For the fourth time in four weeks,
I slip my spade into the dark soil
of the half-circle garden.
I make twenty shallow holes,
then lift the pansies from crinkly
plastic containers and drop
the root-bound squares into the earth.
Within hours, the small brown bunny
arrives with his pink twitchy nose
and his small round lump
of soft bunny body,
and while I wash dishes
I meet through the window
his innocent, unblinking gaze
as he consumes a dozen
deep purple petals
in small, efficient tugs.
He looks at me as if to say,
You love me. And I do.
I croon at the bunny how
cute his small ears. How perfect
his bliss. How good he is
for eating his pretty bunny food.
Tomorrow, the rest
of the blooms will be gone.
In a week, the leaves will
be gone, too. Every. Single. One.
And I will go buy more pansies.
How sweet it’s become,
this path of surrender,
the strange joy that rises in me
when I see my precious pansies
nibbled to the roots.
Now that the stakes are low,
it’s much easier to bow
to the way things are.
For the price of pansies,
I can practice again and again
how to find true delight
in this art of letting go.
Posts Tagged ‘release’
Now That the Stakes Are Low
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, garden, letting go, rabbit, release on July 10, 2024| 11 Comments »
Tether
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, love, poem, poetry, release on May 2, 2016| 3 Comments »
for Corinne
It is muddy, the road,
and steep, and that feels,
somehow, just right today
as we walk with no sense
of destination. You tell me
your dreams. I tell you mine.
By accident, I find myself
holding the string of your hoodie—
the long blue ribbon has swung
from your waist
into my hand, and somehow
it becomes just enough
of a lifeline for me to weep,
as if this thin connection
to you is enough of a tether
that whatever in me
has been trying to be strong,
can crumple.
Sometimes we don’t know
just how much we need each other
until, by chance, we find ourselves
strangely connected. Umbilical,
we are all each other’s children.
As we walk, we see the spindrift
of small avalanches misting at the end
of the box canyon. Such dangerous beauty.
Something inside each of us longs
for this kind of release.
We walk on, and talk and listen.
Each time I take hold of the string,
I begin again to weep. There is no shame in this.
We reach a turning point—
though it is arbitrary.
On the way down,
you take my hand
and we swing our arms with our gait.
When we let go,
I feel in my hand where your warmth has been.
All day, I feel tethered.
All day, I remember
how beautiful it was,
the snow as it fell
through the cliffs.
Just After I Told Someone I Felt Quite Fine
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, mask, poem, poetry, release on June 30, 2015| 1 Comment »
I had worn it so long, that mask,
I didn’t notice it no longer fit.
In fact, I didn’t notice I wore it at all.
Every day I woke up wearing the mask.
I wore it all day, then returned to bed wearing
the mask. I don’t even remember putting it on,
what, was it as a child? Slowly, we come
to take habit as truth. Besides, on the outside,
it was pretty enough. Placid and happy.
It was only today I noticed how on the inside,
the mask had hair of snakes, how I was being
surely turned to stone. I did not want
to break the mask. I did not know
what the face beneath it might be.
I was afraid to not like what I saw.
There is a call to be ruthless, our hands
rising to do what must be done,
though some voice we thought
was our own shouts at us to stop.
And there is another voice. Perhaps
you’ve heard it, too. I notice
it’s easier to hear it when the mask
isn’t covering my ears. It’s strange
today to walk down the street.
I don’t know what I might say.
I don’t know what I might do.
Sidetracked, I Remember Something
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, getting lost, poem, poetry, release on June 20, 2015| 3 Comments »
Looking for reasons to justify
my anger with you, I found instead
a silver handle without
a pitcher, the scent of peonies,
a bush of ripened berries and a hum.
Is it any wonder my hands forgot
how to fight? That missing
pitcher filled with spring water,
that is what my silence wants
to say to your silence. And
that ripeness, that is what
my hands long to bring to yours.
Well, Something Like That
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, release on March 5, 2014| 1 Comment »
When the red hydrant bursts,
all my life I have wanted to be
there at that moment, with the water
shooting into the street and all the kids
and me splashing and barefoot and laughing.
It is always sunny in this fantasy,
and I am not carrying a laptop
or hurrying to a job interview.
