Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, poem, poetry, self, tree on March 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »
When climbing the inner branches
of the largest spruce we can find,
and finding the prickly lattice
an easier ladder than we imagined,
we might climb high enough
that we forget if we are climbing
to get away from or to move toward,
might climb long enough
that at last it is neither tree
nor land nor sky that feels
like home, but our own
limbs as they find the next place
to step, to pull up, to rest.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, darkness, night, poem, poetry, self, union on January 28, 2016| 3 Comments »
the dark is less dark
and the shapes of the world
reveal again their singular shapes—
I know they don’t really lose their lines in the dark,
but I like to imagine all those newly
illumined silhouettes
have spent the night blurred, puddled
into one immense darkness,
forgetting for a while
that they have any lines
worth preserving.
It is enough to make a woman
wish that the light
would never come
if that is what it takes
to make us all remember
how arbitrary they are,
these boundaries we like
to call ourselves.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, poem, poetry, self on May 14, 2015| 2 Comments »
Here, I say, I am here for you,
and then I run the other way.
My legs are two trees. They never
leave. Everywhere I go, I am rooted.
My legs are two rivers. They escape
in every moment. I am always
where I’ve never been. There is only
yes, and still I say no. The truth is
I do not want to be known. The truth
is you know me already.
I open my mouth to speak and your
voice pours out. It is my voice
that lives on your lips.
What is all this interest in yours
and mine? Sometimes I believe
these invisible lines. And sometimes,
sometimes I am here, I say.
And then I run the other way.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, self, wrestling on March 20, 2015| 4 Comments »
I have made of my body a wrestling ring—
in one corner, the defender. She wears
a high turtle neck and her hair in a bun.
She holds up her fists to the world, to anyone
who tries to touch her. On her belt, it says,
I Don’t Need Anything. She fired her trainer
long ago. And she’s staring down the challenger,
who has shown up to the match in a soft
pink dress and bare feet. The challenger
smiles at the champ. It’s a genuine smile.
She holds out a hand to shake, but the
defender glares and starts to circle her. There
is no referee. The challenger, she wants
to be held, to be loved, to share warmth,
and she’s willing to stand in this ring
and take the hits. But after forty some years
of circling each other, they’re both getting tired
and wouldn’t it be something if one day
they took down the ropes and got really curious
about what might happen next. I’d like to think
that ring might become an altar, a place
they might meet and say yes to each other,
a place where everything is offered
and anything might happen.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged delight, poem, poetry, self, sonnet, surrender on February 18, 2015| 5 Comments »
In spite of everything, an odd delight
upsurges in the body, like a tide
that claims a rocky shore, or like a wide
and widening pool of morning light—
except it’s messier. It spills, despite
our thin attempts to hold its force inside.
It sloshes, splatters, overflows. It slides
and slips, it floods, upends, engulfs, unrights.
Oh fierce irrational joy! It doesn’t care
about the setting. Doesn’t care who sees.
It soaks us with its ecstasy, its strange
unruly grace. And then it’s gone. No prayer
or pretty please will make it stay. And we
are changed: yes, still ourselves, but rearranged.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged essence, identity, moon, poem, poetry, self on February 3, 2015| 4 Comments »
While the moon watcher stands
out on the porch in her towel
and stares at the almost full moon,
the practical one starts to fuss
about how she’ll catch cold with wet hair,
and the list maker is already thinking
of all the things to be done
when she gets back inside,
“Like go check on your kids
to be sure they’re asleep,” says the mother,
and that’s when the laid-back one says,
“Oh relax, they’re fine, drink some wine,”
and the optimist notes what a sparkling
night it is, how the snow in the field
has never, ever been so luminous,
and the pleaser agrees with her
and says, “Never, ever so luminous,
you’re so right, oh it’s beautiful out here,”
at which the budding wise ass says,
“You’ve seen one moon, you’ve seen ’em all,”
and moon watcher almost sticks out her tongue,
but that is not like her, not like her at all,
and she marvels at the impulse, how it seemed
to rise out of nowhere, just like that gorgeous
enormous shining orb. “Oh yes,” says the scientist,
“Did you know that the moon’s surface
has exceptionally low albedo, giving it a reflectance
only slightly brighter than that of worn asphalt,”
and that’s when the reporter jumps in and begins
to take notes. And the little girl says, “There’s a bunny
in there, do you see it, do you see it tilting on its side,”
and the lover, feeling lonely, wishes she had someone
with her to watch the shining moon as it slides
all the way across the visible sky, somehow
never noticing all that company she’s keeping
on this luminous, cold night.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged identity, poem, poetry, self on November 25, 2014| 1 Comment »
I do not tell him that the woman
in the photo, who looks just like me,
only 12 years younger, does not exist.
She is smiling in the way that only
a woman who has not yet had children
can smile. She knows nothing yet
of how desperate she will become,
how she will lie, how she’ll tell the truth,
how she’ll lose her sense of worth and
replace it with, well, it’s impossible to say.
So instead, when he says, “Is this you,”
I say, “Yes, travelling to Chicago today.”
