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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 »

IMG_0284

 

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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Why I Write Poems

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

It’s not so much because

poems make things better—

don’t heal the sick, don’t

stop a war, don’t make the bread

any less stale, don’t bring

people back from the dead.

But poems do have a way

of making me feel more

okay with the world not

being the way I wish it were.

They say yes to the world,

again and again, telling it

like it is. And then,

like a dandelion

already gone to seed,

they wait for the gust

that will strip them bare

until all that’s left

is a hint that once

there was something

lovely here.

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There Is Only the Field

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 9, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

We stand in the field.

I swallow any words

that might try to fix things.

Some things cannot be fixed.

Instead, we say the words

that make us weep.

Grief stands with us then,

and holds us

with absolute tenderness,

its arms impossibly kind.

It starts to rain.

We do not move to leave.

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All Around the Cobbler’s Bench

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 26, 2017| 6 Comments »

 

 

 

It’s like keeping a weasel in the freezer,

this wishing things were different than they are.

What could possible change

when what is most playful, most wild

is put on ice? Let your prayer be living weasel,

running weasel, frolicking and tricky weasel,

slinking weasel, leaping weasel, wriggling

ferocious weasel. The more you wish,

the more the temperature

on your wishes drops.

Weasel, weasel, weasel,

weasel, weasel, weasel, pop.

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And Touch All Our Most Vulnerable Places

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

After hoping and trying

and failing and hoping

and trying and failing

and hoping and trying

and failing the mind

perhaps will finally say

I don’t know what comes next

and, startled by the sweet

clarity of this, the body

raises both arms, though

the mind didn’t tell it to—

yes, the arms rise weightless

and open, as if there is nothing

they aren’t ready to embrace,

as if the world as it is

might come rushing in.

 

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Falling In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 12, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

Sure you’ve delighted in mud before,

slathered it all over your skin

beside the brown currents of the Gunnison

until the only unmuddied parts of you

are your teeth, your tongue, your eyes.

 

Sure you’ve been baptized before

with gray muck by your best friend

on the edge of the Blue Lakes Road,

her slender hands anointing your forehead

with the color of high mountain shale.

 

You’ve painted with mud on desert rocks

and rolled in mud with your son,

but that doesn’t mean you want

to get muddy now, not when you’re so clean

and on retreat, not when you’re so so very very

 

not not muddy. So you skirt messy ruts

and you gingerly side step, you pussy foot,

weaving your way on the spring-puddled road,

but one slip and one oops and you’re in it again, ankle deep,

and what to do now but laugh

 

and notice how the path expands

when you no longer need to watch

where you’re going—how much more open

the world has become, how available you are

to any step that comes next.

 

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That’s the Kind of Summer It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 6, 2015| 1 Comment »

tall and clear

wholly illumined by sun

slowly I learn to see

the vase as lovely

even without the sunflowers

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Such Bright Yellow Petals

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 5, 2015| 1 Comment »

“Come on,” I say, “come on,

this is your only chance.”

Every day for a month

I have walked into the garden

to speak to the sunflowers.

I try not to sound too urgent.

I don’t want to scare them,

but it is September and they

are still tall green stalks

with small tight buds.

“Come on,” I say. “There is still

warmth enough for you to bloom.

It’s what you are here to do.”

Just yesterday there was an inch

of hail on the divide. Every day,

it seems less likely that there will

be sunflowers this year. I notice

how much I want them to bloom,

how they have become more to me

than sunflowers in the garden.

What is it in us that wants

to see things flourish, especially

seeds sown by our own hands?

The sunflowers will bloom or they

will not. The moment I relax into this—

saying yes to the world just as it is—

inside me, I feel acres and acres

of golden heads all nodding.

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Picking Blackberries

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 24, 2015| 1 Comment »

with gratitude to Christie and Dave for their generous hearts and abundant backyard

The thickets are always thicker than I think,

climbing the branches of nearby trees and snaking

through the grass. And red berries are always greener

than I wish, full of pucker and startling bite.

But the blackest of berries, the duller ones, bulbous,

and days past their shine, they are sweeter than I dream.

Sometimes I imagine the way a thing will be—

invent it as something grander than itself.

But the blackberry, ripened in its woodland bramble,

stains the fingers and sings on the tongue

with all the sweetness late summer can gather

and spends all its pleasure at once. Sometimes

there is no better fantasy than the thing itself—

the thorns an integral part of the story. Sometimes

I wish that the stain would never leave.

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Always Between

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 3, 2015| 2 Comments »

Between the moth wing

and the fire,

between the river

and the road,

between the moon

and what we’re told,

between loss

and a kiss,

there is this sense

that anything

might happen—

a wound, a word,

a wondering,

an opening

to the world

just as it is.

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While Driving Across the Divide, It Occurred to Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 25, 2015| 7 Comments »

Perhaps when we finally see
there is no point to making things
look any better than they are,

then whatever friction
we’ve found in the world
is met with rose oil

and the great heavy gears
cease to grind
and spin with silent ease.

The only sustainable plots
are the ones no one has planted—
ones in which flowers, grasses and trees

rise up on their own.
They know when to sprout,
when to bloom, when to seed.

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