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Posts Tagged ‘sufficiency’

Lessons from a Small Bush

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 25, 2024| 6 Comments »

Because it brings her enormous joy,
this pink-petalled flowering quince
that grows just outside
my mother’s back door,
I long to give her a thousand
such quince bushes,
all of them long-blooming,
voluptuous, thornless,
all of them lining her walk.
Though the other part of me
wants to honor how
it takes only one plant
to bring her such elation.
I am instantly stunned
with the wisdom of enoughness,
astonished again at how praise
needs nothing more than a crumb.
Somehow letting go of a thousand
imaginary quince bushes floods me
with a emptiness so great
I fall more wildly in love
with a single pink flower
and the luck-drunk awe of my mother.

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Because

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 30, 2022| 13 Comments »


So I can’t save the world—
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.

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Perhaps Happiness is This

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 16, 2015| 1 Comment »

this nectarine not dripping
with golden juice, not sparkling with tang
but sweet enough

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