pulling on my mask
as my nom de plume
unbuttons her blouse again
Posts Tagged ‘paradox’
One Impasse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, paradox, poem, poetry, vulnerability, writing on September 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »
One Parenting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, parenting, poem, poetry, rope on September 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »
How Can Poetry Relate to Reality?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, poetry, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, uncertainty on January 21, 2017| 4 Comments »
Yesterday, I spoke with KSJD radio in a 10-minute interview about how poems–both writing and reading them–might help us navigate uncertain times. You can listen to the interview here.
One in the Roar of the Box Canyon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, poem, poetry on July 22, 2016| 1 Comment »
One
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, poem, poetry on February 10, 2016| 1 Comment »
One Confession
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, paradox, poem, poetry, relationship on June 28, 2015| 2 Comments »
hold me, I say
then put on a dress
of thorns—
blood on your cheek, your hands,
I kiss you there
The Way It Is
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged happiness, paradox, poem, poetry, sadness on May 30, 2015| 2 Comments »
A woman sits in the park
in the grass, and she is happy.
It is not that she does not know
that all over the world, even
in her own twisting heart,
terrible things are happening.
It is not that she is trying
to pretend she does not know.
It is more, perhaps, that the happiness
rises up and she does not try
to pretend it isn’t there. Yes,
there it is, beside the growling burrs
of sadness, letting loose
all its tiny white parasol seeds
just as a dandelion does.
Some of them fly beyond her sight.
Some land in her sweater
and will not be pulled out,
no matter how hard she tries.
When I Get Very Quiet, I Can See How It Goes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, poem, poetry, self on May 14, 2015| 2 Comments »
Here, I say, I am here for you,
and then I run the other way.
My legs are two trees. They never
leave. Everywhere I go, I am rooted.
My legs are two rivers. They escape
in every moment. I am always
where I’ve never been. There is only
yes, and still I say no. The truth is
I do not want to be known. The truth
is you know me already.
I open my mouth to speak and your
voice pours out. It is my voice
that lives on your lips.
What is all this interest in yours
and mine? Sometimes I believe
these invisible lines. And sometimes,
sometimes I am here, I say.
And then I run the other way.
Ice on the Water And
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cold, love, paradox, poem, poetry on January 15, 2015| 2 Comments »
ten below
and yet it unfurls so greenly
this new leaf of love
It’s an Inside Job
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, freedom, paradox, poem, poetry on June 29, 2014| 1 Comment »
Before we can be what we are meant to be, we must accept what we are not.
–Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening , June 29
Bird in a cage
every day she drops the seeds
till beneath her
then all around her
a tangle of wild things.
Seven of These Statements Are Not Untrue
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apology, friendship, hurt, paradox, poem, poetry, sarcasm on May 5, 2014| 8 Comments »
I don’t really want a stink bug
infestation in your home. And I don’t
really want your full cup of coffee
to spill on your open book. Not really. I don’t.
I don’t want to see you trip on your
ego’s huge feet. Don’t want to hear
that you have some strange rash
that makes your skin beet red.
And your new car, I’d hate to hear
that a surfeit of skunks had their kits in there.
I’d hate to hear that you had shrunk
that dress that looks so good on you.
And I don’t really want to hear that you
are sorry for all those things you said.
About me. I could care less. Really. It didn’t
hurt at all. I don’t really want to hear
the phone ring if you are on the other end
calling to say let’s be friends. No I don’t. Not at all.
How the Mystery Arrives Today
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged god, humility, mystery, paradox, poem, poetry, spirituality on November 10, 2013| 1 Comment »
Power to the paradox.
–Jack Mueller
Today you are the cut on the finger
and you also the knife.
You the bandage that wraps the wound.
You the Advil, the ice.
You the sun, and the burn that comes.
You the aloe salve.
You the moon and the absence of moon.
You the children’s laugh.
And you the scent of old dead leaves,
and you the stubborn green.
You the red wine and the empty cup.
The song, the one who sings.
And you the silence between the notes.
You the coat and the chill.
You the uncomfortable anger, the blame,
you the one who sees through.
And you the lines I will never write.
And you the eraser, the lead.
You the peace and you the unrest
the beginning without end.
