Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘showing up’

At Five

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 19, 2022| 3 Comments »




Along the lake and down the hill,
the road dead ended into a meadow
with a wooden fence a girl could slip through,

and slip through she did,
that five-year-old version of me,
slipped through the gaps into the tall green grass

and then wandered to the lake
where the weeping willow hung over the shoreline
and she could sit beneath its shade and disappear—

or perhaps more rightly, she could show up.
As herself. Show up not as a girl who lived up the road
but as shade, as shore, as tree,

as field, as green beyond the fence.
Perhaps it only happened once or twice,
that journey past the dead end,

but forty-seven years later, I remember
the dissolution, how beneath that tree
I was no longer who I was, only more so.

How I knew myself as integral to the miracle.
There were whole decades I forgot her,
that infinite version of me.

Tonight I can tell she never left.
How did she ever fit in my limited sense of self?
What does she have to teach me now

of fences, of shadows,
of sitting quietly,
of the art of slipping through?

Read Full Post »

Lesson from the Coyote Willows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »


 
 
Only when it rains do coyote willows
turn their brightest red, as they do
today in the drizzle and gray, and oh,
how I fall in love with them now,
these slender stems that know
how to regenerate from brokenness,
bringing their brilliant vermillion
to the dim of the day.
 
Let us live this way. When it is dark,
let us find what is brightest in us
and share it with the soggy world,
a thicket of grace in the midst of gloom,
not fancy, but rampant and so deeply willing
to share radiance, to dazzle, to blaze.

Read Full Post »

Lesson from the Ouzel

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2021| 5 Comments »

Sometimes I want to be anywhere but here,
but today, I let myself feel it all.

I go to the river covered in ice,
and move along the bank until

I find the open places where the dark-feathered ouzel
chooses to submerge in the cold, cold water—

It doesn’t hesitate to plunge into frigid depths.
It knows it was made for this.

Read Full Post »

Viola Tricolor

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 31, 2020| 2 Comments »

IMG_6026

also known as Johnny jump up, heart’s ease, heart’s delight, come and cuddle me

 

 

Into the shade by the porch

bloomed the first wild pansy,

its small yellow face sunny

and eager and open.

 

The Athenians used to make

the tiny flowers into syrup

to moderate anger and

to comfort and strengthen the heart.

 

And here it is today,

small volunteer beauty,

growing in this patch of dirt

where nothing else wants to grow.

 

This tiny garden is but one of many

concurrent realities—others involve

hospitals short of beds, loved ones

gone, doctors scared to go home.

 

Our hearts need strengthening.

Little violet, we’re learning, too,

how to be surrounded by death

and still rise up, bring healing as we bloom.

Read Full Post »

The Way the Spider Does

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 23, 2019| 2 Comments »

That is the way

I would like to meet the world,

my work both beautiful

and useful,

bringing into any

dark corner a lattice

for gathering light.

And though I may

be feared, hated, reviled,

still, I’d show up,

delicate and fierce,

I’d show up.

Read Full Post »

Thoughts After Watching The Taming of the Shrew

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

And after the lying and cheating

and scratching and beating

and lusting and raging,

deceiving and craving,

after almost three hours

we finally know

that no one, no one

is a hero.

And we walk

through the rain

on this imperfect night

to the stain of our cars

and our imperfect lives.

And it rains.

In the great cast list,

my name will be

listed as the woman

who always played me—

the one who never

quite got the role right,

but damn,

she showed up

with her lines

every night.

 

Read Full Post »

Showing Up

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 29, 2015| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

Before I pray

I do not wash

my hands—

not out of disrespect

but because

I do not

want to pretend

to be any cleaner

than I really am,

this filth,

this patina of depravity,

this is part

of why

I have come

to pray—

if I waited

to wash the stains

from my skin,

my lips, my sleeves,

I might

never pray

at all.

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: