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Posts Tagged ‘rest’

When Mom Suggests I Could Rest My Head in Her Lap

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 14, 2022| 8 Comments »




I resist. There is so much to do,
but soon my eyes are closed
and Mom is pulling her fingers
through my hair the way I love
and I am ten again, or four,
or twenty-five, or two,
lying on the plaid couch
in our old house
with my head in Mom’s lap,
her fingers in my hair.
I wake up drenched in forever,
this timeless stream
I sometimes can see for what it is—
like a fish that leaps for a fly
and sees, oh! an infinite world
beyond the world it knows.
Is it any wonder, this water
clinging to my cheek
as I rise from the couch
and swim back into the night.  

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Another Lesson from the Willows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 8, 2020| 5 Comments »

The willows beside the river

are practicing how to let go—

they lose the bright red hue

of their skin and their leaves

turn brittle and brown.

It would be easy to think

they were dead if all I did

was pass them by. But

bend one willow, and it’s clear

how alive they still are,

flexible and sincere.

How little rest I allow myself.

I insist on my own evergreen.

How much could I learn

from November’s willows

that take a break from living?

I listen, as if the willows

might offer a teaching.

I listen until it dawns in me,

that the quiet

is the teaching.

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One Comfort

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 17, 2020| 4 Comments »

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If You Hear a Rustle, Perhaps

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 10, 2018| 8 Comments »

 

 

Every blade of grass has an angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”

            —The Talmud

 

Imagine them, all those angels

jostling over the field,

catching their hands

in each other’s halos,

their wings a shimmering

fuss. Imagine the rising tide

of the chorus, how

whisper turns clamor

turns turbulent roar.

Imagine the dizzying pitch

of encouragement, grow,

Grow, GROW, until bam!

a riotous tumult of green.

 

But what of the song

at the end of the season,

when angels, exhausted,

sigh rest, rest. And they press

their tired cheeks against

each other’s faces, let

their wings dangle

in lucent grace. And the field,

seeded, relaxes and goldens

and sleeps. And the angels

snuggle in sacred heaps and breathe,

and breathe, white robes

like snow, and they sleep talk

between their sonorous snores,

that’s enough, dear one, let go.

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Nishani

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 1, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

listening to Matthew Dane play viola d’amore to a piece by Reina Esmail

 

 

traveling between

dissonances, we learn

to rest not only

in resolve but also

in this trembling

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