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Posts Tagged ‘paradox’

Inner Dance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

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Positive Side Effect of Exhaustion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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Paradise

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

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Why I Should Hike Every Day No Matter What

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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Amen

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , 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.

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One at the Memorial

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 29, 2024| 9 Comments »

as if I swallowed
this morning’s double rainbow
all day, smiling through tears

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The Vow

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 26, 2024| 19 Comments »

What if this is all we get of heaven?
                  —James Crews, “Small, Good Things”


And if this is it,
this night
with its scent
of lawn newly mown
and the undammed river
high in its banks
and the baby bunny
eating every pansy
I just replanted,
yes, if this is it,
this kind voice
that returns
to tell me
I am enough,
though mostly
I doubt such truth,
if this is it,
the penstemon
blooming purple
and cottonwood fluff
piling thick in every corner
and my desk a mess
with work I can never
hope to finish
and the loss
that is relentlessly sad,
if this is it,
then yes, I say yes,
I am here for this,
here, between the ache
and the sweeping
flight of the swallow,
here, between
the fallen tree
and the laughter
that won’t stay in,
I say yes, yes,
if this is it, yes,
I would do it all again.

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New Eyes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

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With a Glass of Valpolicella

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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Learning to Love Life

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , 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

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