Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, prayer, surrender on May 20, 2020| 4 Comments »
Let it come, says the voice,
a voice not quite mine,
and somehow more my voice
than any other.
Let it come.
And by let, it means,
Open your hands,
And by it, it means
Anything.
And by come, it means,
You be still. Enough running,
enough fighting, enough
pushing away.
Meet the world that’s here.
I close my eyes,
and an invisible cage lifts.
Let it come, says the voice,
and I move my lips with it
until the prayer
is my own.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged laughter, prayer, science, sun on April 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »
In five billion years, the hydrogen fuel
at the core of the sun will be spent.
Forces of gravity will take over,
compressing the core. The rest of the sun
will expand, vaporizing the earth.
I’ve studied the science, read the texts.
In the meantime, I live in a canyon
with rock walls one-hundred-fifty million years old—
and sometimes, like this morning,
despite rumors of doom,
the forces of gravity take over
and I fall on the floor laughing—
a riotous squealing and braying,
tears leaking, chest heaving,
grateful to big time for this very moment
when I am almost seamlessly joined with my shadow.
It rolls with me on the floor as I hoot and giggle,
praying in the language I know best.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged avocado, food, Kyra Kopestonksky, new, prayer on January 18, 2020| 4 Comments »
After cutting open hundreds, thousands
of avocados, I marvel as my friend Kyra
cuts off the top. Slices it right off.
And I stare at her, at the knife, at the tip
of the avocado listing on the cutting board.
How easily she scoops out the creamy green flesh.
How simply she cuts more rounds around the pit.
All these years, I’ve sliced avocados lengthwise.
It’s as if I’ve just learned a new word for yes.
As if the sun itself just rose right here in the kitchen.
It takes so little to open us, to help us
see everything new. Even that prayer I pray
the same way. These hands. This common fruit.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cooking, dinner, food, mac and cheese, poem, poetry, prayer on March 27, 2019| 5 Comments »
The white sauce whisked to smoothness
before the cheese is added,
and the elbow noodles boiled till they’re al dente,
the Pyrex buttered with long looping swirls of the fingers,
the cheddar spread evenly on top.
It is not easy for most people to see
devotion in the mac and cheese.
It doesn’t look like prayer.
But it’s there.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged light, poem, poetry, prayer on January 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.
—Shakti Gawain
So I invite lanterns,
candles, torches, tapers,
street lights, spotlights,
glow worms, lasers,
wood matches, lighters
and one small prayer,
and at last I notice
it’s brighter around here.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breaking open, Joanna Macy, poem, poetry, prayer, star on December 4, 2018| 7 Comments »
The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.
—Joanna Macy
Give me a heart that breaks—
ears willing to hear the difficult news
and legs that do not choose to run from it.
Yes, give me a heart big enough
to accommodate a wrestling match inside,
a mind that knows no one wins a war,
hands that move to help no matter
what the mind might say.
Give me a heart that opens
long after it thinks it’s already open,
and lips that know when to listen.
Give me a heart that knows itself
as other hearts. Give me feet
that will stand when someone must stand
for justice. And a spine flexible enough
to turn and see all sides. Snow falls
on all my thoughts. It sometimes
takes a long time to melt, a long time
before I remember again to pray
to be open, to pray for a heart that breaks,
to notice the stars shining from the inside.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged larkspur, poem, poetry, prayer on July 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »
just outside my window
larkspur erupts
into generous blue—
in me blossoms
an old prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, prayer, snow angels on February 15, 2018| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, hope, poem, poetry, prayer, support on January 17, 2018| 13 Comments »
Because I don’t know how to pray,
I do what I know to do,
which is to sit very quietly
and let myself feel. To hold you
without holding you.
To imagine your fear
and breathe into it.
To feel my own fear
and walk the edges of its cliffs.
To lean on hope with its flimsy
net and feel how little it takes
to catch us, to save us.
