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.
Posts Tagged ‘surrender’
The Opening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, growth, loss, opening, surrender on March 23, 2022| 5 Comments »
Meeting It All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, surrender 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.
Solstice Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, solstice, surrender, trojan horse 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.
Because Surrender to What Is Doesn’t Mean Do Nothing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged frost, garden, love, surrender 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.
One Capitulation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged rain, surrender on July 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »
New Starting Point
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged confusion, falling, surrender, tree 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.
Reluctant Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing things to be, prayer, surrender 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.
Riparian
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flow, river, surrender 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.
Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grace, nature, peace, surrender on April 27, 2020| 6 Comments »
Some mornings I wake and the peace
that I tried to find yesterday finds me—
arrives in the open palms of the river scent,
in the erratic path of the warbler,
in the low golden angle of sun as it slants
through the gray knuckled branches of cottonwood trees.
Even the broken watering can seems to bring me
news of what’s been here all along—
the peace that holds up the turmoil, the mess.
And the dried grasses in the field
and the tiny new leaves on the currants
gather me into them. They’re like old friends who say,
It’s okay, make all the mistakes you want
around us. Some mornings, through no effort
of our own, we are gathered into the peace
of the patient lichen and the still pond.
It’s the difference between breathing
and being breathed, between asking for grace
and finding that grace has been asking for us.
Staring at the Penstemon, the Scarlet Gilia
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, flower, poem, poetry, surrender on August 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
A flower in the field
is always changed by rain.
It is never indifferent
to sun. Even the slightest
of breezes will bend it,
will rearrange. An ant
walks through its center—
now so much more is possible.
It never pretends
to be unaffected by the world.
I have so much to learn
from the flowers of the field,
how they never turn their backs—
they don’t even have backs.
How they withstand hail
and flood and snow and chill
and still, they bloom,
they spill seeds, they
bring all the beauty they can.