After the frost, the cosmos fronds
are brittle and brown. Not a hint
of return. Not a trace of pink. Brown.
Partially dust already. Sometimes it needs
to be this way in order for us to do
the work that must be done—the pulling
up of things by the roots and discarding
them into a pile. No, if there were any green chance
that the cosmos might bloom again,
it would be easier to tell the self a story
about how, with some luck and some care,
the plant might leap back to life.
But the story is a trick ladder,
every rung is covered in oil and even
if you reach the top it leads to nowhere.
Look. The flowers are dead. They were lovely once.
Say thank you. And give the stem a tug.
Posts Tagged ‘story’
Pay Attention, Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cosmos, gardening, poem, poetry, story on October 3, 2014| 2 Comments »
Said the Woman with the Pen in Her Hand
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beginning, end, poem, poetry, story on July 1, 2014| 1 Comment »
For all the history of grief
an empty doorway and a maple leaf.
—Archibald MacLeish
I wanted to start this story
at the end, but couldn’t think
of any stories I believe are truly over.
Certainly not the one about you
and me and our lilies, the way they
bloomed beyond their time, how
even long after they dropped their petals
they still manage to plant themselves
in my thoughts every week. And bloom again.
The end. Well, there’s just nothing
more to say after those two words,
and nothing else to listen to.
I don’t know about you, but I love
a cliffhanger in every story except my own,
love the way my stomach
turns inside out while I wonder what
happens next. Will he forgive her?
Will her body open again like day lilies,
over and over? Our books are written
in unreadable ink. And oh, this longing
for completion, this longing to know.
Any garden could tell you that even after
the flowers die there’s the long slow plot of rotting,
the unhurried scenes of worms and grubs,
and even if the flowers are later replaced
by weeds, well the story itself doesn’t care
where it goes. Only the hero wants to know
that everything will be okay. But the story
it just keeps rising from the loam
of any old once upon a time.
Never Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged inquiry, love, need, poem, poetry, story, Tricycle Magazine on April 18, 2014| 1 Comment »
We tell stories about who we are and what life is, but seldom see that they’re only stories. The good news is that the truth is never far away. It’s right here, in fact, posing as backdrop.
—Erik Hansen, “The Island,” Tricycle Magazine
Tonight the truth is posing as a short-haired cat,
gray and increasingly white muzzled.
She wants love. Now. She will scratch
for it, push for it, shove for it, yowl.
She has been left alone too long and
her black spine rises up to meet my hand
as I reach down toward her back. Not enough.
She leaps up and curls herself into an island
on my lap. People are usually more polite.
Unless we pout. Send darts with our eyes
with a note attached to the shaft that says,
Fuck you. I need you. Goddammit. Now. Please?
Oh the truth. How it messes everything up.
Like the story that says, I need your love.
It’s got so much drama, so much pull.
That story, a woman could build a whole life
around it before she ever thought to ask herself,
Is that true? The cat curls deeper into
my lap. I feel the tug toward the love
that I call you. My spine arcs as it rises up,
starving for your touch. My claws
come out as I start to purr. Who says
it has to make sense. I’ll do
whatever it takes to make you close.
Winter Mundane
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged glove, poem, poetry, story on March 5, 2014| 3 Comments »
A glove in the road,
there it was, so misshapen
and flattened that at first I mistook it
for a dead bird, black,
run over by countless tires
until its feathers were
as unrecognizable
and useless as an old single
glove lost on the road.
There was some Once
Upon a Time in it, enough
that I read a whole life story
into the trampled threads.
I imagined how another someone
might peel up the remnants
of that old glove, take it home,
stretch it onto a canvas
and paint it, reclaim it as art.
But I was more filled with the part
of the story in which I walk past The End,
past the black glove, changed who knows how
by this simple trodden thing, finding myself
on the cliff of tears and strangely unable
to stop one foot from moving
in front of the other.
There Lived A …
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, love, poem, poetry, self acceptance, story on December 2, 2013| 1 Comment »
Forgive me.
I was hurt
you did not
seem to care
about the story
of me. Ha.
