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Posts Tagged ‘surrender’

Ode to the Sigh

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 20, 2022| 13 Comments »


 
Smallest of songs,
you give voice
to the breath,
a wordless expression
of sorrow or happiness.
You seem to say,
Yes, that’s how it is,
a quiet doorway
that leads to acceptance.
You soften. You smooth.
You signal a feeling
that’s moving through.
You change silence
the way moonlight
changes a room—
so slightly, and yet
from the edge of perception,
you say to me,
Sweetheart,
pay attention.

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One Willingness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 31, 2022| 4 Comments »

like a dandelion seed
in the land of wind,
this heart longing to serve

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The Opening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 23, 2022| 5 Comments »




If the day is a hinge,
   then loss is the hand
     that swings the door
       so that what I would never choose
         becomes my opening.
What I would never choose
   becomes the thing
     that makes me need to be
       a better person.
What I could not choose
   becomes the spring board
     to devotion.
       So let me open.
In this time of broken hope,
   love says to me,
     Be the yes.
       And if you cannot be the yes,
         then stop trying anything
            and let yourself fall
              into to the opening.

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Meeting It All

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 18, 2021| 4 Comments »




Even the roses today
are limp with surrender.
They nod as if it’s too plum hard
to keep their stems upright.
Can sunlight itself be drab?
It stretches flat into the room
like a tired cat that would rather
not be bothered.
And the vine ripened tomato
has lost its sharp red thrill,
is merely mush in the mouth.
Some hours, grief is so heavy
in me that even the chair
seems unwilling to bear me,
suggests I lie on the ground.
Yes, I feel the whorls of love
that swirl around me like
a thousand tender hands.
I feel them. And I need them.
Because today, the truest thing
is the loss that whispers, Hush, darling,
don’t move. Don’t admire. Don’t
reach. Don’t do. Just lie here.
Just lie here. I’ll hold you.

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Solstice Surrender

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »




The night is a poem
with verbs of shadow
and nouns of deep,
a poem I never tire
of reading, a poem
that writes itself
into my thoughts,
enters my imagination
like a Trojan Horse—
when its dark ink
overcomes me,
you’d almost think
I was happy
for the ambush,
you’d almost think
I flung wide the gates
on purpose
knowing full well
how the story
would end.

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Because Surrender to What Is Doesn’t Mean Do Nothing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Inside my heart is a gardener.

She knows eventually

all seeds planted in the heart

will die. That doesn’t stop her

from planting. And on a night

when she knows it will frost—

winter, after all, comes soon—

that doesn’t stop her

from rummaging around for blankets

to cover everything in bloom.

You could just let it go,

says some other inner voice.

Nothing lasts forever.

She pauses to listen.

Perhaps all she’ll get is one more week—

one more week of lush and unruly beauty,

one more week of riotous love.

It’s late and she’s tired.

She grabs another blanket.

Damn right, she’ll fight for it.  

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One Capitulation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on July 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »

walking in the drizzle—

even my longing to stay dry

shines in the rain

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New Starting Point

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 2, 2020| 4 Comments »

 

I invite you to fall down. Fall down to the earth.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “Darkness is Asking to Be Loved,” Lion’s Roar

 

 

Today, I am fallen tree.

I am deadwood.

Surrender. I am

don’t-try-to-rise.

 

Today is a day to know

what it is to fall,

to be felled, to stay fallen.

To say nothing.

 

Today I am grateful

for gravity that insists,

Don’t try. I don’t try.

I lose any certainty

 

of where my body ends,

where earth begins,
lose myself in dark, loamy scent

of disturbed and open dirt.

 

There will be a day

to rise, to stand, to grow

new leaves that gather shine,

to share. But today is a day

 

to lie on the ground

and lean into loss,

say yes to confusion.

to be torn apart, to listen,

 

to know the only way

to start again is from here.

 

 

 

 

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Reluctant Prayer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 20, 2020| 4 Comments » 

 inspired by a conversation with Craig Childs

Let it come, says the voice,

a voice not quite mine,

and somehow more my voice

than any other.

Let it come.

 

And by let, it means,

Open your hands,

 

And by it, it means

Anything.

 

And by come, it means,

You be still. Enough running,

enough fighting, enough

pushing away.

Meet the world that’s here.

 

I close my eyes,

and an invisible cage lifts.

Let it come, says the voice,

and I move my lips with it

until the prayer

is my own.

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Riparian

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

To be known by the river—
that is what I wanted,
which is to say,
to know the self
as the river knows it,
as something that might be carried,
something that will be eroded,
something that might wade
into the center and then join
in the flow of all things.

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