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Posts Tagged ‘self’

Two Slips

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 9, 2013| 1 Comment »

all that breathing
and not once today did I think
to thank a tree

*

that woman
in the mirror
I think she looks familiar

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Perspective

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2013| 2 Comments »

The biggest hope
I dared to hope,
I drew a circle
round it
and then
stepped
beyond the ring,
and saw myself
a small point
of infinity
how miniature
my greatest
hopes,
how slight
what I
call me.

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At the Edge of the Field

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 24, 2013| 4 Comments »

Like a pinecone
after it’s been trod on

and snowed on and
summered and rained on,

that is how I find myself.
Softer now, and with less

sense of separateness.
The earth has a fine way

of saying here, here.
And gravity, it makes things

so easy. I would not have thought
it sounded so good,

all that wearing down,
lessening to dust.

I could not have imagined
sharing my browns, much less

losing my sharpness, my articulate
serration, spilling my seeds.

Though spilling, that is what seeds
are for. And the opening beyond.

And losing the self, that is perhaps
what a self is for.

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Owl, Coyote, Roadkill Snake

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 13, 2012| 3 Comments »

I used to think
we were
our stories.
Now, I believe
in something
more spare,
stripped of
plot
and title
and character.
Still something
in you touches
something
in me. It’s more
in the silence,
though,
more in the way
the light
makes a nest
of your hand.

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Brush

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 10, 2012| 2 Comments »

The rose petals are gone.
No way to know now
what color they were.
The only perfume here
the scent of November.
The rose hips are dried,
splayed into brown stars.
I once thought that I
could bloom forever.
In our hands the leaves
crinkle and crush.
This is what we were born
for. To grow. To fall.
To know ourselves as dust.

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Driving Late Night with Vivian Rose

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 1, 2012| 4 Comments »

Mommy, she says,
I can see right through myself.
What do you see,
I ask.

I see the night,
she says.
Are there stars,
I ask.

She pauses long.
Yes.
And then a few moments later
she says, Mom, I’ve disappeared.

How do they do it,
these young ones,
teach us to be
so wholly here.

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Taking a Sip

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 25, 2012| 4 Comments »

I wrap my hand
around the glass.
I am two again,
walking in Seattle
with my mother.
Do I really remember
walking up and down
all those stairs, or is it
just the aphoto
and her retelling of it
that I remember?
Why do I think of it now?
I raise the glass.
from the table.
Outside, the trees
are nearly bare.
Autumn is visiting.
I wonder why
the leaves on the tips
are last to go.
Or do they do that only here?
It rises a little more.
Why do we
speak to each other
like this,
in voices I don’t recognize.
Who is she, this woman,
lifting the glass?
The water
meets her lips
just as I think
how thirsty
I am.

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Oh World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 19, 2012| 6 Comments »

Oh world, I love you,
you with your roots
that thrust up through pavement,
you with your mudflows
and rockfalls and storms.
See how daily you feed
and destroy me. How
gorgeous your fruits,
how merciless your gravity.
I love you, world, how
you make me and fuel me
and undo me again and again. Always
another death to die
and always a new bloom.
Never the same, always
the same. World, it feels
too proud to say I am you,
you with your splendor,
you with your grace.
I am dust and ashes.
You move me, adventure me.
World, thy will be done.
My problems are not problems.
My laws all are nonsense.
My rules, my dreams are cages.
Sometimes I forget to let you
raze me. I try to wrestle
the club from your hands.
And when the destruction
is done, I try to rebuild the walls,
not seeing you were offering me
infinity. Sometimes you first bring me milk,
then tear me down tenderly,
your hands the hands of a lover
undressing me slowly, but not
stopping with the scarf, the skirt—
taking also every idea I have,
every certainty, every word,
everything I would say is mine.
World I am rambling through
the silence you hold for me.
I am like a woman dying of thirst
who splashes the water with eager hands
instead of cupping it, raising it to her parched lips.
Oh world, I am losing my mind
and laughing about it. All language
is dust, and look, you blow it away.
Still I am talking to you, crazy,
I love you, I love you. Come wind,
catch these words, rend them
from the one who thinks
she is speaking. Let them fall
all around her like leaves.

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Eight Escapes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 9, 2012| 3 Comments »

still buds
already the lily perfume
opens

*

walking the fallen log
a fallen
woman

*

the heart
it
seeps

*

diamonds
don’t make it
to the lost and found

*

me, my shadow
attached
unattached

*

better to be lost
she thought
stepping out of the lines

*

running
my laugh
on my heels

*

here
there
a day leaks through them

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Change: Six Attempts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2012| 3 Comments »

I tell myself
there will be more light
still I don’t like it
this scent of old wood splintering
as the roof blows apart

*

my life packed
in boxes–the urge
to lose them

*

the orchards in us
not enough hands
to harvest all this ripeness

*

one heron
in great blue wings he gathers
the whole world

*

I thought I knew
who I was, then the bars
bent enough
I could slip outside of her
how many bars don’t I see?

*

sky so pink
I make of myself
an offering

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