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Posts Tagged ‘rain’

How Did I Ever Believe It Would Be Otherwise?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 13, 2023| 15 Comments »

When it’s dry here,
the clay in the soil shrinks,
its particles pulling
more tightly together
until deep cracks form in the earth,
a force so powerful
it can damage foundations.
This makes me wonder
about how we, too,
storied to have come from clay,
can crack in times of drought.
I have felt it, drought of love,
drought of touch, drought of death,
drought of compassion and justice.
And I have known, too, the miracle
of how when the drought is over,
the clay of my soul expands again,
absorbing what it most needs.
Is it strange how much comfort
I take in knowing it’s natural,
that cracking is what we do,
it’s part of the cycle.
Of course, the cracking.
And of course, the healing.
I am awed by its force
and how little it takes,
even a small bit of rain,
for deep healing to begin.
 
 

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In a Downpour

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 28, 2023| 6 Comments »

On an uphill slog
of a day,
your real smile
is like a single
red umbrella
in a long pageant
of black umbrellas.
Suddenly,
it’s all I can see.

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When It Rains

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 27, 2023| 9 Comments »

 
 
When a cloud follows me
as if we are tethered,
can I find peace with the shade?
It’s easy to wish it away.
Can I wish it away
and at the same time
tilt my head back,
keep my eyes wide
and breathe?
These are the days
I learn to pray—
pray not for what I want,
but to be opened
by what is here.

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One Irony

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 11, 2023| 5 Comments »

 
only after the rain
feeling the urge
to walk in the rain

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Self-Compassion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 12, 2023| 8 Comments »


            with thank you to Joi Sharp
 
 
It’s like the scent of rain
after a month of drought—
the way it rises up and fills the lungs
quiets the body
and softens the mind—

that’s what it’s like
when, after grasping
and spinning and reaching
and clenching, at last,
exhausted with my own fear,

I lay my hand on my own heart
and see through my thoughts
and practice loving
what is here beneath my palm:
this frightened woman

and the life that lives through her—
not a single promise I will be safe,
but when I press my open hand
into the beat of my anxious heart
what was dry becomes loamy,

what was cracked becomes rich,
and a faint sweetness
tendrils through me like incense,
soothing as a lullaby
that opens in the dark.

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Looking at Landscape at Auvers in the Rain

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 29, 2022| 4 Comments »

     inspired by Landscape at Auvers in the Rain by Vincent van Gogh and Rain at Auvers by Kayleen Asbo

 
Sometimes when it rains
I forget it will ever stop raining.
The rain, it falls,
it falls for days, it falls,
and the rain becomes
a metric imperative,
insistent as a stop watch,
familiar as the pulsing
of blood in the heart,
a throbbing, a beat so adamant
I forget any other tune.
Did you forget, Vincent,
the rain would stop?
Did you feel inside you
a storm as urgent, as bold,
as the rain you painted
long diagonal strokes?
 
I can’t look at your painting
without feeling inside me the rain,
the rain, feel it slant across my world
in thick dark lines.
I can’t look at the purples
and yellows of Auvers
without remembering how days
after you painted these hues,
you would take your life.
 
But how could I vilify the storm
even knowing what I do?
You found in the tumult
light.
You fueled the dampened, darkened world
with ecstatic gold.
You didn’t push the storm away, Vincent.
You let it drench you.
You shared with us all
how struggle, too,
is so terribly, terribly
beautiful.


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Acceptance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 10, 2022| 13 Comments »

Today grief is a long steady rain
and the thing to do is to walk
in the long and steady of it.
The thing is to let the face
get wet, let the clothes get wet,
let the hair get wet and plastered
against the cheeks, the neck.
The thing is to meet the soaking world
and the soaking skin and the soaking
shoes and the soaking dreams
and not pretend it’s dry.
Whatever longing there is for dryness,
it is soaking too. Because it’s raining,
the thing to do is to walk in the long
and steady rain, to walk in the sodden,
soaking world, to trust that it will
not rain forever, to breathe in the scent
of the wet, wet earth, to kiss the rain,
to be kissed by the rain.
To be wet in the wet, wet world.

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An Elegy for the Lover

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 13, 2021| 4 Comments »


for Laurie Wagner Buyer
 
 
I remember her handwritten letters—
her careful cursive telling
me about freezing the ripe plums
and the tree in the back yard
and sitting in the passenger seat
watching the world go by.
I remember walking with her
and admiring the sway
of her hips, her generous smile,
how everyone turned to watch her.
But most of all I remember
the way she loved to fall in love—
how she gave herself over so completely
to partnership. There are some
who love like virga—the rain
that falls but never reaches the land.
But she loved like a long steady rain—
the kind that seeps in slowly
and reaches the deepest roots.
The kind of rain that makes the whole world
glisten. The kind of rain
she might have written me about—
how it drizzles down the windows,
clings to the pane, how in every drop,
if you look, you can resee the world.
 
 
 
Dear friends, I am well aware there are two amazing Laurie Wagner Buyer poets. This one is about the Laurie Wagner Buyer who lived in Texas.

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In the Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 3, 2021| 2 Comments »




your
words
a clap
of
thunder
lightning
striking
close

and
me
without
an
umbrella

down
these
cheeks
it
must
be
the
rain

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One Capitulation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »

walking in the drizzle—

even my longing to stay dry

shines in the rain

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