The night my son died
I was companioned by a song—
as if a record player had broken
or as if the angels of love and grief
could agree on only one song to sing.
Deep Peace, I heard,
unable to remember
a single other word to the song.
Deep peace. La la la la la la la.
Deep peace. La la la la la la la.
All night the two syllable lyric
infused itself into my blood,
tattooed itself into my heart,
invited me over and over and over
to let myself be found
by the peace that is always here.
Since that night, the song
attunes me to each moment.
I hum it while doing dishes,
while paying bills, while folding clothes.
I hum it when praying.
When weeping. When alone.
When I wake in the night and feel again
that clenching around my heart.
When I don’t know where to start.
Deep peace as I rest on the shores
of uncertainty. Deep peace
as the waves pull me back in.
to hear this song as sung by Libana, visit here.
Posts Tagged ‘song’
The Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged deep peace, grief, song on September 3, 2023| 13 Comments »
Once Upon a Song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged heart, river, song, tears on August 16, 2023| 14 Comments »
While dancing barefoot in wet grass
with the dark all around us and
the star-bright sky above
and a song in the air and joy
and sorrow crashing through me
in equal force, it is only now
with tears running down my face
I realize the tears themselves
are the river where I can lay down
my burdens, these tears are the stream
that will never run dry, these tears
are the river where I will again
and again and again return to pray,
Oh sister, let’s go down, come on down,
and Hallelujah, at last I know the river
is nowhere if not in my heart,
and if there’s a river here,
then every moment is a baptism,
every moment a chance to be lifted,
to be healed.
Hearing a Beloved Song Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Kayleen Asbo, music, song on April 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
for Kayleen
Sometimes after many dawns
a song returns to the heart
and brings with it a new sweetness,
as if in its absence it went to a faraway place
and bathed in turquoise and gold
and rolled in honey and then waded in petals,
as if it has been spending time
amongst ripe fields of wheat
and swimming in the perfume of love.
When a song returns like that,
it finds new ways to sing in us,
and once again our heart becomes
concert hall, resonant, spacious, ringing,
and then it becomes the song.
Hymn
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, mother, river, song on January 26, 2023| 12 Comments »
The shocking tender curl of him,
wild river, raging, rush of him,
the eddied, lazy swirl of Sunday
morning sleepy smile of him,
the flood-stage leaping wave of him,
high overflowing shores of him,
torrential reckless course of him,
now empty, unfilled banks of—
dry barren rocky bed of—
the utter lack of here of—
the pray-for-rain parched air of him,
dark growing rain cloud storm of him,
the sometimes-I-hear-rapids hum,
deep currents in my lungs of him
how is it I still breathe him in—
the river is inside me hymn.
Big Picture
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged evolution, friendship, geology, hearing, San Miguel River Canyon, singing, song, Ulli Sir Jesse on November 27, 2022| 13 Comments »
On a rocky white outcrop,
Ulli and I stand in silence
at the edge of the canyon,
held by layers that range
from the Permian to the Cretaceous,
and Ulli begins to sing
a song we sang twenty years ago
and, from the strata of memory,
I unearth the German lyric,
excavate the harmony,
and we join our voices
to the structuring of time,
just one more arrangement
of temporal events
added to the linear record
since the singularity.
And the sound waves tremble
in the sensitive membrane drum
between the middle ear
and the cochlea—
a song of connection,
a song of fading light,
a song that somehow
has origins in the Ichthyostega
that crawled from the sea,
the development of Broca’s area
in the left frontal lobe of the brain,
the mountaineers who would sing
to each other across the Alps at dusk,
and this wonderful woman who
brought these words and this tune from Europe
and taught them to me in Colorado
so that decades later
we might stand side by side on this cliff
and know ourselves lucky—
after all that has happened—
lucky to find ourselves in the same remote place
singing the same familiar song,
the molecules a spiraling ricochet of praise,
our song itself part of the matter
that makes the world,
part of a pattern that is ever overlapping.
Is it any wonder
I cried?
Remember This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, Heartbeat, softness, song, tenderness on April 22, 2022| 6 Comments »
for Merce & Bert & Heartbeat
It is true that anger, that betrayal,
that loss, but it is also true
that one day you might follow
a map to a high desert clearing
where there is a home
that runs on sunshine and rainwater,
and the floors are the color
of autumn leaves, and the beds are warm
and soft, and generous strangers
feed you thick soup and dark greens,
warm bread and good wine,
and as the clouds all around you lift,
you find yourself surrounded by song
and the love of good women and
the ripeness of years and you know yourself
as yet another soft animal—
like a rabbit or a fawn—a being
blessed to exist without claw,
without fang, a being blessed
for now to label this tenderness life.
This Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, cold, grief, song, winter on January 17, 2022| 8 Comments »
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.
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.