Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poems, poetry, relationships, soul on April 7, 2012| 6 Comments »
The first things to break
are made of glass—
tumblers, vases,
window panes—
then the wood,
how it snaps,
the floors, the counters,
the entire frame,
and even the metal—
the stainless, the iron,
the rings,
it all shatters, collapses,
everything,
and it takes a long time
for the shards and dust,
for the wreckage and the whole ruined lot
to become what it is,
just a heap of stuff,
not what we are made of,
not at all what we are made of.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, poems, poetry, soul on March 7, 2012| 6 Comments »
At dinner, I heard
about those in a tribe who,
as they die, will tie
around the dying one’s finger
a string long enough
to reach the sea. The other end
is attached to a boat
to carry away the soul.
I have wanted such a string,
not for when I am dead,
but for when I am alive,
something to secure me
to that most intangible part
of myself, as if it could be lost.
Perhaps the string would be less tether
and more reminder
that that distant land
wherever it is we go when we’re gone
is a lot closer than I think,
close enough that it’s probably
even now touching where the soft frayed ends
would be dangling so near my finger tip.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged couplets, lace, letting go, process, soul, tetrameter on November 11, 2011| 2 Comments »
Soul, you are the empty space
honored by the maker of lace,
you the holes that are always there,
and we the threads that frame the air.
You the gap, the empty, the naught,
and we the ones cutting away the cloth
to arrive at the nothing that links us all,
unweaving, unbraiding, elated, enthralled.