Here, there is highway heading east and west.
A great basin we have named The Great Basin
is rung by mountains and filled with low brush
and not much that man has touched except
this small roadside stand that describes how once
the Pony Express riders would use this rugged route,
changing horses every ten to fifteen miles.
In the car, my daughter sleeps while my husband
and I stand in a merciless wind, reading how
it took only two days after the first transcontinental
telegraph was sent for the Pony Express to shut down.
How much of what we rely on now will become obsolete
in a heartbeat? The postage stamp? The satellite?
When I return to the car, I squeeze the solid hand
of my husband, trace the soft skin of my daughter’s arm,
grateful for gestures no technology can supplant.
Later, we tell inside jokes. Later, we ooh and ahh
as lightning bisects the Great Basin. Nothing can
replace this, I think, as my daughter tangles her hand
mindlessly in my hair and I lean in toward her touch.
Posts Tagged ‘touch’
Irreplaceable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, Nevada, pony express, road trip, touch, travel, wife on August 29, 2026| 7 Comments »
Kinship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, connection, daughter, loneliness, pet, touch on July 21, 2026| 4 Comments »
after Jane Hirshfield
Oh look, I say to the cat
You have a soup belly.
I jiggle and wiggle her soft, floppy middle.
She does not love it.
I get it, I say to her. Sometimes
I don’t want to be touched either.
More truly, I do want to be touched,
but only in the way I want to be touched.
The cat holds her paws midair, frozen there,
as if not yet sure if to attack or relax.
She chooses relax. I choose
to massage between her ears.
She nuzzles her small skull into my palm.
I know, I say to the cat. I miss her, too.
We both know she’d rather be with my daughter.
We both feel the absence here.
We sit a long time like this, the cat nuzzling,
me dragging my fingertips forward and back,
forward and back.
With her body, she shows me
just where and how much to touch her.
When I move to rise, she lashes out with a claw
to keep me in place beside her.
In this way, I study my life.
How to hold. How to let go.
Loneliness wears a haunting perfume,
resinous, sweet, full of laughter
and silence. What a gift, I say to the cat,
to miss her together.
I cross the room. The cat follows to where I sit next.
Later, she leads me to her bowl. I follow.
Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, bindweed, garden, hands, practice, touch, weeding on June 20, 2024| 2 Comments »
I plunge my hands into the soil
and tug on the long white bindweed roots
that cling to the cool damp dark.
Never once have I pulled the whole plant.
Always, the bindweed comes back.
Once I might have longed for a weed-free
world. How did I not see the bindweed
for what it is—a chance to touch
again and again what humbles me, and
to learn with my hands the art of acceptance
so my hands might teach my heart.
One Caress
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, beauty, hands, love, touch on June 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
touching you
even these old scarred hands
become wings
One Way She’s Shaped Me
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, foot, friendship, humility, Kayleen Asbo, touch on March 1, 2024| 6 Comments »
for Kayleen Asbo
With hands that have played Bach
on the finest pianos in Europe,
hands that have written poems
and love letters and treatises on art,
with precious, skilled, talented hands
she lifted my foot to her lap
and smoothed oil into the cold, rough skin,
kneading and pressing deep circles
into my arches, squeezing my toes
(once deemed by a boyfriend
“the ugliest toes I’ve ever seen”).
And she made me feel beautiful.
I remember how all of me softened,
even those voices that sometimes rage,
you’re not good enough.
How could those voices stand a chance
against such a gift of touch?
Her hands said, you are not alone.
Her hands said, you belong.
Her hands said, you are treasure to me.
And the day was gray; her hands were strong.
I was less woman, more clay.
With hands that coax music
from sorrow and fear,
she made me into song.
*
Exploring Dante with Guides for your Head and Your Heart
March 7, April 4, May 2 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Mountain Time
Zoom (recordings available)
Oh friends, if you weren’t able to join us today for an ecstatic hour of exploring Dante’s Divine Comedy, don’t worry–here’s the replay. It’s free–a preview of a three-part class that begins next Thursday and runs the first Thursday of the month for three months. The classes themselves with be spacious–with lots of time to listen to composer, pianist and cultural historian Kayleen Asbo lead us through the art, music, history and mythology that informs Dante’s life and writing. Then I will help you explore the truth of your heart and how this centuries-old story might have something valuable for you in times of loss, struggle, elation. It’s a story of connection, of how we help each other, how we become most wholly ourselves. Join the big conversation as we Find Our Way Out of Hell to the Shores of Acceptance (Inferno, March 7); Climb the Mountain of Hope (Purgatory, April 4) and Come Home to Ourselves in Paradise (Paradiso, May 2). Each session has a 30-minute break in the middle. Recordings available to all registrants. Sliding scale. Scholarships available. To register, click here. You do not need to have read Divine Comedy–in fact, we suggest you read it AFTER the class so you have more tools for understanding and appreciating it.
Day Seven ICU
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, icu, massage, miracle, mom, touch on October 18, 2023| 21 Comments »
She lets me rub oil into her skin,
massaging it slowly into her feet
till they’re supple and warm
and the skin almost shines,
swelling gone.
