I walk out the door and
lie on the ground and
let the earth hold me,
let the sun soak me
let breath do
what breath does.
And if there is any
part of me that doesn’t know
it is part of everything,
it is lost in the vast peace
that fills me when
everything warms
and the kingfisher flies
over my silence
with his clackclackclack
and the air smells of river
and greening grass.
It doesn’t last,
but for this small eternity,
I am what a wind is,
only more, only less.
Posts Tagged ‘quiet’
Between Calls
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged nature, outdoors, quiet, silence on April 23, 2024| 4 Comments »
Beyond Quiet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kindfisher, noise, peace, quiet, surrender on February 24, 2024| 6 Comments »
From bare branch to bare branch
Clark’s nutcrackers weave the dry tick
of their call through morning—
as if sticks are rattling,
as if stones are clattering—
and whatever part of me
that is longing for quiet
is invited into the racket.
I say I want peace,
but what the heart really wants
is to know itself
as part of everything,
to belong to the world
of grinding and trilling,
scolding and chattering,
to knit itself into this raucous day,
strident and so alive.
Make Over
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, mom, quiet on January 4, 2024| 8 Comments »
Mom and I apply the thin film
of the facial masks,
mine pomegranate, hers cherry,
and I laugh at our images in the mirror,
the strange pearly gel sticking to our skin.
We find a sunny spot in the room
and for twenty minutes we lie there,
eyes closed, holding hands.
The package claims my skin will become
more hydrated, softer.
In truth, all of me is softer
as I give in to the slowness,
give in to the quiet, give in
to low warm light and let myself
be wholly here with my mom
as the masks make us look ridiculous
and the whole rest of the world
more beautiful.
Letter to Myself in the Future
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged quiet, self care, sun, winter on December 11, 2023| 6 Comments »
I want to give you this quiet hour
spent outside in the winter sun,
the slipknot of the breeze almost not there,
the sky an incandescent blue,
the river a murmur in its growing ice,
the dried grass barely a rustle.
How warm it is, even midwinter.
What I most want to give you
is not this hour, but the memory
of how you said yes to it,
how you set aside the phone,
how you turned off the screen,
how you let the book stay on the shelf
and did not touch the piano keys.
Remember sweetheart, how it felt
to slip between the cracks of the day
right into the fullness of being,
how you were so welcomed
by the air, by the light.
You could do it again,
slide out of your self.
Become wind.
Become the light.
Translation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged quiet, silence on September 22, 2023| 15 Comments »
In a quiet house
a woman can have
quiet thoughts,
can sit in the quiet
and let the quiet
inside. In a quiet house,
a woman can sit
on the couch
in a quiet room
and watch the leaves
out the window
as they do not move
in the wind
that is not there.
How quiet it is,
the kind of deep quiet
that makes a woman
slip into the quiet
as if it’s inevitable,
and the quiet seeps in
and fills her the way
water seeps quietly
into the sand,
and the house is quiet
and the air is quiet
and the woods are quiet
and the world is quiet
and the woman is quiet
until she rhymes
with quiet,
until she becomes
the attention
that meets the quiet
and the quiet
becomes her.
Sitting Quietly in the Night for Twenty Minutes while Nothing Happens
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, nothing, quiet, sign, stillness on September 11, 2023| 8 Comments »
Perhaps I wanted a sign—
an owl call. A meteor.
The brush of an invisible hand.
Instead, I got a sky full of stars
and an ear full of riversong
and the certainty that no matter
what happens or does not happen
in the world outside of me,
there is always, inside me,
a love that grows and changes.
Is it strange now, I am grateful
for nothing—the nothing
that teaches me
the most important thing of all.
Yin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, quiet, receptivity, spring, still, yoga on May 21, 2023| 13 Comments »
after an hour of yoga with Erika Moss
Curled on the earth
like a small animal,
I bury my nose in the grass
and breathe in the surprising sweetness
of spring green and purple bloom
and soil still damp from last night’s rain,
and though my eyes are closed
the desert sun enters anyway,
infusing my inner world
with radiance, with red.
There are so many ways
I work to hold myself up,
but in this soft moment,
I notice how nothing
is asked of me and how,
when I am still,
the world I might ignore
invites itself in.
There is such a thing,
says my friend,
as the back of the heart.
It is, she says, like the dark side
of the moon.
I honor that dark side,
that quiet, shadowy terrain
that is no less necessary,
no less true for being dim.
There will be a time to unfurl,
to open, to shine, to rise,
but in this charmed interval,
I sink deeper, deeper
into what is cool,
what is quiet,
what is beyond my knowing.
