somehow, the broken heart
finally stops trying
to fix its cracks—
how cool, how brisk
the rain it once tried to keep out
Posts Tagged ‘rain’
One After a Long Time
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, broken heart, rain, yes to the world as it is on June 27, 2025| 3 Comments »
Let the World Have Its Way With You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blooming, brokenness, daisy, flower, garden, opening, rain on June 9, 2025| 12 Comments »
Today it’s the daisy that teaches me
about opening. How lovely it was last week.
I praised its yellow, sun-gold petals
reaching out as they were from the bright center.
After last night’s fierce rain, the flower has been trashed,
stripped of its petals. Every. One. Bent and bruised,
they lie splayed in the dirt. And the daisy
goes on with its growing. New leaves.
New roots. New buds. Nourished
by the rain that tore the flower apart.
How often have I, too, lost all my petals, only to learn
that was not the end of the story of opening?
This world is a world of both beauty and loss.
Did I ever really believe one opening
would last me forever? It’s always a lifetime
of learning. Today it’s so clear that when
I can bring presence to loss or resistance,
this act makes pain itself luminous,
is how the heart grows roots, and buds and leaves.
Always it returns to this—offering the broken world
my wonder. In return, oh, the opening.
One Night of Sustenance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, rain on June 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »
after a dry spell
the long awaited song of rain—
even my dreams listen
Going Quantum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, porosity, rain, solid on June 1, 2025| 13 Comments »
I almost expect the rain
to fall through me. That is how
porous it all feels sometimes.
If sorrow and joy
and fear pass through,
why not rain?
When drops gather today
on my arm, I stare at them,
amazed how they round on bare skin.
I want to let it all pass through.
At the same time I want to be solid
in the world so I might open my mouth to rain
and become part rain. Might open
my heart to love and become all love.
Want to feel myself held by the holy
and know I have never not been holy.
Want to hold the rain in my hand
and marvel how a woman so porous
can hold in her palm a miracle.
In the Meantime
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ephemeral, flood, rain, service, weather on September 2, 2024| 13 Comments »
It is only a matter of time before
the next monsoon brings a surge
of frothing red water hurtling
down the gulley, and yet my neighbor
landscapes the flood path
with meticulously placed rocks
and raised beds with bright flowers,
and every time I drive by I want
to cheer for her foolishness,
cheer for all who make beauty
certain it will be destroyed
and relentlessly choose
to be in service to beauty anyway.
Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, openness, rain, trust on August 11, 2024| 6 Comments »
Let the rain fall as it will
and fill the ditches and
flood the paths. Let it
pour from the gutters
and spill from the eaves.
Let the gulleys be gushing
and roiling with rain.
Let it rain. Let it rain as if
it will never stop raining.
Let it rain until everything
glistens and shines.
Even the sunflowers,
gold petals now limp.
Even my longing
for sunnier days.
Even my longing
to push it away.
Remember when
I prayed for rain?
Let it rain as long as it rains.
Let it rain and let me
laugh in the rain,
let me dance in the rain,
let me cry until
my tears rhyme with rain.
And let me be soft
in the rain. Let wonder
be present as rain—
driving rain, gentle rain,
long and relentless rain—
the rain I know by another name.
This poem is not
about the rain.
But because it is about to rain,
let the heart exclaim,
Let it rain.
This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged present, rain, summer, walking on August 2, 2024| 5 Comments »
Walking mid-summer
in the warm summer rain
there is summer in my
step and summer in my skin,
summer in the scent of soil
and summer in my blood
and there is nothing else
I’m searching for but to walk
in the rain in the summery world
with summer in each stride
and in each breath summer
and a summer breeze with its
warm summer touch and it’s
summer, mygod, I’m alive,
and it’s summer right now,
and I, no stranger to winter,
say yes, I say yes, yes to summer.
After Many Weeks of Sun
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, rain, sun on June 15, 2024| 8 Comments »
I woke to rain,
in love with rain,
and the rain made its
soft rain music on the roof
and I listened to rain
in the rain-soaked dark
until my dreams were rain
and my waking was rain
and the morning was rain, rain, rain—
scent of rain in my lungs,
shine of rain in my eyes,
and the green song of rain in the grass,
and I gave my whole self to the rain
not thinking of anything else I had lost,
only rain in my thoughts,
only rain until I thought of you
and then somehow you were the rain.
Sodden Blessing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blessing, georgia, loving the world as it is, rain on March 22, 2024| 7 Comments »
It’s warm and steady,
this rain that soaks me.
Perhaps all those tears
this afternoon were practice
for walking in this soft
and relentless baptism
that gathers wetly now
in my lashes, my hair,
my pants, my socks,
my shoes, claiming me
in a damp communion
so complete, so shining,
so dripping with soggy luck
that I choose to walk in it
for hours, evermore certain
I belong to the world.
If the Heart Could Dog Ear a Day, There Would Be This Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, grace, memory, photograph, rain, reverence on March 12, 2024| 11 Comments »
The autumn rain was not warm, but soft,
the kind that makes everything shine.
Even the sidewalk. Even a Tuesday.
Likely the air smelled of leaves and cut grass.
Likely the birds were a riotous chorus,
because that’s how it is here in fall.
What I remember so clear is how you
rushed out the front door
in your favorite hand-me-down dress
with brown velvet polka dots
and a pink satin sash—
mighty fancy for a day spent at home—
and began to dance on the driveway,
both arms lifting into the drizzle,
an elegant twist to both small wrists,
one leg stretched straight,
your bare toes pointed to the pavement,
your face raised up to the rain.
It’s your smile that startles me,
then and now, a look of deep contentment,
measureless pleasure in being.
Over ten years later, I still see it in you,
something utterly unfakeable, wildly true,
the capacity for joy beyond the frame.
It vibrates in me like the tone
of a gong struck gentle and long,
until I too am shining
with trembling reverence,
astonished by the grace that’s here.
Even when it’s gray. Grayer. Even when it’s cold.