It is true, every day
brings a sadness—
sometimes like a blizzard,
sometimes like sleet,
sometimes like a clear morning
of fifteen below,
but I do not wish any of it away.
On the coldest mornings here,
the birds that choose to stay
fluff up their feathers
to trap in the chill air,
warming it with their own bodies
until it becomes their insulation.
This is, perhaps, how it is with grief—
by holding it close,
it transforms from something
that would hurt me
to something I infuse
with my own being,
thus becoming something
that allows me to survive.
It would be wrong
to say I like it. But I hear
how, with every day,
it is teaching me
a new way to sing.
Posts Tagged ‘song’
This Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, cold, grief, song, winter on January 17, 2022| 8 Comments »
Unity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, Heartbeat, singing, song on January 5, 2022| 6 Comments »
Today we lose the words
yours and mine and find
in their absence a song
that can only be sung together.
How did we ever think
we could attempt
this humanness alone?
To the table of love,
we bring soup, bring cherries,
bring the bread of our own
sweet communion.
We bring scissors to cut away
the tresses of the past,
bring dark wine to toast
the courage of showing up exposed.
And when we forget
the words to the song,
well, there is always laughter.
And when we forget to laugh,
well, there is always
the union of tears—
the way many rivers
become one river,
the way many voices
become one song.
George of the Jungle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, imagination, song on March 11, 2021| 2 Comments »
My father sings
and I am again
a girl being bounced
on his lap, wondering
if there really is
a jungle somewhere
where a monkey eats nails,
and why would a monkey do that,
and doesn’t it hurt?
My father is laughing,
his eyes glitter with tropical shine,
and I understand
he is traveling in a world
of imagination
and gave me
an invitation to go with him—
fifty years later,
we are still swinging
through that curious jungle,
singing, wondering
about that crazy monkey,
his strange choices,
blessing these surprising worlds
that bring us
together.
The Song Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, longing, loss, love, song on March 4, 2021| 4 Comments »
Lyrics from “Golden Slumbers” by Paul McCartney and John Lennon
I love when my lyric
slips into your thoughts,
when I float from your lips
for hours. Once there was a way
to get back homeward.
Sometimes I even believe
my own lines.
Once there was a way
to get back home.
Sometimes when you sing me,
I have faith in home.
Please pretty darling do not cry.
And yet you do cry
and make me want to forget
I am a song about longing,
a song of loss.
I want to be the song of finding,
song of arriving together,
song of coming home.
I want to be the song
that lies down to sleep
beside your heart each night.
I will sing a lullaby.
I want to be the song
that that makes you breakfast.
The song that dances with you
in the living room.
The song that always stays.
One in the Woods
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, shadow, snow, song, winter on January 3, 2021| 2 Comments »
That Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, loss, lost, map, music, song on July 7, 2020| 2 Comments »
I want to slip into the song
you sang, the one with verse
about loss. I want to hang
on its notes as if they were branches
I could swing from, want to climb
through its chorus, want to meet it
in its rests, want to offer it tea.
I want to ask the guitar
about your fingers, about
how they knew where
to find the melody. And how?
I want to speak with the loss itself,
want to ask it if it’s sure its lost,
want to offer it a map made of apples
and wings and moon.
I want to hear the silence after
the song, and then beg it, beg it,
to keep singing.
Storage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, song, sonnet on June 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I want to hear the green song in the veins of the leaves,
the dark song of soil as it warms in the midsummer sun.
I want to learn the low ballad of beets as they swell,
the racy soprano of strawberries flirty and sweet,
the slow bass of the lonesome potatoes as they fill out their lumps.
How have I not harmonized with the thrust of sunflowers?
How have I missed the chive chorus? The verses of nasturtium?
The chanting of onions as they steep in their own minor key?
If there is a garden holler known by the garlic,
world, teach it to me. I want to hear the carrots
as they reach trustingly down, down, down.
I want to carry those midsummer songs in my bones
so when winter comes, and I forget how things grow,
though it’s quiet and cold, I’ll remember, I’ll remember.
Always Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, home, song on June 6, 2020| 8 Comments »
And on that Saturday morning
when you feel isolated, alone,
no matter the time, or even
if it’s a Tuesday, call me.
I won’t be able to fix anything,
but I will remind you that you
are home, right there in your body,
you are home. And I will listen
as you weep. I will listen.
And though I won’t sing
in a way you can hear,
I will sing for you. I will sing
a circle around you,
I will sing you home.
New Soundtrack
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged improvisation, music, singing, song, sound, spontaneity on May 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
All day the world improvises
a song for me—song of bickering robins
and whispering grass, bright chime
of a text and gravel trucks that grumble
on the highway as they pass.
The song I would sing for you, let it be
as spontaneous as the chattering
of the cat watching hummingbirds,
as sharp as the flap of the flag in the wind.
Let me not sing the same song I’ve sung before.
This is the time to sing it new, to sing
the song we didn’t know we were brave enough
to sing. This is the time to sing
the most honest song, thorn song,
green song, yelp of relentless shine.
This is the time to sing as if our lives
depend on it, sing the song
that comes out of attending.
Song of pushing through dirt.
Song we don’t know yet.
After Reading the Headline About Rising Deaths
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, Corona Virus, courage, garden, resilience, song on May 4, 2020| 3 Comments »
Today I take the courage I don’t feel
and the resilience I doubt and
all my unspent longing to serve,
and I bring them, cupped in my hands,
to the garden. They nestle there in my palms
like three baby birds that have not yet
opened their eyes. I take them to hear
the pungent song of the garlic shoots
and the thriving chives who chant
how to survive the winter.
I bring them to hear the strawberry leaves
who sing how to flourish despite the frost.
and the old song of chicken manure
and composted grass that hum about
how old life begets new life.
And they open their tiny beaks,
as if they could eat the green song.
How vulnerable they are.
So I open to the song, too.
I do what must be done.
I take in the nourishing song,
and feed them with my own mouth.