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Posts Tagged ‘peace’

The Price of Right

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 27, 2013| 3 Comments »

So much grace available, but how we receive it depends on what we can let go of.
—Joi Sharp

Inside the place where we are right, the rain
can never fall. Inside the place where we
are right, the leaves fall yellowed off the trees.
No breeze. No bells. No peaches. We explain.
We judge, contend, defend and claim, maintain
our certainty. And meanwhile, we don’t see
the lilacs wilting, grasses browning, bees
without their hives, lost crows, the sunset drained.

But sometimes in this shrinking cage of right
wings in a doubt. A question. Nothing’s clear.
And see how soon the crows return, a slight
of breeze, a scent of rain. I’ll meet you here,
this open place, exposed, unclosed. How light
spills in as our defenses disappear.

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One Way It Might Look

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 2, 2013| 9 Comments »

When regret comes
with his stale breath
and tattered coat, arriving

at your door as he does
on the chillest night,
it is still easy to want

to close the door
and suggest he move
down the road. You know

if you let him in, he’ll ask
for your last glass of wine,
then wonder aloud

if you have any thread
to fix his overcoat, and
perhaps you know how

to sew? You guess
from that bottomless look
in his eye that no matter what

you do it will not be help enough.
Regret, you might say,
I’ll have none of you.

But you know he’ll come back,
next time with his dog,
its fleas, his flies.

Better, perhaps, to let him
in now. Offer him the wine.
Water, too. And when he says,

If only … then you might say,
I hear you. And when he says,
I wish … then you might say,

It’s not easy. Look him straight
in the eye. You both know
it’s true. He might cry.

It’s okay. You might cry, too.
And outside, the stars,
the stars do what stars

do. The night is cold,
he was right about that.
And the needle, it moves

through the threadbare wool,
your fingers sure of
every stitch.

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After the Argument

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 1, 2013| 3 Comments »

In the room where the boy
was crying still hangs the feeling

of tears. Though he is quiet
and now asleep. Though

the tides of his wails have lulled
into the slow luff of dream.

His absent howl in the starlit room
is like the sound of the sea

in a dusty shell—not here. But the ears
hear what they want to hear.

There is a choice to notice
the silence, how it fills

the room. Not even the cat is moving.
Or to polish again the memory

of the tears. Like a canker that only
hurts when its touched, but the tongue

visits again and again to be sure.
Oh. Yes. It still hurts.

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What We Call Waiting

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

And then there is
that moment after
the thrust and jostle
and sprint, after the longing
and righteousness, after the fever,
the furor, the fire, the conviction, when,
burnt out by our own
red ferocity, we see
there is nothing, nothing
to be done. There is
no defeat in this,
only release,
Then only
uncertainty is sound
enough to hold us up.
Then unknowingness is the only
place we can truly rest.

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A Long Farewell

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 31, 2012| 5 Comments »

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Dear World,

Thank you for breaking me.

The rabbit brush are in full bloom.
Yellow in the field. Yesterday
I mowed the edges of the drive
and as a matter of course
I mowed whatever rabbit brush
was in my path. The air
smelled so good then,
a clean, sharp scent,
almost like sage,
only softer.

I have not been very good.
I have not been very gentle.
I have not been very brave.
But I have been sincere.
And I have loved.

There was a time when
I wanted to weed all the rabbit brush
from the field. I wanted only field grass.
I would wait for it to rain for days,
then pull up as much rabbit brush as I could.

World, I have not been very good.
And you have broken me so perfectly—
always leading me to just the right place
for falling apart. World, how do you do that?

The rabbit brush always come back
and eventually I learned to leave them
wherever they leap up. And eventually I learned
to find them beautiful.

I have not been very gentle, world.
I have taken what I wanted, sometimes mercilessly.
And you take every opportunity to kill me,
sometimes with fear, sometimes
with great or small beauty.

Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.
Thousands of yellow hands
all waving each time I arrive.

World, I have not been very brave.
I am not like Hemingway. When the war comes
I try to hide. And still you come to kill me
like a warrior, like a soldier,
only much, much slower.

The rabbit brush does not mind drought.
It thrives in cracked, parched soil.
The rabbit brush does not mind the rain.
It thrives. It thrives.

I can’t say I like being broken, world.
I can’t say I like being killed.
But you do it so well and I do admire
your insuperable skill. Keep killing me,
world, keep breaking me. Keep finding
my flaws. Press until I crack.
I am broken, dying, thriving. I am waving
at you waving back.

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Another Way to Do It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 5, 2012| 3 Comments »

Let her not like the apricots,
that’s one way to do it. Just say,

Oh. Or, Hmm. But no.
I question her dislike,

want to serve her apricots so ripe
they have fallen to the orchard floor,

sun warmed and red cheeked
and soft so soft.

I want to serve her the juiciest ones,
the apricots so ripe you have to hold your hand

far in front of your mouth and lean,
or better yet, the apricot you eat as you stand

beneath the tree and offer your mouth
to the branch and suckle the juice, let

it runnel down the chin, the cheeks, the neck,
I wanted to serve her apricots. It is like wanting

to convince someone who likes blue
that instead they should like red.

Why do I defend the apricot?
It occurs to me whole countries go to war

just this way … with one person who says
they know better. One person who knows

what God is like, or what is good, or what is right.
I’m sorry, I tell her, when I call her back. And she laughs.

And I laugh. How easy it is to get lost
on the way to something sweet.

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Joel Reminds Me Where We’ve Come From

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 26, 2012| 4 Comments »

And when ten thousand
million
of us realize
our souls rhyme
what will we do then
with our guns
our hands

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