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Posts Tagged ‘reframe’

The Great Reframe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2023| 11 Comments »

 
 
Let this sorrow
that has opened me
to love
be like a frame
that has no photo—
so I might know
how to be this broken open,
this tender, this compassionate
with anything,
not only toward the one
who first filled the frame.
 
Let me not try to control
what is worthy of framing.
Let me trust everything
is worthy of prayer,
of consideration.
Let sorrow continue
to teach me generosity.
Let the frame be big enough
to hold it all.
 

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The Invitation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 31, 2021| 13 Comments »




Two nights after he died,
all night I heard the same
one-line story on repeat:
I am the woman whose son
took his life. The words
felt full of self-pity,
filled me with hopelessness, doom.
And then a voice came,
a woman’s voice, just before dawn,
and it gave me a new shade of truth:
I am the woman who learns
how to love him now that he’s gone.
It did not change the facts,
but it changed everything
about how I met the facts.
Over a hundred days later,
I am still learning what it means
to love him—how love is
an ocean, a wildfire, a crumb;
how commitment to love changes me,
changes everyone,
invites us to bring our best.
Love is wine, is trampoline,
is an infinite song with a chorus
in which I am sung.
I am the woman who learns
how to love him now that he’s gone.
May I always be learning how to love—
like a cave. Like a rough-legged hawk.
Like a sun.

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In Those Quiet Hours

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 29, 2021| 26 Comments »




For two weeks after he died,
I’d fall asleep exhausted
only to wake just past midnight.
Desperate, I’d claw at sleep,
frantic to catch it and clutch it,
but always it slipped my grasp
and I’d lie awake till morning.

My friend suggested
I reframe those sleepless hours
as a sacred time, an intimate,
personal quiet time. Not a problem.
Not something to be treated.
Not something to be feared.
That night, as I emerged from sleep,
dreams dripping from me like water,
I did not resist the waking.
Instead, eyes closed, heart open,
still lying in bed, I said,
I love you, Finn. I miss you, sweetheart.
And woke on the shore of morning.
Ever since, it happens just like this—
when I slip from sleep,
I tell my son I love him
and slide unknowingly
back into the tide of dreams.

How many hundreds of times
when he was young, did I go to him
when he cried out in the night?
I’d press my palms against his chest  
until his breath was a skiff for dreams.

Years later, though I can’t feel his hands,
though I don’t hear the lullaby of his breath,
somehow he arrives to comfort me.
And though I don’t hear him say
the words I’d always say to him,
I feel them float above me like a blanket,
warm in the cool night air—
Shhh. I’m here. It’s okay. I’m here.

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One Expectation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »

this old wall of an idea—
giving it hinges,
oh, how it swings

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Saying Yes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »



 
 
And could I, like this picture frame
hold any image I was given?
I think of the news last night—
how I would rather not hold
what I saw there.
I think of what I learned just yesterday
about myself and notice how
I would rather push the image away.
But could I be like this picture frame
that will hold anything and in so doing
honor its importance? Honor
everything, no matter how mundane,
no matter how frightening,
as something worth knowing,
something essential to what it means to be alive,
a soup can, perhaps, a petunia, or a scream.
How easily the frame says yes to the world,
takes it in, anything, with no judgement,
and offers it whatever beauty it has.
 

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One Enormous Gratitude

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 30, 2018| 4 Comments »

 

 

my mother began my mornings

by singing to me “it’s going to be

such a lovely day”—

over thirty years later

I still believe her

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Two Reframings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 4, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

this wound—

re-teaching my tongue to name it

blessing

 

*

 

a sad song

so beautiful even the skylark

stops to listen

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And I Can’t Find My Way Back In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 6, 2014| 2 Comments »

All these years
I thought I might be
the one who had opened
the can. Such surprise
to find I am one
of the worms.

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Nine Reframings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 14, 2013| 1 Comment »

a chest
full of flowers—
open me

*

my thumb hurts, I say,
my dad’s favorite fix—drop
a rock on your foot

*

only a sip
and already I’m drunk—
desert after rain

*

my knee hurts, I say
and the world
breaks my heart

*

puddle, puddle,
puddle, puddle, puddle,
tear

*

why so serious
says the leaf
already gold

*

such a blessing
to be thirsty in a season
of rain

*

my heart hurts, I say,
and the old poet says
live by breaking

*

using a thread
to climb to heaven, the angels
toss me a rope

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Epiphany While Driving in the Storm with Danny

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 9, 2013| 2 Comments »

Out the window
I do not see
the mountains
I know are there
behind the fog.

Do you think
the universe
is indifferent?
he asks.

New snow
obscures
all the lines
on the road.

The radio
is silent.

Yes, I say.

Rosemerry,
he says,
are you
indifferent?

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