Posted in Uncategorized, tagged invitation, risk, safety, sea, water on February 20, 2020| 2 Comments »
Vast and powerful,
the invitation
like a sea
with a surf
and unknowable tides—
I do not want to stay
on the shores
of my life.
I want to run headlong
into the waves,
to feel myself buoyed
and challenged,
to know myself
as one who risks,
who emerges
shimmering.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choices, poem, poetry, risk, safety on May 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »
When you walk along a cliff
and look over the edge,
a bit of the cliff will find its way
into your thoughts
and there, that place where
you were feeling quite safe
just a moment ago, now feels
charged with exposure.
Just today, a cliff said to me
that if I only would jump
then perhaps I would find my wings,
or perhaps then a tender angel
would deliver me—
you will never know,
said the cliff, if you keep walking
in that same direction you always walk—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boat, goals, poem, poetry, risk, safety on December 29, 2014| 2 Comments »
In the boat
how could she know,
fixed as she was
upon the waves,
about the leakage,
small and slow
and of the sharks
that swam below—
she had hungers,
too, and so
toward distant shores
she rowed, she rowed
not noticing
the water cold
around her feet
and how it rose
I think about
her bailing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, fear, parenting, poem, poetry, safety on December 24, 2014| 3 Comments »
In the dark
she says, but what if
the fire alarm goes off?
and I say, it won’t
and she says, but what if
and I say, shhhh, it’s
time to sleep and she says,
but what if the alarm
goes off? and I say
then I will carry you
outside to my car
and you will be safe
and she says
thank you and rolls
over, and I lie awake,
holding her in the silence
long after her breathing
has steadied into sleep,
our bodies curled into
each other like two
question marks.