The day
passed
from wing
to wing,
a bright
and feathered
offering,
a path
paved
in wordless
song,
and
fear
forgot
to tag
along.
Posts Tagged ‘path’
Respite
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, happiness, path on May 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Turning to Physics
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged electricity, path, physics, resistance on April 23, 2021| 2 Comments »
An electrical current
knows nothing of the path
it will take. It goes on all paths,
but flows best toward
where it flows best.
It sounds so simple,
and yet the electrons of this body,
charged with my beliefs,
defy nature and rush toward resistance.
How often I try to fight myself.
How often I battle my own current,
the current of the world—
it’s like wading through honey instead of water,
this thinking I know best.
Sometimes, I see how my own resistance
is nothing but a part of the path.
In that moment, I flow toward where I flow best.
In that moment I am copper, ductile, tough,
In that moment, I am so alive with it, the buzz.
published in ONE ART: A journal of poetry
So Many Ways to Do It Right
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being right, falling, path, stillness on March 13, 2021| 2 Comments »
This longing to get it right—
to not only find the right path
but to walk it with grace,
without stalling, without stumbling.
But the forest is dark and deep
and the paths are many—
and I fall, and in falling,
I stop.
So this is what it takes
to notice the beauty of being still,
to see how staying in place, too, is a path,
how falling, too, is a grace.
How much easier it is to walk now
when I trust any path I’m on is the right one,
even this one where I fall,
even this one when I don’t move at all.
Momentum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, cliff, path, step on January 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Only after I step one foot over the cliff
do I realize the drop is so deep
and the pool in the river below so small
that the chances of hitting the water at all
seem infinitesimal.
I thought nothing could stop me from my course,
but seeing the rocks so far below
and knowing how likely it is I would hit them,
now I stand one foot on the desperate edge.
The other foot, free as a prophecy, hovers in the air.
The Path of Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ego, Joi Sharp, jude Janett, love, path on January 6, 2021| 10 Comments »
with gratitude to Jude Janett and Joi Sharp And here I thought the path of love would look like love. Like kindness. Like generosity. Like gentleness. Instead it looks like me being bothered by the sound of loud chewing. Me wanting praise. Me needing to feel loved. Hello me. How elegantly love has arranged for me to meet all the parts of me that would stand in love’s way. How easily it shows me I’ve thought of love as a destination. But here is love with no expectation. Here is love with no name, no locus. Here is love with no face, no shape, no promise, no vow, no hope. Here is love as itself, surging and flowing, love as itself insisting on love, love as itself eroding all those layers of me that still think they know something about love (and love holds me while I rail and love throws me back in the stream and love is what is still here when I am not). |
Advice to Self: Get Lost
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lost, love, map, move, path on October 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
To move forward, move forward.
But first, get lost.
Really lost. If you have a map,
burn it. Not that there’s
anything wrong with a map.
But you must recalibrate
the one using it. Let her not know
where she is. And if she does know,
perhaps through rote,
perhaps through muscle memory,
then spin her around
with a blindfold on,
the way kids do when pinning
a paper tail on a donkey.
Spin her until she has no idea
which direction to walk with that tail.
Spin her until she falls.
And then let her do as St. Francis taught—
let step in whatever direction
her head is pointing.
Let her trust that any direction she steps
can be the right way forward,
every path can be a path toward love.
Stubborn
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brain, healing, heart, path, stubbornness on October 13, 2020| 4 Comments »
When the brain is separated from the heart, it is capable of doing terrible things to each other and the planet.
—Jane Goodall
And so I try to tend the path each day
between brain and heart.
Whatever smallnesses I trip on,
I try to remember to bow as I remove them.
Whatever weeds try to overrun it—
weeds of should and shame—
I try to yank them out, knowing full well
I never get the whole root.
The more I travel the path,
the easier it is—
though steep sometimes,
and the effort to go on
makes me weep.
And sometimes, it feels unfamiliar,
though I’m sure I’ve travelled this way before.
Frightened, lost, tired, exposed—
yet I try to find and preserve the path.
Because the stakes are too high
when the path is gone.
Because the healing is so great
when I honor the path
step by stubborn step.
Progress
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged movement, path, progress, thoughts, worm on August 25, 2020| 4 Comments »
Perhaps I am more like the earthworm
than I thought—
one part of me anchored in place
while the rest of me moves forward.
Every time I go, I also stay.
Every time I reach ahead, part of me holds on.
Over and over, I pull myself along.
What looks like progress is slow.
No path except the one I make
by letting the world move through me.
In order to proceed, I make of myself a wave.
In order to proceed, I must let go.
Wanting to Get It Right
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, journey, path, perspective, walking on August 24, 2020| 2 Comments »
Who is this woman so concerned with arrivals?
Doesn’t she know we are writing about paths?
What is her rush to get to the meadow?
What does she think she will find there?
She missed the sunflowers in the garden,
a whole row of luscious bright yellow bloom.
She missed the chatter of the chipmunk,
the hot scent of rabbit brush almost like sage,
the mica glistening like crushed starlight beneath her feet.
She is like one of those trucks on the highway,
a blur, a roar, an impersonal thundering.
Oh, see, now that she thinks she’s arrived somewhere,
now she starts noticing the field,
the crunch of dry grass, the dirt, her own short shadow.
Funny, she looks lost, standing there with her pen and paper,
her longing to find something worthwhile to say.
Should we tell her it’s okay,
that the lack of arrival could be her new point A?
And everywhere she looks, a new path.
On Red Mountain Pass
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, mountains, path on June 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for C, A, A, A and J
I want to share with you a trail with no map
and the clean scent of spruce and a clear Colorado sky.
I want to spend an afternoon above tree line
in a field of corn lilies and alpine buttercups
the pica chirping brightly in the rockfall.
Let’s not find the lake we were looking for.
Let’s stop where our feet say stop.
I want to share a leap and a shimmy,
a chocolate cookie, the mighty salt of love.
I want to slide down snowfields on our raincoats,
to find more paths to take another day,
to wade through the cold rush of change.
I want to take a bolt cutter to any door
that won’t let us in, to let the ears of my heart
attune to your words, to lose our hats to the wind
and find them again. And as the night
fills the room, I want to sing as the guitar
of friendship finds a new tune. I want to hear it
play on long after the day has gone.