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Posts Tagged ‘paradox’

One Confession

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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

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The Way It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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When I Get Very Quiet, I Can See How It Goes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , 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.

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Sometimes I Can Say

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 25, 2015| 2 Comments »

You are my blizzard, my tempest, my hail,
you my cloudless sky.
I learn to say yes to your everywhere
and yes to your nowhere.
Yes to your hawk, your sparrow.
Yes to your desert, your orchards of plums
ripe and fat with sweetness.
Yes to your knives and yes to your blossoms.
Yes to your silence, yes to your growl.
Yes to the part of me that says no.
Yes to the fear of yes.
Yes to your flash flood, yes to your drought.
Yes to the angry red ache and yes to infinite tenderness.
Yes to the walls and the walls falling down.
Yes to the prison, the skeleton key.
Yes to you, yes, I say yes, yes again,
yes to your killing frost,
yes to your warm morning after.

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Ice on the Water And

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

ten below
and yet it unfurls so greenly
this new leaf of love

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It’s an Inside Job

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , 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.

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Seven of These Statements Are Not Untrue

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , 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.

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How the Mystery Arrives Today

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , 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.

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Meeting the World Completely

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , 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.

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Can’t Understand It But

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , 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.

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