My hands are remarkably free
and I am ready to play as long
as the water erupts. Is it any wonder
I long for this kind of explosion
in you—a wild release. A giant mess
as it all comes out and you hold
nothing, nothing back, and me,
in this fantasy, I don’t take
it personally. I just roll up my pants,
take off my shoes, throw away anything
that resembles a plug and say Darling,
let’s dance.
Rosemerry Meets Her Psoas
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, poem, poetry, psoas, release, surrender, Tim Lafferty on October 8, 2013| 3 Comments »
Noticing the space around people and things provides a different way of looking at them, and developing this spacious view is a way of opening oneself. When one has a spacious mind, there is room for everything. When one has a narrow mind, there is room for only a few things.
—Ajahn Sumedho, “Noticing Space,” Tricycle Magazine
Never mind that she didn’t know
how to spell it. Never mind she didn’t
know where it was. Never mind
she had never once given it a thought.
Rosemerry’s psoas was aware of her. Buried in her body,
engaged in its habitual patterns of holding on,
the psoas had not heard about how
fine she was doing, how relaxed she
she was, how she was learning more
each day about the art of letting go.
The psoas was not in any hurry. The psoas
let her believe whatever it was she wanted
to believe about her posture, her flexibility,
her strength. And when Rosemerry finally
did meet her psoas, it was a very quiet invitation.
She had thought she was on a date
with her ischial tuberosities, or perhaps
with her left adductor, her left hamstring,
or her left knee. But there, beneath her awareness,
patient and persevering, the muscle waited
in silent revolution. It’s all subtle until it is not.
The burn of it, the gasp of it, the unlayering
of pain. The red of it, she nearly panted,
the wilting of her bravery. And oh, the space
left in her then, how lying on the table
she felt how she was being breathed
and for one moment glimpsed, not with dread,
but with gratitude, a little hint of just how much
deeper she might go.
*with thanks to Tim Lafferty
A Gift for You My Heart Would Bring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, love, nothing, poem, release on December 17, 2012| 5 Comments »
Not the song but
the silence under the song,
not the stars
but the darkness between,
not the kiss
but the longing before the kiss
and the trembling long after, and
not the snow
but the spaces connecting the snow,
not the heart
but the pulse that persuades it to move,
no not the web
but the light in the strands,
not the certainty
but the wonder that birthed it,
and the branches, bare
and the cup, empty
waiting to be filled.
Three Continuations
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breaking open, haiku, loss, poem, poetry, prayer, release on October 23, 2012| 4 Comments »
losing all my leaves
I did not yet know I would
lose my roots too
*
chipped, this cup,
the wine in it
tastes no worse
*
chanting to the sky
long after the prayer ends
these hands still raised
Four Fallings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged god, love, poem, poetry, release, surrender, tanka on October 14, 2012| 2 Comments »
empty the trees
and thousands of lily bulbs
not yet bloomed—
in my heart
still spring
*
floating into the pond
the cottonwood leaves—
each one a boat
I would ride in
with you
*
for some things
it is too late, some nests
will never be built—
every hummingbird
is gone
*
I have wanted
to love you perfectly
petal after petal—
now I just want
to love you
Wearing Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged control, identification, poems, poetry, release on April 15, 2012| 3 Comments »
We’re human. We hurt each other.
–Wendy Videlock
As wind softens canyons
as water smoothes glass,
the days erode what is sharp
in me and grinds down
these layers of sludge
that have built up on
my shores, all these stories
that I have collected
—even believed—
as portraits of myself.
I remember reading
of a Chinese monk
who decided to rid himself
of worldly possessions.
Instead of giving them away—
for they would become burdens
to someone else—
he set his every thing in a boat
and let it drift to the middle
of the lake, where he sank it.
I would like to sink my stories
this way—heap them
into a heavy box and lock it
tight and drop it in
the deepest lake where
they could do no one else harm.
I’d like to believe
that it could be so easy
to release the burdens of the heart.
But no, it’s this slow,
wearing down, wearing down—
the sloughing of the known.
And who is that wants
to protect someone else?
As if she could control
how the world goes?
Let’s put her and her story
into the boat, push it off
and wish her the best.
Meanwhile
the days do the rest.