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 poem, poetry, prayer, walking on August 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Before you slog the next mile,
God sits beside you
and rubs your feet and ankles,
tells you jokes,
and spills his heart to you—
the next day,
still exhausted,
you find yourself laughing
grateful to have feet.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, prayer, silence on April 26, 2016| 1 Comment »
in the beginning
before the word
the silence
*
walking the other
direction it’s so obvious,
that waterfall we missed
*
in my pocket
this laughter—all day
I pat it to check if it’s still there
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, prayer, showing up on December 29, 2015| 1 Comment »
Before I pray
I do not wash
my hands—
not out of disrespect
but because
I do not
want to pretend
to be any cleaner
than I really am,
this filth,
this patina of depravity,
this is part
of why
I have come
to pray—
if I waited
to wash the stains
from my skin,
my lips, my sleeves,
I might
never pray
at all.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lost, poem, prayer on December 20, 2015| 1 Comment »
When we know
we are lost
it seems
so obvious
to stop,
pay closer attention,
ask for help.
May we always
see
how
we
are
lost.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, poem, poetry, prayer on November 6, 2015| 2 Comments »
One by one,
I rip the roots
from dirt and shake
them clean.
Stalk by stalk,
I clear the garden
walk of all
the brittle stems.
And who might come
to pull from me
whatever’s brown
and dead?
My own hands
always find
another task
another garden.
