So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. Gregory Hays
And so tonight I travel
the back roads of self
to a place with no shovel,
no spoon, no pen,
no wheel, no stick,
and find there
the peace that arrives
when the idea of traveler
dissolves. And then the
road. And then the self.
Posts Tagged ‘presence’
For a Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, presence, refuge, silence on May 11, 2023| 9 Comments »
A Blessing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, grief, loss, love, presence, time on March 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
In the dream, you are ten
and your slender body
curls into my side. We
lie on a purple bed.
Our awareness wings
at the edge of sleep,
our bodies more stone
than bird, your head
on my arm as heavy as time,
and I think, I love this
sweet sapling boy.
In the dream, you are alive,
and I sink all the way
into the sweetness
of the moment
the way I sometimes don’t
in life. I sink full weight
into the tender present
and no part of me wishes
to be anywhere but
in the low golden dream light,
your body warm and gentled,
my body quiet and easy.
Two days later,
I feel it still, the heft of love
unending and generous
close against my side.
It invites me to be more here
with the ones I am with.
With that same arm that held you,
I hold them. Time lifts.
On Drinking the Last Cup of Mariage Frères Marco Polo Tea
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collaboration, friendship, mindfulness, presence, tea on January 24, 2023| 12 Comments »
I didn’t stop what I was doing
to enjoy the exotic red fruity notes,
didn’t pause my busy mind
to cherish the bold dark leaves.
That’s not to say I didn’t love drinking the tea.
I did. Every velvety sip.
And as I pulled the final muslin sachet
from the classic black box lined with gold foil,
I thought of the woman
who had bought me such extravagant tea
and I fell even more deeply in love with her.
I tell myself it’s not wrong
I divided my attention
between the delicate tea
and the generous sun
and the work that I love.
I tell myself they spoke to each other
in the most beautiful morning voices—
all of them conspiring
the way a violin and cello and piano conspire,
the way a poet and a pianist and an artist conspire,
the way strawberry and cocoa
and dark leaves conspire
to create something more from the moment—
an alchemy that only comes when we say yes
in the moment to everything.
Now, when I read those words I wrote,
I taste in them Tibetan flowers.
They wear the fragrance of sunshine,
the bouquet of exotic lands.
Now when I see the empty drawer
where the tea is not,
I dream of how I drank the last cup
as if it would last forever.
Unlikely Camaraderie
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged presence, resistance, separate self, wind on November 10, 2022| 8 Comments »
All day, the wind, the ruthless wind,
unruly, unsettling, relentless wind,
the wind that crashed the leafless trees
and strewed the branches across the streets,
the wind that scraped at my fragile peace
until I was as dismantled as the day—
I notice the part of me that wants
to wish the wind away. I ask it
to sit with me. With little option
except to be present with each other,
we sit together, listen to the wind.
A New Kind of Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, connection, conversation, death, presence, speaking on August 23, 2022| 2 Comments »
It is possible to be with someone who is gone.
—Linda Gregg, “The Presence in Absence”
I have no phone receiver to connect me to the other side,
but every day I speak to my beloveds through candle flame.
Every night, I speak to them through the dark before sleep.
I speak to them in the car when I am alone.
I speak to them when I walk beneath stars,
when I walk in the woods, when I walk in the rain.
It is possible to be with someone who is gone.
It is possible to feel what cannot be seen,
to sense what cannot be heard,
to be held by what cannot be touched.
It is possible for love to grow after death.
If there is a secret, it is, perhaps, openness.
The way air lets light move through.
The way a window invites in the scent of grass.
The way sand receives the ocean,
then, rearranged, lets it pass.
This poem was published in ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry on 9/11/22
What She Taught Me About How to Meet Those Who Grieve
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, grief, name, presence on March 1, 2022| 8 Comments »
for MS
She taught me it is enough to sit
with someone who is grieving—
to sit and listen with your whole body
as if eyes could hear as well as ears,
as if a person’s silence is as essential as her words.
She taught me it is a gift to say
the name of the one who is gone—
such powerful balm, that briefest
of songs, the name.
She taught me to light a candle
and to promise to not blow it out,
not even after the conversation is done.
She taught me the solace
of offering no wisdom, asking no questions.
She gave me the gift of myself. And met me there.
Two Truths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, death, grief, presence on February 13, 2022| 7 Comments »
after Ruth Stone, “Train Ride”
He is dead. Never again to pull on the fencing mask, moonwalk to his bedroom or snuggle on the couch. Not dancing on the stage. He is dead. Not spinning the gator through the field. Not graphing equations for fun. Is he dead? asks the heart. No, he lives on forever. In the scent of lemon. In the cloudy ice on the pond. In the buds of the lilac tree. In the song on my breath. He lives in blue sky and comet and field. He lives in ink and in spaces between. He is dead. I held his body in my arms. Since that day, he has never left me. He is alive forever.
Apricity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged miracle, presence, stillness, warmth, winter on January 22, 2022| 12 Comments »
The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Today the miracle is to sit
in the sunlit room and be
in the sunlit room,
to be here and only here,
here in the bountiful silence,
here in the shifting shadows,
here in the hands of midwinter,
not in this same room five years ago,
but now as the tulips
drop the soft curls of their petals
like lingering pink praise.