The story of me.
It is not
so grand a thing.
This living, now
living is grand.
This living is
everything. But
the story? It
is just marketing.
Something I tell
myself and others
to believe
I am important.
Special. As if
it could be
any other way.
Every one of us
telling each other’s stories
every time
we open our mouths.
In the end,
which is to say now,
it does not matter
if you read
a single poem
I write. It does not
matter if you
never hear about
the silver wig
I ordered today
for the show
next week I
bought you a ticket for
so you might
be there with me.
Isn’t that funny,
after all these years,
I still long
for you to see me.
As if that act
of witness would fulfill
some mysterious
math in which
one and one
make something blissful
I dream is possible—
the way I try
sometimes (impossibly)
to be that mysterious
integer for you.
With this slight remove
of space and time,
I see it does
not matter if you
hear my story
or miss the show.
But it matters
if I can sit with you tonight
and know in my every breath
that I am enough.
That I have no lack
that you could ever fill.
I am empty for now
of once upon a times,
including the story that says
I need your forgiveness.
Here are two chairs.
They are side by side.
My darling. Here we are.
There Was A
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, story on June 28, 2013| 1 Comment »
Tonight, the story
sits alone
in the car.
It is not
anyone’s fault.
No fingers to point.
It likes being alone
with no other narrators
interrupting,
no breaks for beer commercials,
no subplots pushing their way in.
Alone, the story hardens,
the way river water freezes.
Though one force says go, go, go!
Keep going, keep going!—
another force proves stronger,
renders it set.
To say once upon
is not necessary.
The air all around the story
is softened by wildfire smoke.
The scent of the world
turning to ash
touches everything,
but the fire itself
is far away. No,
says the story
finding its pen,
this is not
the end
not yet.
Entering the Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Hans Christian Andersen, help, light, poem, poetry, story, The Little Match Girl on May 10, 2013| 3 Comments »
I find you
crouched in the cold
lighting matches
one after another.
It is a long, long night
and it is not near over.
There is nowhere
you want to return.
You strike another.
And again.
We cup our palms
around your light.
What do you see in it?
I want to offer you
bread, a blanket, a room,
my hands, a different ending,
a kinder plot.
You want only
another match.
Perhaps Easier to Say When It’s Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, darkness, light, poem, poetry, story on April 29, 2013| 1 Comment »
When it’s dark,
we tell ourselves
any story we can
about the return
of the light. Say
there’s a mother
grieving her daughter
who’s lost
to an underground king.
Say there’s a sister
who hides in a cave
fearing her brother
the god of storms.
Say that through lures
or begging, the girls
are returned, they
bring light
in their wake.
Use history. Say
the light’s always
come back before.
Use science. Say
it has something
to do with the tilt
and the turn and the rate.
Get fierce. Say you’ve seen
enough of hate.
Get desperate. Say
it takes only a crack.
Start chanting. Start
dancing. Bake cakes
filled with cream.
Give your blood. Give
money. Give any offering.
Or taste the darkness.
Begin to know it as itself,
not as the lack of light.
Let it touch you everywhere.
Let it touch your everywhere else.
Feel how infinite it is.
Say nothing. Get quieter.
Be very curious.
Five Undoings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, haiku, illusion, poem, poetry, story on February 11, 2013| 5 Comments »
wearing that story
for so long I forgot
I had slipped it on
*
bad hem day—
tripping on my own
once upon a time
*
rumors of my self
catch on morning sun, snag on
the wake of herons
*
with one hand, I stitch
the small tears, with the other,
I rip out the seams
*
naked
the scent
of hyacinth
Chapter 43: The News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eternity, moon, poem, poetry, story, woman on January 22, 2013| 3 Comments »
Chapter 43
Looking up
at the moon
is a woman.
On her cheek
there is a tear.
In the tear there is
a teacher.
In the teacher
is a story.
In the story
is the moon.
Looking up at that moon
is a woman.
On her cheek
there is a tear.
In the tear
there is a teacher.
In the teacher
is a story.
In the story
is the moon.