The interval builds a nest around me.
I do nothing and feel
how I am held.
One Peacefulness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, new year, quiet on January 1, 2023| 8 Comments »
so quietly this new year
slips through midnight—
our breath the most precious of cheers
May 19, 2021
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, daily life, daughter, mother, quiet on May 19, 2021| 6 Comments »
Will I remember this day with its greening of grass,
its blooming of apple blossom, its stilling of pond?
Will I remember the sweetness of my daughter
not leaving the house for school on a Wednesday
because her classes are all online? Will I remember
how she comes to snuggle on the couch during lunch
and pinches my cheeks and teases me about my ugly feet?
Will I remember the terrible yellow sticky casings
of the cottonwood seeds, how they glue to the hood
of my car that rarely moves from the drive? Or
the lavender in the garden that always looks
grey and dead before it erupts into fragrant life?
Perhaps there is some wave of presence
that will carry such stillness forward, a current
of quiet, a tide of tenderness that will insist
on itself for years to come. How forgettable
it all is—and how cherished—this swooping of swallows,
this opening of iris. How necessary, this holding
my daughter while the dark pool of night curls around us,
this cradling each other as we say nothing at all.
One Silencing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blank, quiet, silence on August 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
One Very Quiet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, phone, quiet on August 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Still to Come
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged quiet, self talk, stillness on July 2, 2020| 5 Comments »
There will be a time when I will sit quietly
on the chair and feel no urgency to rise, to rush.
Won’t feel the crush of the unfinished list,
won’t feel late, overdue, behind. I may not
even know the time, won’t fear the tick of the clock
as an adversary. Perhaps I’ll even close my eyes
and lean back and let my limbs soften
like honey warmed in the sun.
An idea might come, but I’ll not try to capture it.
This isn’t laziness, no part of me will think so.
No, I’ll revel in the slowness, the unhurried day.
And I’ll remember, perhaps, a time when the ticking
felt like a bomb inside me. Where did it go,
I might wonder, as I pour myself another cup of tea,
the scent of bergamot citrusy and bright.
A Tale of Two
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, quiet, trust on June 11, 2020| 4 Comments »
for C
I want
to hear
you, but
when you
shout, I
shut my
heart’s door,
lock my
ears. Now,
after two
loud days
shouting back
in lines
I’m glad
I never
sent, at
last I
find enough
quiet
to hear
you, but
not enough
trust to
give you
the key
On an Evening When I Am Troubled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, peace, quiet, solace, trees on April 12, 2020| 2 Comments »
I try to see myself
the way I see the trees
far off beyond the field—
something not at all singular
but a tiny part of a whole
that extends beyond sight,
beyond knowing.
It is a long time
before my thoughts
are airy as the silences
between their dark trunks,
quiet as the leaves
that are not yet there.
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.
One Old Lang Syne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged new year, poem, poetry, quiet on January 1, 2020| 2 Comments »
The Gnoissienne 2 Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged erik satie, music, poem, poetry, quiet, stillness on November 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »
yet another poem inspired by this composition by Erik Satie
You wonder why I haunt you
like moonlight, why I come to you
like morning fog, dream thick and cool,
why I steep myself into your thoughts
like bergamot in black tea.
You wonder why I seldom leave you,
why I slip into your silences
the way rye darkly slips into bread.
It is my work to give you shivers,
make you tremble, make you still.
It is my work to make you fall in love
with the darkness inside yourself. It is my work
to be the unexpected black swan, and you,
it is your work to be the night pond.
Putting My Teenage Boy to Bed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged parenting, poem, poetry, quiet on September 26, 2018| 4 Comments »
Though I have hours of work to do
I lie beside him until I feel
the quiet do what quiet does,
the fight and fuss leave his muscles,
and the growl and gruff leave my sighs
until we are at last two breaths
beside each other, soft and tender,
two hearts in the dark
with their walls down.
Perhaps: A Love Poem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, opening, poem, poetry, quiet on November 3, 2013| 3 Comments »
You are unlike
the bright taste of lemon
and you are unlike
the wild geese.
Quiet, you are,
and coiled in tight.
Not like the scent
of the lilies exploding
into the living room. Not
like the milkweed pods
that burst in milky froth.
But sometimes, when
I, too, am very quiet, not
like the perfume of wild
rose, not like the autumn
wind, more like
a hang moon calendula seed,
sometimes then
you let me in and I notice
how there is perhaps
another way to open
when we curl in,
shut out, say no.