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Posts Tagged ‘teacher’

Sometimes When I’m Quiet, I Think of Art Goodtimes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 9, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
 
I hear the beat of his hand on the drum as he chants,
We are an old people, we are a new people, we are
the same people deeper than before. I have seen
his body explode with poetic energy, sparks leaping
from his fingers, his full voice booming inside my cells
like monsoon thunder in the mountains, and knowing
how big he can be, I feel his restraint as he sits in a circle
and listens, taming all that shakti into quiet attention
as the gourd is passed from person to person and stories
and songs and poems are shared and Art shows us how it’s done,
how together we weave the heart strands into a basket of communion,
and there no strand not welcome—thick ropes of sorrow, gold
threads of devotion, the spidery gray strands of loneliness,
red silk of holiness, scratchy gray of desolation, the deep forest
green of elation—and the circle is always and never the same,
and Art calls us in again and again to aliveness, to share
what matters, beating his drum in time with our hearts
saying welcome, welcome, welcome.

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Through Her Discipline of Kindness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 13, 2026| 12 Comments »


                  for Kyra
 
She brought her cello to the desert,
playing long, slow notes to cactus,
canyons, the night, knowing
it matters to bring music
wherever you go. She taught me
to sing in the face of fear,
even when the mountain lion
held her with his amber eyes.
She taught me to plant
a weed in a pot and wait
with great patience to see
what kind of flower might bloom.
To bring something chocolaty and sweet
to share with others wherever you go.  
She taught me to share scars,
even when they make others wince.
To use more garlic,
to read poems to strangers,
to dance barefoot in the grass.
I did not want to learn how quickly
a life can go from vibrant to silent
to gone. Did not want to learn
how great a hole one human can leave
in so many lives. But I am grateful
for all that she teaches me still—
the beauty in the ache, how to hear
the missing laughter in the silence,
how to read the letters that
don’t come anymore, how love
is so much bigger than a poem,
how she is no less herself now
than she was when she was here,
how even in her absence
she still teaches me discipline.

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Watching the Shy Young Poet Receive Her Applause

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 11, 2025| 6 Comments »

Like a river in flood stage,
her smile broke its banks
and changed the landscape
of the room, or perhaps
her smile was more like
a night-blooming cactus
that charges the dusk
with honest perfume.
That moment she stood there
and let the cheering in,
receiving our appreciation like rain,
oh, her smile then, may I never forget it,
so rare, this gift released,
the girl untamed.

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One New Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 13, 2024| 3 Comments »


 
 
while I sit and stew about the world,
the bird across the river
never ceases in its singing

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The Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2024| 6 Comments »


for Joi Sharp
 
 
In the garden of wisdom,
she did not step in as head gardener.
Instead, she tended her own planting.
She showed me how to weed
the stories we tell ourselves,
how inner spaciousness
is the richest soil for growth.
She did not do the tilling for me.
Inquiry became my hoe.
She offered questions free
as rain water.
And when it was time to sow,
from her own rows she gathered seeds.
She did not do the planting.
She handed the seeds to me.
 

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When I Told My Teacher About My Dream

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 24, 2022| 8 Comments »


The heart doesn’t have perfectionism.
            —Joi Sharp


All night I dreamt
I was teaching a class
I’d never prepared for.
I’d never even seen
the textbook,
didn’t have a roster
for the students,
and couldn’t understand
how I’d arrived in this place
where I seemed destined
to let everyone down.
Even the chalk wouldn’t work
on the chalkboard.
All night I fought
an inner monster,
the one that says,
You are not enough.
All night it chased me
through the channels
of my fears, those
synaptic paths
well-traveled for years.
Oh world, let me be
the student.
Let me be one
who learns to live
through the heart,
who loves with confidence.
Let me study the ways
love meets the monster—
not with a fight
but with indifference.

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The Teacher I Never Could Have Wished For

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 6, 2022| 6 Comments »




I am still learning how to dance with grief—
it leads me through strange sequences,
intricate steps I have yet to master.
Just as I think I have learned
what comes next, I stumble, I step
on my own feet, I trip, I fall. I never
ask myself if this is a dance I want to learn.
It’s the dance I’ve been invited to dance.
If asked, I might have said no. But
today, grief holds me tightly, as if
to keep me from falling. Then loosens
its grasp as I let myself be led.
I am a student in trust. And we glide,
and I’m spun, and sometimes
we just stand, this stillness
its own kind of dance
I am slow to learn.

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After Talking to My Teacher, I See the Invitation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

What wants to happen?

            —Joi Sharp

 

 

Today it is the tow truck

that leads me back to myself.

For though I call the driver

and though I receive

a text that says he is coming

and though I have paid

my AAA bill on time, the tow

truck does not arrive.

Though I did everything right.

Though the same actions have worked before.

Still the world has not turned out

the way I expected, the way

I want it to. The car

is still stranded. The tow truck

is still not here. Oh failure,

how clearly it shows my attachment

to outcome. How clearly it

shows me the world is in charge.

I look for more doors to knock on,

try to plan more ways to control.

Meanwhile, I am the door.

Meanwhile, this chance

to let go.

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In the Maze Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

It’s not shame itself we want to lose

but the shame about our shame.

Shame itself is as innocent

as bliss or love or joy, only

we seldom want it to linger.

A woman walks through rows of corn

and knows her own shadow.

She does not lament its shape,

but uses it to guide her.

There is teacher in everything,

even the corn dried on the stalk. Even

the wanting to push shame away.

Even the arm that rises up

to embrace our own shadow,

impossible as it is.

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listening tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 21, 2013| 1 Comment »

perhaps it was trying
to tell me something,
the full moon—
how close the grass
under my feet

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