Today God is perhaps like a rash
that terribly blooms
on your leg. Red blisters
on a raised red patch.
For nearly two weeks,
it is all you can think about.
What to eat for dinner and
it itches. The children need
milk and it itches. The sky!
it’s so pink at dawn and
it itches. It is your best friend’s
birthday and it itches. Israel
conducts an airstrike into Syria
and it itches. This is how
I have wanted God to show up—
hand in hand with everything.
I have wanted to not forget,
to not be distracted by the events
of the world, to find God
in the every fold of the day.
God in the tea cup. God in
the stop sign. God in the empty
dish. God in the brush.
This is not what I had in mind,
this pain, this incessant urge
to shred my own skin, to scratch
what cannot be touched.
But it’s working. All eclipsed.
God in everything.
In the incessant tug of it,
the red, deep pain of it,
the calling to bow to it
now and now and now.
Posts Tagged ‘presence’
Amen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged god, poem, prayer, presence, rash on May 3, 2013| 4 Comments »
And Not Push Any of It Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, housekeeping, light, mess, poem, poetry, presence on February 7, 2013| 3 Comments »
And Not Push Any of It Away
The way the morning sun
in the kitchen shows up all the fingerprints
on the cupboards
and casts shadows past
every crumb on the floor—
isn’t it like that,
a woman who once
begged for more light
only to see, as the light
grew, so many messes
that had gone unseen.
That is not how she’d
told herself it would be.
Perhaps this is
part of what she sees,
not only the mess,
but the one who thinks
she must do something.
Wish List
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, openness, poem, poetry, presence, present on December 3, 2012| 4 Comments »
Not just your eyes,
though that, too,
not just your words,
I want your softness.
I want all the walls
around us down.
I want to stand
out under that big
starry sky and know
nothing except you
and me and big
starry sky. I want
your quiet. I want
your core. And I want
the thoughts under
your tongue, the ones
you keep there
afraid they will hurt
if they come
into the air,
small puffs
of vulnerable clouds,
and then I want
the strength to
be hurt and still
stand with you
there, open
as the field,
as the sky.
And That’s All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lily, poem, poetry, presence, stillness on December 1, 2012| 2 Comments »
Five pink lilies,
petals splayed,
more perfume
in the room
than one nose
can take in.
Sometimes
the mind
reaches for more—
one more hour,
one more kiss,
one more cookie,
one more glimpse,
one more oh,
it goes on, but
tonight
the scent
of five open lilies,
the scent
of five
pink lilies.
After an Hour of Writing, Still No Train
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, be here now, poem, poetry, presence, train on July 31, 2012| 3 Comments »
The patient says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “Then don’t do that!”
—Henny Youngman
All night I wait for the train whistle,
the way it calls out to the world,
You are here. It doesn’t mock, exactly,
but we all know that the train whistles
because it is leaving, heading somewhere else,
not here. It can be so hard to be here.
To be here and nowhere else. To not put ourselves
on the imaginary train, wherever it is going. To sit
with the sound of traffic, with the string of red lights
that eventually turn green. And red again.
To be here with our longing, here with our
shame, our loss, our hair turning gray.
The click of the sprinkler lays a rhythmic line,
and all the night’s whirs and whines and hums
scrape against its ticking. What is it about the gap
of the missing whistle that stirs me, so?
Oh expectation. One more layer to slough.
It is like the Henny Youngman line, in which we touch
what is sore, again and again, just to be sure it still hurts.
And the train does not come, and the train does not come.
The night air, warm enough to wear nothing,
carries the scent of something nearby, familiar,
floral and sweet. Part of me longs to slip into memory
to find the scent, know it and name it this,
and part of me notices the one
who would travel back in time to know the present.
It climbs into the fragrance, meets the night as it is.
With the Juice Running Down Our Chins, Our Wrists
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cherry, love, now, poem, poetry, presence, sweetness on June 8, 2012| 2 Comments »
Standing in the cherry trees
all one has to do is reach
and there is sweetness,
red sweetness, dripping
sweetness, sweetness.
It will not last, but
standing in the cherry trees
this blazing moment
all one has to do is
open the hand, and reach
and there is sweetness,
not just pleasure enough, but pleasure
more than enough. It is not
a cure for whatever aches,
but it is sweet standing
in the cherry trees tonight, so sweet,
so red and so sweet.
While Listening to Herbie Hancock
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, Herbie Hancock, music, poems, poetry, presence, union on April 19, 2012| 3 Comments »
the barrier of noumenon-phenomenon
transcended
the circle momentarily complete
—Lenore Kandel
Perhaps
we,
too,
are
more
empty
space
than
note,
our
bodies
like
this
minor
tune—
vast
expanses
of
what
isn’t
here
held
together
by
something
almost
beautiful
that
is.
Storm’s Edge: A Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged live in the moment, poems, poetry, presence, spring, tanka, video, wind on March 18, 2012| 11 Comments »
Almost spring
and the wind makes wild music
out of everything—
though someday I’ll forget it
tonight there is nothing else.
Bouquet: Six Spring Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bouquet, flowers, haiku, Leukemia, poems, poetry, presence, shadow on March 16, 2012| 8 Comments »
March sun so warm
I almost believe those yellow flowers
are real.
*
Apricot trees
in first bloom, white and white,
but that is somewhere else.
*
I wish I had
no occasion to send tulips
to room 109.
*
Under microscopes
mutant cells blossom
forget me nots
*
She hands me
a dandelion—an hour later
gold still in my hand.
*
Scent of spring—
even the shadows
grow buds.
The Journey of 300 miles
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poems, poetry, presence, the journey, travel, winter on February 24, 2012| 1 Comment »
drive
sing
cry
slow
ice
sign
white
go
slide
brake
radio
sing
and
sing
and
gust
honk
slush
lines
each
here
a
choice
to
arrive
four haiku and a tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awareness, haiku, poem, presence, reaching, silence, stillness, tanka on January 26, 2012| 1 Comment »
inside that sigh
migrate a thousand thousand
butterflies
*
what’s quiet
is still quiet behind
the barking dog
*
I fall asleep
aware of part of me watching
the one who sleeps
*
these arms
not reaching
but waving
*
poor woman
stopping long enough to smell
the juniper berries
only because
she has to pee
five haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, change, haiku, letter, lupine, morning after the storm, mountain, poem, presence, river, storm on January 18, 2012| 1 Comment »
nothing holds back
the river forever—
these hands still trying
same cold, same dawn,
same landscape—even that hill
seems tired of standing
*
again I write
in my head the letter, again
I rip it up
*
and then the day came
when I sat in the lupine
instead of climbing
*
morning after
the storm each glittering limb
the most lovely