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Posts Tagged ‘saying yes to the world as it is’

When You Ask Me If I Can Say Yes to the World as It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 5, 2024| 13 Comments »


 
 
Today yes is made of lead.
You look at me
and I nod—
and together
we carry the weight.

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The Misophonic Poetry Teacher Is Confronted by the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 1, 2024| 17 Comments »


 
 
I would rather not listen to the dehydrator fan
as it hums in the back room, a sound
some might call white noise, but
I hear it as if it’s neon bright whirring inside me,
as if I, too, am being dried
like thin slices of Bartlett pear,
as if I, too, am losing all my juice
and becoming a shriveled version of myself.
And now the roar of a distant plane layers
above the dehydrator hum like a rogue choir member
with poor pitch insisting on a solo.
Enter the crinkle of the chip bag
as my good husband comes into the kitchen
to become a human vector for crunching.
And now it’s all assault: the cat as she mewls,
the lumber trucks thundering by like subwoofers,
the gurgle and burble of the fish tank pump—
and I’m the fool who minutes ago said to the class,
Let’s be receptive and hear with our whole body,
believing I might fall more in love with the world
just by listening into this moment like the poet
we just read who wrote about the sweet communion
she achieved just by quietly listening to the bees
as they swirled around her in a baptism of holy buzz,
but damn, it’s so loud, and overwhelmed
with the racket of it all, I whisper-shout oh fuck it,
joining my curse to this collective clamor of thwack
and drip and rumble and tick, and I’m part
of it all, though not how I’d planned, invited in
by each thing relentlessly singing itself into being,
all of it beckoning me, too, to sing, sing, sing.

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Oh, the Longing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 26, 2023| 6 Comments »




Let longing be longing.
Though it rises in me
with insistent hunger.
Though it clutches for my heart
with outstretched hands,
pins me with pleading eyes
Let longing be longing.
Never has it worked
to pretend I don’t hear it
as it shouts its demands
or charms me with silken promises.

In a vision I said no to the longing,
and the longing only grew
like a shadow on the wall.
But when I said yes, longing, I see you—
(and what was it that was saying yes?
a voice not me, but through me)—
the yes filled me like a warm and golden glow,
color of sunrise, color of pollen,
and there was nothing it could not touch—
this woman, this longing,
the shadow itself.

Where does this yes come from?
I don’t know. But now everything
is infused with its light
and the longing is longing
and I am a woman who sometimes longs
for what she cannot have.
Even the no is shining.

 

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Walking into Winter Solstice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 21, 2022| 9 Comments »




Because it is dark
I walk in the dark,
walk with no moon,
walk with the chill
of the measureless dark.
There is peace that comes
from letting the self
be with the world
as it is, and tonight,
it’s a dark world,
a world where I cannot see
far ahead, a world
of silhouette and suggestion,
a world that seems
to cherish whispers
and relish mystery,
a world where
the invitation is
to walk in the dark
without wishing it away,
without championing its opposite,
the invitation is
to be one who learns
how to live with the dark.

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Nothing Sweeter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »


 
 
This moment is not
the citrus burst
of ripe blood oranges
nor bitter dark
 
of Ceylon tea
nor warm whiskey
of long, slow kisses—
instead it tastes
 
of the must of loss,
the salt of what was,
the sharp young wine
of words not yet said,
 
and there,
dancing on the tip
of the willing tongue
the yeasty, springy crumb
 
of truth.
 

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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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What I Can Do

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 24, 2020| 3 Comments »

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for my children, for all children

 

 

I want to give you the kind of day we didn’t have today—

a day when the wide blue sky makes you rush outside,

when we go to the park and meet your friends

and you run to greet them—you hug and play chase

and tag and tackle and whisper in each other’s ears.

I want to give you a day warmed through by laughter,

with crisp green leaves already on the trees.

And on our way home we could stop for ice cream

and joke with the women at the counter

about how there’s not much news to share.

A day when you can’t imagine being afraid. When

you fall asleep not wondering when someone we know

will die. Instead, the world gives us this day—

this day with its fears and its warnings—and

I give you what I can: A scarf to play dress up in.

A homemade pumpkin pie. Dance party in the kitchen.

Three tired and perfect words. Open arms.

A reminder the sleet will make the grass green.

Secrets I will keep for now to myself. The slow tide

of my breath beside you as you fall asleep.

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The Merchant of Epiphanies

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on February 22, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Hey buddy, he says, as he opens his trench coat,

you wanna buy an epiphany? And there,

in the satiny lining he reveals a flashy display.

Oooh, I say, those look lovely. I could use

an epiphany or three. What is the meaning of life,

of course. The secret of happiness. And how to not care

what others think. This one, he says, I can give you

half price. It is covered in diamonds and bling.

Something less showy? I suggest. Ah yes,

he says, Good taste. Perhaps this. It’s leather. He sees

I am interested. And I’ll throw in this other for free,

never mind where I got it. I stare at the third epiphany.

Big, I say. Yeah, he agrees, try carrying it around in your coat.

The epiphany looks vaguely familiar. In fact, I’m pretty sure

he stole it from me. And a storm breaks loose

in my mind. Um, no thanks, I say, and walk away.

 

The whole way home, the world offers itself

to me: A spruce tree does nothing but

be a spruce tree. A stone is a stone.

A crow flies above me. I marvel at its wings.

A bluebird sits on the fence and sings.

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Urgency

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Again the urge

to bring gauze

to the broken world—

and medicine

and a plaster cast.

Again the urge

to fix things,

to heal them,

to make them right.

Again the chance

to do the work,

which is to look in,

to touch the pain

but not become it,

to see the world

exactly as it is

and still write it

a love letter,

to meet what is cracked

with clarity,

to mirror and grow

whatever beauty

we find.

 

 

 

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Going In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 12, 2018| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

I thought I could fix it.

Not with a hammer and glue,

but with listening. With loving.

With holding the wounded

in my arms.

 

I thought I could make

it all better, I mean all of it,

you know, the way a mother

kneels before her child

and kisses his thumb

and miraculously the hurt is gone.

 

I thought I could make myself

bigger than the world’s problems,

as if with devotion and will

and practice, I could touch

infinity, embody enormity,

step over the inconvenience

of pain.

 

But came muck. Came tears.

Came anger and shrill and short.

Came small and weak

and tired. Came shame.

Came embarrassment I ever thought

I could be big. Came the surprising

 

pleasure of muck, the way

I can paint it on my face in wide stripes.

Came the gift of exhaustion.

Only then when I stopped

trying to carry the world, only then

did I notice how generously,

all along, the world

has been holding me,

has been holding us all.

 

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