So seldom in these grief ridden days
do I feel a feeling so pure
as this peace that arrives
on the low-angled light
when I am quiet and still
and the world invites me
to show up for whatever
slim warmth there is, and
know it is enough.
An Inside Job
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, inside job, love, presence on November 6, 2021| 8 Comments »
Do you feel his presence
all the time now? she said,
and I imagined she meant
do I find signs of you
in spilled salt, in the background
of my reflection, in the light
behind the trees, in the color
of the sky, in the shape of clouds.
No, I scoffed.
And then I thought of how,
in every moment
I beam love to you,
and how I feel you
receive it, how I feel you
send love back.
Yes, I said. Yes,
I feel his presence
all the time. Not some
abstract experience, but
something vital as blood,
something integral as breath,
no longer separate—
you the love that fuels me
from the inside.
Things to Do While Trapped in a Cage with a Lion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged danger, entrapment, lion, presence on January 24, 2021| 4 Comments »
Notice his teeth. Know that they could shred you
at any time. Wonder why you didn’t stay on the other side
where it was safe. Remember how boring safe was.
Feel the blood thrumming inside you, how your heart pounds
like the waves on the beach you might never see again.
Pray, though you long ago stopped remembering how,
and notice how faith feels so necessary now. Practice
saying Nice kitty, nice kitty, as if renaming the lion
could change anything. It doesn’t, of course, but
there is something soothing about the tone you are using.
Use the same tone to speak to yourself. Nice human,
nice human, though you’d rather curse yourself
for putting yourself in this position.
Witness how the longer you stay here
the easier it is to breathe, though the danger
is no less real. Now you can even notice the sky—
how blue it is above you, fathomless,
bluer somehow than you’ve ever seen it before,
rising as it does above the golden mane,
the shockingly beautiful amber eyes.
Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged be here now, bird, Corona Virus, listening, presence, song on March 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Even as the snow was falling,
the birds in the branches
kept singing into morning,
easing their bright notes
into the thin gray spaces
between snowflakes.
There are days, imagine,
when the birds go unheard.
And it isn’t for lack of song—
the single note chirp
of sparrow, the bass of raven,
the chickadee’s hey swee-tee.
Some gifts come only
when we stay in one place,
come only when we are alone,
come only when we stop praying
to be somewhere else and instead
pray to be here.
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.
Presence
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, cat, poem, poetry, presence on February 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
When the cat ran away,
I noticed how she did not move
between the legs of the chairs,
how she did not yowl by her bowl
nor sit in the window. Everything
I saw was where she was not.
All day, I held it close,
her absence. All day,
I thought how she was not here.
Was it true?
First Thought
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged night, poem, poetry, presence on December 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Not thinking tonight
of what I could have done
or what I could have said.
Instead, night wraps
around me like a shawl
and holds me close
and says, Yes,
you are here, just here.
I Tell Myself
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged past, poem, poetry, presence on June 6, 2016| 5 Comments »
Be like a river,
shaped by the past,
always finding
a new way
to travel
the same stretch.
Christmas Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, forgiveness, poem, poetry, presence, present on December 26, 2014| 3 Comments »
What was it under the tree
I was hoping for—perhaps
forgiveness, not the kind
you can tie up with a bow,
no, rather the kind
you don’t even know is there,
except you notice you can’t
stop laughing and everything,
even the awkward scale
you carry in your breath,
even that seems luminous,
some small, amusing scrap
of heaven.
Bright Side
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, presence on June 27, 2014| 1 Comment »
What a blessing
while driving, this
hard, hard rain—
I forget the bed
I woke in,
forget any point
on the map
that is not here.
She Said
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged map, poem, poetry, presence, surrender on June 11, 2014| 1 Comment »
There it is again, the desire
to be somewhere but here,
the hope to find the self in a different room
with a different face and a different
spine, a different once upon. But we
are always ourselves. And it’s never
gotten us there before, this brittle map
to Elsewhere with its thousands of folds,
its distorted compass rose.
Nope. It’s never taken us even an inch
away from wherever we are. Always here.
Though we squint, or heck, even change
the narrator to second person, no matter:
the room you are in is the room you are in,
and it is still your face you see in the mirror
whether you want to recognize it or not.
Four Continuations
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, continuing, poem, poetry, presence on August 31, 2013| 1 Comment »
that old crow,
perhaps he spoke first
with you
*
removing the clothes
from my thoughts—someone
left the gate open
*
out the window
I see only where the cottonwood
does not stand
*
dew on my song
have I really been singing
this long?
What I Would Bring You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, nature, poem, poetry, presence, unknowing on June 8, 2013| 4 Comments »
Flood of lupine,
break of green,
door of sage
and yes of rain,
dandelion,
gold then wish,
home of river
bridge of breath,
silk of crow,
and lung of seed
hummingbirds
and rave of blood,
wave of kingfisher,
shy of know,
arms of blue
and moon of now,
gaze of peony,
ungauze of love,
heron wing, heron wing,
moon enough.