Meeting the World Completely
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, light, love, paradox, poem, poetry, surrender on December 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
Perhaps because the wound
is so deep, or perhaps because
there is not one petal left
to murmur over, or perhaps
because it really is a miracle,
today the heart breaks open
even wider and unthinking we exclaim
yes, yes to the wind as it stirs
the whole field into shimmer,
whirling all the loosened snow up, up
into the air until the invisible currents
are visible, white-frocked and shining,
swift swirl and rising, stiff scour then
drop. The uplift, ferocious,
and then the hushed sifting of light
through the dark evergreens,
the frisky cold kiss crystalline
on our cheeks—the wild gasp of oh in our breath
is spontaneous and real, every bit as real
as the world we would rather not know,
that terrible world, how it follows us
everywhere we go, how even now
its shadow makes this light
even more impossibly light.
Can’t Understand It But
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, opposites, paradox, poem, poetry, unity on October 28, 2012| 2 Comments »
God turns you from one feeling to another
and teaches by means of opposites,
so that you will have two wings to fly,
not one.
–Rumi
I am stone and I am river.
I am here and I am gone.
I am the apple and the hunger.
I am lost and I am found.
I am harlot and the pure one.
I am chosen. I’m tossed out.
I am mystery and revelation.
I am certainty and doubt.
I’m the one you love,
you hate me, too,
I am leaf and the space
where the leaf once was.
I am thief and I restore things.
I am the anchor and the wave.
And I am the song, the song
that stays in your mind
long after you’ve told it to leave.
And I am the silence, the silence
you welcome and the silence you fill
with anything, anything
just to keep the silence away.
I am not myself.
I am more you than I am me.
And we, we are flying,
we are flying, love,
we are the sky, we are the wings.
Stillness, I Say I Want You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, paradox, poem, poetry, silence, spirituality, stillness on October 17, 2012| 3 Comments »
Stillness, I say I want you.
Pond with no wrinkle. Hanging
leaf with no breeze. Mind with
no wheel of thought.
I say please teach me and then
rail against you. Squirm and reach
and whirl. In the quiet field,
I make of myself a wind.
In the silent blue room, I sing.
I climb the balcony with a tambourine
instead of sitting in the garden below.
Stillness, how I rub against you.
The heat builds the longer I sit.
I am sand paper against you. I am
bell. I am red. I am mint. Stillness,
the teachers say you are here
beneath the veils of do and must.
I listen and think I know what they mean.
I turn you into a thought. Stillness,
you leak through this carrying on.
Stillness, I wrestle myself till I sweat.
I shout your name, Stillness, as if
you were deaf. Stillness,
where are you? And where are you not?
The dawn and the night move with you.
I keep bumping against, what?
Oh Stillness, I’m laughing. There you
were in the question, but I went on
with my wondering, my want.
spring haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, lucky to be alive, paradox, poem, poetry, surrender on April 13, 2012| 2 Comments »
naked in the wind—
crazy woman feeling
lucky to shiver
This Being Human
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged humanness, life, love, mortality, paradox, poems, poetry on March 31, 2012| 5 Comments »
A gift for you my heart would bring—the sweet release of everything, the breath I take before I sing…
—Jan Garret, JD Martin and Lisa Aschmann
This is what
we were born for—
the almost unbearable
softness of grass,
the sweet perfume
of blue weeds in spring,
listening to voices
that cannot be heard,
and reaching for that
which can never be held.
The popping sound
of the daffodil bloom,
Having our hearts
ripped open, and again
ripped open, ripped open,
still beating,
the weeping, the salt,
the communion of blood,
the awkwardness of it all—
and the grace.
The wanting and
the wanting to not want,
the roar of the river’s brown shush,
wings we don’t have,
the new leafing out
of the old, old cottonwood tree
and the long walk
to the cemetery
not long enough.
Oh this beautiful ache.
Ashes, we are not ashes
yet.
Haiku: Five Miracles
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crow, haiku, intimacy, letting go, miracle, nearness, paradox, patience, short poem, time warp, water, wave on February 2, 2012| 1 Comment »
It would take weeks
to walk to your house, still
our hearts so close.
*
This morning I ski
into the woods—forty years
later I ski out.
*
The snow did not stop
when I said stop, but it did
not fall forever.
*
Across the lake
invisible in the trees,
the crow in my ear.
*
That ripple
never travels and it is
always new water.
winter haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camellia, haiku, letter, paradox, poem, snow on January 28, 2012| 1 Comment »
