Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, gardening, poem, poetry, silence on May 14, 2017| 2 Comments »
Digging there in the dirt
with small seeds
in your hands
you hear the wind
high in the cottonwoods,
you hear the silence
sown inside the wind,
and the quieter
you are, you hear
perhaps, within you
a call like the geese
that aren’t flying
overhead, a startling
call, an almost
strangled sound
that, if you heard it,
might almost
wake you up.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence, spring snow on April 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »
willing my feet
to go slowly, slower
than that, eavesdropping
on some inner quiet
I’d forgotten was there
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, poem, poetry, silence on March 12, 2017| 2 Comments »
While the wind chime clinks and the magpie
chatters and the mare nickers and the
doves swoon and the melting snow
tinkles and the passing cars purr
there’s a woman who listens
surprised at how what she hears
most of all is a stillness inside her
that seems to spill its quiet
all over the clamor of morning,
perhaps the way the shadow
of the mountain seems to spill
across the earth and changes nothing
and changes everything.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence, uncertainty on February 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Between us a silence
so fragile that half of me
fears it will shatter
and cut us, half of me fears
it will erupt and we’ll burn,
and half of me thinks
if I stay still enough,
something beautiful
might emerge.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence on December 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »
the great sheet of silence
in December’s empty meadow—
I fold and crease it
into a white paper crane—
all evening it flutters beneath my thoughts
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence on May 16, 2016| 3 Comments »
Our noisy outer world is but a reflection of the noise inside: our incessant need to be occupied, to be doing something.
—Three Types of Laziness, Tenzin Palmo
Sit with me. Let’s say nothing at all.
There is nothing that must be said.
The impulse to comment on weather,
we’ll feel it rise and melt away.
The weather will do what the weather does,
will rain, will shine, will hail.
Perhaps we will feel the need
to comment on the light or to wonder
when things will be different than they are now
or to worry about all the problems
that we will never be able to fix.
Urgency only lasts so long before
it disappears. How did we ever
believe we belonged anywhere
but here? Though the rain
is gone, the scent of rain persists.
If we are quiet long enough,
it will say everything that must be said.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, prayer, silence on April 26, 2016| 1 Comment »
in the beginning
before the word
the silence
*
walking the other
direction it’s so obvious,
that waterfall we missed
*
in my pocket
this laughter—all day
I pat it to check if it’s still there
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, love, poem, poetry, silence, song on October 24, 2015| 2 Comments »
in the forest of you
I will find the empty branches,
become a song bird
*
don’t get me wrong—
I, too, love silence,
shall we speak it together?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry, silence, song on October 7, 2015| 3 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged invitation, love, poem, poetry, silence, triolet on March 9, 2015| 3 Comments »
When there is nothing left to say
please come and find me then.
We’ll stroll in golden fields all day
when there is nothing left to say—
we’ll reunite in other ways,
bouquets of touch and listening hands.
Hush, there is nothing left to say.
Please come and find me, then.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged doing, meditation, poem, poetry, silence on October 27, 2014| 3 Comments »
Not running, not humming, not
flying a kite, not rowing,
not kissing, not kneading soft dough,
not sipping mint tea, not shoveling sand,
not raking, not lifting, not opening doors,
not thinking of you except when I do
to say to myself to stop thinking of you,
not writing a grant, not washing
the floor, and meanwhile the silence
is silent beneath all my nattering
chatter and for an instant between
the not folding, not driving,
not typing, not weeding
the infinite nothing of silence
not changing, not able to be told.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged conversation, language, love, poem, poetry, silence on March 23, 2014| 9 Comments »
Speak to me soft
in a voice so low that I lean in,
and speak to me in idioms
of night. Let’s lose any lens
that condemns. Let’s forget
any tongues that speak in
blades or claws. Speak awe.
Speak yes. Speak song. Translate
my fear into tenderness.
Converse in amber.
Converse in ice melt clear.
Speak quietly. Speak near
in tones that I more feel
than hear. Speak broken.
Speak wing. Let’s mislay our will
to judge. Let us be uncaged, untethered,
let us be light, fluent in warmth
in greening, in spring. And let
us be lighter than that. And lighter.
Speak in nothing. In the morning,
let’s give everything away.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, dog, noticing, poem, poetry, silence on February 15, 2014| 5 Comments »
They had razor-sharp teeth
and powerful jaws,
those words I almost
let charge out of my mouth.
They were looking
at your neck, your chest.
And then, with my hand
reaching to undo the leash,
I noticed through
the window how the juniper
is more silver than green.
It’s a silly thing, but
it stopped me long
enough to notice how
the silence, too, has
a silvery hue. And
for that second, I chose
not to fill it with gnashing.
Not the next moment
either. Suddenly, in every
moment, there is more
to notice. The words
follow my gaze and perk
up their ears. We all get
very quiet. None of us want
to miss a thing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratitude, love, poem, poetry, silence, thanksgiving on November 28, 2013| 5 Comments »
After the last dishes are done
and before we start the next thing to do,
this is a favorite time with you,
when we are almost lost in the house,
a bit purposeless. Our bellies satisfied,
our children asleep. That is when
we might sit side by side
on the couch, and curl into each other.
We don’t have to say anything at all.
Every breath is a bridge.
I feel you crossing over.
Such a subtle perfume, but there
it is, the scent of gratitude.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, self pity, silence on February 14, 2013| 2 Comments »
Look at me, carrying around
this beggar’s bowl, moaning
and holding my lower back. Spiders
run from me. Buzzards
circle me. The mirror
goes on strike and refuses to make
the same faces I’m making.
Even the pond surface won’t
take me seriously and ripples
itself instead of reflecting
such scowls. But listen,
I say, to no one, myself,
first he said this and then
I said … and the wind comes
from nowhere and shreds
my arguments. The vowels fall
out and disappear in the grass
and the consonants cluster
in a nearby tree until squirrels
come to steal them, one by one,
and store them in their nests
for safekeeping. Sometimes
a gal needs to shut up before
she can see clearly enough to notice
her bowl isn’t empty, it’s full.
Of light.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, silence, touch, triolet on February 2, 2013| 3 Comments »
Let’s not talk of things we’ve done,
let’s correspond with touch.
Your skin the land, my hands the sun,
love, let’s not talk of things we’ve done—
we’ll let our chatty fingers run
in tangled narratives… oh hush
mmm, let’s not talk of things we’ve done,
let’s correspond with touch.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged minute form, personalizing, poem, poetry, silence, waiting on January 26, 2013| 5 Comments »
Did he just say what I just heard?
Those unkind words—
malicious pokes
disguised as jokes.
Should I carp back? Or balk? Or scoff?
Just laugh it off?
Stare blank as sky?
Collapse and cry?
Or keep on making oolong tea,
for him, for me.
A silent room.
The dark leaves bloom.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ice, joy, love, poem, poetry, silence on January 21, 2013| 3 Comments »
I love this place beneath the cliff.
The sun does not shine here all winter.
The water flows and the water
stops itself in the cold and the water
finds a new way. I remember
how quiet it was when I told you
what you did not want to hear.
Perhaps the clock kept keeping time
but the moon stopped.
I think of how much has changed
since then. And how much
life is the same. The silence
here is beautifully made. It is more than
the small sound of the moving
river. It is more than memory.
Suffering is not the only truth.
There is joy. There is grace.
There is peace.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, silence, stillness, surrender on January 7, 2013| 3 Comments »
Silence
I am tired
of evading
you.
Was that
your plan
all along,
to outwait me,
knowing
that sooner
or later
after all that
one-sided
conversation
and rumpus
I’d need a drink
of water
and take
by sweet accident
a sip
of you.