Night unbuttons its coat
and all those stars fall out—
I feel no need
to name them
nor order them
nor to measure their distance,
to calculate their age.
I still cannot find
the lines that others use
to link one to another,
but sometimes I sense
the invisible ladders
that link the stars
to you, to me.
Posts Tagged ‘stars’
Remembering to Look Up
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, stars on November 22, 2014| 4 Comments »
Let’s Not Give It a Name
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, mystery, poem, stars on September 5, 2013| 1 Comment »
dusting off all these
stars we’ve forgotten
to wish on, surprised
to find a new
constellation
Two at Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, night, poems, stars, unity on October 5, 2012| 2 Comments »
staring at stars
with these eyes made of
old stars
*
what is your address?
I ask my girl, hoping she’ll say
earth
Five Unlearning Haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged haiku, kiss, letting go, losing the self, mine, poem, possession, relaxing, sky, stars, uncertainty, unlearning, wind on February 4, 2012| 1 Comment »
That wind always tries
to undress me … today
it took my name, too.
*
It’s hard to be
serious when you’re kissing
my elbows.
*
What’s that? It’s only
supposed to have seventeen
syllables? But the sky today deserves at least twenty-five.
*
Erase the word mine
from these lips. Replace it with
nothing.
*
Tonight the stars
are just stars, the lines that link
them all undrawn.
five haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emptiness, freedom, haiku, love, perspective, poem, shy, stars, sun, words on January 29, 2012| 5 Comments »
I could never say
what love is but often
I say I love you
*
you’re shy? it’s okay—
I can drip love from these words
instead of flooding
*
who says there is
only one sun? let’s think
vaster than that
*
falling through
the spaces between stars
a temple of emptiness
*
a velvet cage
is still a cage she said
scissors in hand
The Gift of Forgetting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being available, brilliance, dissolution, gift, Rumi, stars, unknowing, unlearning on January 29, 2012| 3 Comments »
As salt dissolves in ocean,
I am swallowed up in you
beyond doubt or being sure.
Suddenly, here in my chest a star
came out so clear it drew all stars into it.
—Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks, Say I Am You
Dear Rumi,
It is easy to believe that a star could come out so clear in your chest,
a star so clear it could draw all stars into it, but in my chest? Here?
A star so clear? I don’t think so. No wonder I stumble
each time I try to memorize this line. I don’t think this is humility.
Is it fear? Fear of being responsible to my own light?
Here in my chest my own heart is straining against the cage
of my ribs, pushing hard all the oceans of blood that stay
in the shores of this skin—some interior ocean I am afraid
to go swimming in. “Not past the tip of the nose.” That is what
my teacher says, and time and time again I feel how true it is,
and now, your words like rocks in my mouth, here in my chest,
the same lesson again. I have been dreaming of stars,
dreamt that they were being poured into my mouth, not just the stars
but the spaces between them. Are these the stars of which you speak?
My god, here they are, already they have been given to me, and I am somehow unable to see them, unable to believe my own experience,
unable to unwrap the packaging and receive the gift. Here in my chest—
but these stars are not for me. Not something to make me brighter,
but a light that belongs to everyone. All of us dissolved
into the same ocean, all of us dissolved in the same night.
I can almost touch this, and then it is gone,
there is still too much of me here.
seven haiku
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged accident, birdsong, geese, haiku, knitting, night, poems, searching, silence, stars, thoughts on January 24, 2012| 2 Comments »
those wild geese
edging the clouds, my thoughts fly
beyond their wings
*
just one more row
I think, and knit one more and think
just one more row
*
the night pressed
its darkness into me, what
could I do but open
*
these ears
go on a long walk looking
for bird song
*
while no one’s watching
I trade all my molecules
with the night
*
did someone sow
all those stars, or did someone
trip and spill the bag
*
walking at two below
both questions and answers
come out as clouds
fifteen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dreams, haiku, lily, losing the self, loss, meditation, moon, parenting, real, snow, stars, sufficient on January 17, 2012| 5 Comments »
blank field of snow
just after the blizzard
tracked up in minutes
*
driving sixty
while the tears on her cheeks
went eighty
*
these deep scars
I wish I could forget why
you can’t see them
*
even when I sit
very, very still, God sits
stiller
*
the trees pushing green
and in me a longing to
lose everything
*
even though I know
they won’t fit, I try them on
her mood rings
*
those gossamer dreams
when was it that they became
nooses?
*
all I want to know:
when I am with you, can I
be myself?
*
watching that star
I forget which of us
is moving
*
though all the petals
fell, the lily pistil still
dripping
*
come morning my hair
all tangled after a night
of tussling with words
*
no one says to
the lily, hey, one more petal
would look better
*
these haiku
perhaps I can scrawl them on
bits of DNA
*
more poem sprouts?
said the tears—but we just
started plowing
*
quarter moon
the boy says, it’s broken,
mommy fix it?
*
these dead willow sticks
beside me are so beautiful
I am beautiful
Taking Out the Trash Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged motherhood, our place in the universe, perspective, stars, tanka on December 6, 2011| 2 Comments »
