice this fist
that has grabbed my chest
and squeezes it hard, this prickly balloon
that seems to have blown itself up
in my belly. To be still today
is to notice that so much inside me
is writhing, squirming, thrashing.
Hello discomfort. Hello agitation.
Hello wishing that stillness
could be more still.
Eyes closed, I watch myself
as I sit in the middle of the empty room,
sunlight stretching across the floor
in bright and angled shapes.
I zoom out and see the whole house.
Zoom out farther and see the yard, the trees.
Zoom out until I see our small town,
then a blur of green and brown,
then the familiar blue and green curve of the earth.
As it spins and orbits, the earth is anything but still,
and yet such spaciousness surrounds it.
Oh, sweet woman sitting still in your room
with your hand on your heart
and a world of thrust and upheaval
spinning inside you,
right now, it’s like this.
You’re being moved. You’re still.
It’s like this.
*
Um, yeah … so if you read yesterday’s poem, I have to laugh… yesterday being still felt so easy, so simple, so open, so, well yummy. And then today??? Oh friends. This is one of the great gifts of poetry–every day the chance to notice what is here. And every day, the same thing feels so new.
On my daily program “The Poetic Path,” I use the tag “Seeing the same world in a new way … with poems.” If you haven’t checked out this other daily offering, perhaps consider it. It’s an app for your phone, found on the Ritual Wellbeing app. Unlike the daily poems, i curate them … and it’s a chance to hear the poems aloud. I always talk a little about where they came from and how they were written, then read the poem again, and then offer an optional writing/thinking prompt for you. There is a monthly or annual fee for Ritual–and there are MANY other programs available on it. You can try it out for free. If you’re interested, from your phone visit HERE.
Sacred Field
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, family, grief, loss, pain, paradox, sunflower on June 13, 2023| 7 Comments »
In the mural, the field of sunflowers
is always in bloom, always golden,
always opening to face the world.
How could I, tonight, not remember
another evening two summers ago
when the light was honeyed
and I stood in this very spot with my son,
two daughters and husband,
and we smiled wide as sunflowers,
our stems tall, the petals of my heart
unfurling. The image still sits in a frame
on my shelf—the last photo I have
of my son. Tonight, when I stood before
all that blooming, I broke. God, it hurt,
but I did not resist the breaking.
I stood in the middle of all that beauty,
the beauty as real as the pain,
the pain as real as any beauty,
stood in the middle of all those flowers
and cried, I cried and broke and
felt myself opening, unfolding like a flower,
my petals doing what petals do.
A Letter to the Graduates
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged graduation, grief, joy, loss, paradox, suicide on June 2, 2023| 12 Comments »
Delivered at the Telluride High School Graduation, June 2, 2023 I don’t know how to make sense of the story of how Finn is here, although he is not. How he lives in the deep soil of memory— still running with you through the playground your bodies bright streaks of joy, cartwheeling across the green valley floor and tap dancing on this stage, traveling with you to Mesa Verde and Ecuador and building computers and graphing equations and writing code, swinging golf clubs and debating politics and dressing as a skyscraper in the Halloween parade. Laughing in the hall and crying in his room. I don’t know how it is we can crumple with grief and still rise with hope, love, celebration. And yet we do. At the same time he is missed, you, friends, grow more fully into yourselves each one of you a sapling reaching not only toward light but also reaching with your roots through the dark, the necessary dark that anchors us, keeps us rooted in what’s real. I don’t know how it is we come to know our own lives better because he took his, but we do. We learn to trust that despite a great wound, we can thrive, the way a tree grows around a gash, trunk still strong, though a scar remains, leaves still unfurling to gather sun. I don’t know how we speak of sadness and joy in the same breath, but we do. Joy in coming together. Joy in knowing heartbreak invites us to become more spacious, more kind. Joy in forging new dreams. Joy in remembering the world as it was and at the same time growing so bravely, so beautifully into the world that is. |