I say I love you, but what I mean is
there is deep sky between us I don’t know
how to travel, and there is no map, no path,
and it’s cold, and I don’t know how
to fly, but when I say I love you, I mean
somehow despite these too solid bones,
a raven-sharp wisdom is clawing through me,
and though it hurts I feel them swelling
beneath my skin, these determined wings.
Posts Tagged ‘separation’
What It Takes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged disconnect, growth, love, separation, wings on January 25, 2025| 2 Comments »
Inside It All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged atoms, connection, mask, separation on August 7, 2023| 11 Comments »
Beneath the masks, beneath the names,
beneath ideals, beneath the shoulds
is a thrumming, ecstatic atomic swirl,
unseen and omnipresent, inescapable
and holy—a divine blurring of being,
a realm of charge and energy—
most of it empty space. Sometimes,
I remember this. Perhaps walking
in the woods or standing in the midst
of a city’s whir, perhaps working in the kitchen
or singing in a choir, I remember
who we really are, remember
not with mind but with being,
and I’m lost in it, found in it,
alive in the cloud of it, astonished
with the sacred design of it,
elegant soup of it,
elemental swirl of it all.
How is it I sometimes
see only woman, man,
cottonwood, spider, self, other,
other, other, other?
We walk this journey
of separation together.
Oh being who is lonely,
who is holy, remember?
So Far Away and Not Allowed In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, healing, hospital, separation, touch on May 13, 2020| 12 Comments »
Because I cannot be there to hold my father’s hand,
I walk into my children’s room and hold my daughter and son—
as if love in one room emits a wave strong enough
to be felt many states away. Because I am afraid,
I don’t try to pretend I am not. Tears run hot
down my face and I don’t dam them.
When they dry, I let them dry.
Because I am helpless to fix my father’s kidneys,
I tell him I love him, as if words could help
filter his blood before returning it to his heart,
his tender heart.
Because the helicopter is flying him to Miami,
the blades of my worry begin to spin.
Because I can’t stop them, I turn them
into a giant wing that carries prayers
into the rooms where I’m not allowed to go.
And though I’m not there, I hold his hand,
imagine it heavy in my own. Because maybe
he can feel it. Because I don’t want him to be alone.
If We Can’t Tear the Wall Down, Then
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, poem, poetry, separation, wall on May 6, 2018| 2 Comments »
Inside
the
wall
between
us
there’s
a
very
thin
room—
let’s
take
two
chairs
and
sit
in
there—
not
on
my
side
nor
yours,
but
wholly
in
the
place
that
divides
us.
I
wonder
how
much
more
clearly
we
will
hear
each
other
without
that
wall
between
us
?
Coming Together
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, connection, poem, poetry, separation on March 23, 2015| 2 Comments »
It could be as simple as a log placed over the distance
that separates me from you. A fallen cottonwood tree.
But it’s never that simple, is it. That was not really a question.
Look, I have my shovel, my level, my concrete blocks.
I have support beams and metal straps, planks and nails.
I am ready to do whatever it takes to build this bridge. But it doesn’t
take an engineer to know that foundations need firm, fixed
dry ground. And you and I, we are moving targets.
Whatever I think I know about bridges is not serving me now.
Time to consider a new kind of span. Something elastic,
adaptable, accommodating, and, is it too much to ask,
durable. Perhaps the problem is that we ourselves are the obstacles
we’re trying to cross. We want and don’t want to be close.
We sabotage our chances to meet. I am going to start thinking
in new metaphors. Like migrations. Like rivers. Like wind that churns
and touches and bends every blade of goldening wheat.
On a January Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged distance, illusion, love, poem, poetry, separation on January 22, 2015| 3 Comments »
less than the width
of my thumb, the distance between
Venus and the moon—
and you, in arm’s reach,
light years away
Best Intentions
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, separation on October 5, 2014| 1 Comment »
if the road were shorter
and the time more long,
but the road is not shorter
and the time is ever taken,
I would meet you every day
Visiting Carter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged counting, poem, poetry, seamlessness, separation, unity on September 8, 2014| 1 Comment »
Because the boy
has just learned to count,
he points to the stars
and says, “One.”
He does not yet
have a word for two.
Someday, perhaps,
I will be able
to survey
everything I see
and arrive
at the same number.
Weatherman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fog, love, patience, poem, separation, unity on August 25, 2012| 4 Comments »
It touches everything,
the fog, each tree, each
home, each shoulder,
each street, and drapes
us with uncertainty. It
blurs our lines and softens
the boundary where one thing
ends and another begins—
the boat and the water, the peach
and the branch, the farmer and
the farmer’s wife. Why prefer
a clarity, an empty blue bell-ringing
sky when the fog, it holds
us all so unconditionally.
It will be clear
soon enough.
All Around Us
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, Denver, night, poem, poetry, separation, unity on July 30, 2012| 3 Comments »
The hotel’s sixth floor balcony
is high enough to see the Denver lights
and low enough to look up at the Double Tree sign,
which outshines the exile moon.
The air wears the thickness of city rain
recently fallen with nowhere to seep.
What loneliness cannot be met by the night?
Does dark travel as fast as the speed of light,
or is it the given, the track, the slate?
On Quebec Street, the buses are empty.
They stop at the corner and wait, then go on.
And the night, it somehow holds us all
on our separate stoops, in our separate doors,
on our separate lawns with our separate lives,
hold us all, doesn’t even ask our names.
Three Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, haiku, poem, separation, tong-len on July 26, 2012| 2 Comments »
in my hands it broke
the spine of the book
with your name on it
*
fallen petals
this table where we were not
eating together
*
beneath the half moon
I breathe in darkness
what’s left is light
So Much For the Honey Badger Approach to Mothering Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged arguing, mothering, separation, tall poppies, tanka on June 22, 2012| 3 Comments »
he pushes and he
pushes and he pushes and
he pushes and I
push back and we both topple
tall poppies hacked at the stem
Four Questions And
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, inquiry, poems, poetry, separation, tanka, unity on February 29, 2012| 2 Comments »
are you sharing it
with me, this
loneliness?
*
how do they do it,
those birds, keeping a course
through the gale
when even in this still, still room
I can hardly take one step
*
alone is more
alone than
I thought
*
as I fall
I feel how this, too,
is dancing
*
that small voice,
quiet as petals, says
why not be the one
who tears down any wall
that stands between two hearts
*
falling, falling,
I don’t know when I stopped
wanting to be caught
*
new snow in the field
the only tracks there
one woman dancing
*
they sure do mess up
the sheets—excitement
and grief
*
who is the one
that falls and who is the one
who notices her falling
*
midnight.
the power out, I make
of myself a light
Shall I Get Out My Shovel Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, loss, love, poem, poetry, separation, tanka, winter on February 14, 2012| 2 Comments »
such a short time
I’ve been gone, but now how high
the drifts of snow where
once we danced a path between
my house and yours
Watching the Words Turn to Clouds
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged letting go, love, parents, poems, poetry, separation on February 12, 2012| 6 Comments »
I cannot find
the right way
to say goodbye
to you and so
I watch your car
drive away
and only
then say
the impossible
please
don’t go.