deep desert canyon of the heart—
it remembers when
it was ocean
Posts Tagged ‘poetry’
One Especially When It Rains
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desert, loss, ocean, poem, poetry, rain on January 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Monday Night: A Portrait
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged astronaut, dinner, food, poem, poetry, prolepsis, space on January 13, 2020| 5 Comments »
You are not a passive observer in the cosmos. The entire universe is expressing itself through you at this very minute.
—Deepak Chopra
Even as she made the cauliflower soup,
she was a deep space explorer.
No one else in the room seemed to notice
she was floating. No one noticed
how gravity had no hold on her.
No, they only saw she was chopping onions,
noticed how the act made her cry. How was it
did they not hear her laughter, astonished
as she was by her own weightlessness,
by the way she could move in any direction?
Perhaps the novelty explains why
she forgot to turn off the stove,
untethered as she was to anything.
It’s a miracle she sat at the dinner table at all,
what, with the awareness that she was surrounded
by planets, spiral galaxies, black holes, moons. Yes,
miracle, she thought as she tasted the soup,
and noticed deep space not just around,
but inside her: supernovae, constellations,
interstellar dust,
the glorious, immeasurable dark.
Out of Reach
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged craving, fruit, longing, poem, poetry, wanting on January 13, 2020| 2 Comments »
The crystal vase on the top shelf,
the one that holds two dozen roses.
The Hallelujah Chorus’s high A.
The perfect word that flutters away.
The name of the man walking toward you.
The card that slips between the seats.
The itch on your back. The dream upon waking.
World peace. Inner peace. Any peace.
In the kitchen, a persimmon
with its stubborn glossy skin. A knife
with its shrewd steel edge. Oh this art
of choosing to want what’s in hand—
sweet honeyed flesh, yielding and soft.
Oh this craving for blood oranges, tart and red.
Still Learning What It Might Mean
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged learning, poem, poetry, skiing, wax on January 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Dave drips the hot blue wax onto the ski
and tells me how it will help the ski meet the snow.
“The cold snow is sharp,” he says, “and aggressive.”
Today’s wax will harden the base of the ski.
I think of the world and all its sharpnesses,
all its aggressions. We humans
are not so unlike the snow. I’ve been fooled
so often. Perhaps my soul needs blue wax.
No, I think, what the soul really needs
is more like the scraper he pulls out,
and the brushes of copper, horsehair, and nylon.
What the soul really needs is a scouring.
He explains that the scouring allows
the cuts in the structure to be exposed
so that the skis don’t suction to the snow.
Is that what all these little cuts are for in me?
To keep me from getting stuck? Later,
as I skate in the race and feel my ski glide
across what is cold, I think Dave
with my visible breath.
There are so many ways to relearn
how it is we meet the world. Today,
the lesson is a ski, a scraper, some wax,
a man with an iron, and acres and acres of snow.
The Vendor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, map, poem, poetry, uncertainty on January 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »
And if there were a map
for the path of my own becoming,
I wouldn’t buy it.
I tried. I marched up to the vendor
of maps, took out my coin,
and held it out for the exchange,
but was startled by an inner revolt—
not an angry crowd but a quiet, insistent no.
I put the coin back in my pocket
and walked away, wildly aware
I had no idea what step came next.
The Girl Who Sat and Read in the Weeping Willow Tree
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, becoming, poem, poetry, reading, tree on January 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Even then she was becoming
a dreamer, a lover of bark,
a student of solitude. Even then
she noticed how there were places
and moods that words couldn’t touch—
even then she felt the joy in trying anyway.
Invitation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choices, poem, poetry, presence, tree, wind on January 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The day dares me to become a tree,
dares me to root, to stay in one place,
to choose this here, to plant myself in this now,
to stretch down even as I reach up.
But there are gusts in me, and wild squalls,
whirling impulses that swirl and spin
and whisper to me to be current, be flow.
Winds in me that says go, darling, go.
And the day says stay to me. The day
says, find evergreen in the moment.
The day offers me its ground, its generous soil.
After Jack Sends Me the Definition of Black Hole
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged astrology, black hole, god, poem, poetry, science on January 7, 2020| 2 Comments »
A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it.
—Wikipedia
Perhaps black hole is just another word
for God—a force that pulls in everything,
regardless of how that everything looks or prays or votes.
A cup that runneth—not over, but ever in. A shepherd
so adept at shepherding that nothing—
no sheep, no man, no star, no dust—
could ever be lost in its spacetime pasture.
It creates communion, obliterates separateness.
In pictures, it’s a vision of still water.
In truth, it’s unable to be known.
A force that overwhelms all other forces.
It devours some, and in others spurs growth.
And what isn’t, I suppose, another word
for God: Ledger. Valley. Garden. Death.
Rhubarb. Rod. Human. Staff.
There is this gift to see the divine in everything.
There is this force that pulls the everything in.
Every particle. Every everything. Even (my god) the light.
Darn Lucky
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, gratitude, luck, poem, poetry, surprise on January 7, 2020| 4 Comments »
It happens, you know—the day opens itself
like a tulip in a warm room, and you meet someone
who amazes you with their willingness
to be a thousand percent alive, someone
who makes you feel grateful to be you.
And it’s as if life has been keeping a beautiful
secret from you—like the fact that they make
elderberry flowers into wine. Like muscadine.
Like the yellow-green floral scent of quince.
Like the perfect knot for tying your shoes.
And it turns out life does have wonderful
secrets waiting for you. Even when the news
makes you cry. Even when some old pain returns,
that’s when you will meet this new friend.
Someone wholly themselves. Someone
who makes you smile in the kitchen, a smile so real
that when you go out, the whole world notices.
It’s enough to make you want to wake up in the morning.
To go into the day. To be unguarded as a tulip, petals
falling open. You never know who you might meet.
One More Reason to Practice Silence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, practice, quiet, silence on January 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I want to be quiet enough
to absorb the shouting,
still enough to subsume
the uproar, silent enough
to diminish the din. I want
to calm not just the air
but the hurt that drives
the shouts, calm the hurt
that drives the hurt.
Like bringing an ocean
to put out a candle—that’s
how bizarrely effective
I want this quiet to be—
the kind of quiet that touches
everything, tenderly,
like Persian perfume, and
invites it to feel how sweet
the communion of silence.
I want to know quiet
like a fine silken blanket
big enough to cover us all. Quiet,
like a bottle of wine that no matter
how much we pour and share
we find it miraculously always full.
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