She sighs in pleasure
instead of pain.
The room smells of lavender.
Lanky afternoon light
lopes through the slats
to replace the fluorescence
of the ICU.
It’s quiet.
No nurse. No doctor.
No beep to alert us her oxygen is low.
How seldom I let myself
move this slow.
I smooth her arches,
slip my fingers through her toes.
We play this little piggy goes home,
and this little piggy goes home,
and this little piggy and this little piggy
and this little piggy go whee whee whee
all the way home.
Is it strange I love this moment
in a place neither of us wants to be.
The business outside this room
will last forever.
And here we are, so alive
we slip right into the miracle.
*
Dear Friends,
thank you again for all the support, all the kind notes, all the prayers and love and healing energy. I can’t respond to them, but I read them all and let them go in … all the way in. I read mom a bunch of the notes today–and they warmed her, too. In the ICU, it seems time goes fast and healing goes slow. Mom’s improving, at last. I see a path out, albeit a long one. Wishing you all deep peace and ease in your own bodies.
From Too Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, love, nearness, parenting, touch on October 8, 2023| 12 Comments »
To hold you the way
the shore holds
the river, this is how
I want to hold you—
that present, the way
skin holds the sweet
peach, the way lungs hold
air—that tender, that
gentle, that tight. Instead,
I hold you now
the way sky holds clouds—
too spacious, too distant,
too far, far away.
I want whisper near, breath
to ear, nigh as lullaby, want
cradle close, praise
close, soothe close, love
close, as if touch could make
everything right, want dream
close, promise close, close
as prayer, close as your
tear to my cheek.
Holding Your Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, heart, love, touch, tree on August 29, 2023| 7 Comments »
I want to trace the rings of your heart
the way I would trace tree rings—
not to count them
but to honor each season of you.
I want to touch my fingertips
to your scars, want to learn
your heart’s stories, find clues
of how you became who you are.
I want to press my palms
to your heart and praise
how it is we grow,
even in disaster, even in drought,
want to praise the dark center,
the time-thick bark, the record
of the ordinary days. I want
to chart the thin slivers of your wounds
and let my hands speak love,
want to tell you in a language
of quiet touch, I see you.
The Grown Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, sleep, touch, waking on June 23, 2023| 7 Comments »
Before my eyes are open,
I reach across the bed
to find my mother’s arm
atop the comforter
still heavy with sleep.
I settle my fingers there
like a butterfly landing
on a flower the same color
as its wings. Grateful
for this simple proof
she is here, soft and breathing
beside me, I fall back asleep,
my hand still touching her.
Long after we wake,
I still feel it in my hand,
not her arm itself,
but the reaching.
Before the Wings Appear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, dreams, mother, sleep, touch, vulnerability on June 3, 2023| 5 Comments »
for my daughter
“Snuggle,” she said,
a two-syllable passport
to another world—
the world in which
she is more dream
than mask, more breath
than task, her softness
inviting my softness,
and I slipped beside
her dream-scented body
and curled myself
into her shape,
one arm draped
across her weight,
and matched my inhale
to her inhale, matched
my every exhale to hers
and listened as once again
sleep took her,
and she was not curious,
not smart, not funny,
not brave, but so deeply
herself, and how could I not
fall deeper in love,
a pilgrim in this realm
of sweet defenselessness,
the silken luff of our breaths
weaving around us
like a cocoon.
Wordlessly
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, holding, marriage, touch on April 27, 2023| 12 Comments »
With such gentleness,
he stood behind me
and held me as I wept,
held me the way a pond holds a lotus,
the way a scarf holds perfume,
the way a man who has lost his child
holds the mother of the child,
his hands so light on my hands
as our fingers laced into a tender weave,
held me the way the pericardium holds the heart,
the way the eye holds a tear
then lets it slip away.
After Peeling the Beets
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alone, beets, connection, love, mess, stain, touch, vegetable on January 22, 2023| 6 Comments »
I resist peeling beets,
hate wearing their red tint
on my hands,
but today, the thought
of sweet roasted beets
was enough to make me
overcome my reticence.
Later, I notice it is impossible
to feel separate and alone
when my hands wear the evidence
of what they have touched.
I find myself wishing
everyone could see on my skin
how my life has been marked by you,
how everywhere we touched
I wear the stain of love.
Lone Tree Cemetery, Mid-January
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cemetery, compassion, friendship, grief, touch on January 19, 2023| 10 Comments »
for Clea
We can go up there, she said,
nodding to the where the grave marker
was buried beneath feet of snow.
She knew it meant post holing
up over our knees. Uphill.
This, I thought, is true friendship.
So we wallowed through drifts
and laughed as we tripped.
And when we arrived at the place
where the ashes of my boy are buried,
I cried. And she did what the living can do—
she held me. She stood with me there
waist deep in snow and held me,
with her two strong arms, she held me.
The Long Marriage
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged darkness, intimacy, loss, marriage, touch on December 6, 2022| 14 Comments »
Perhaps I know you best in the dark—
that nightly shrine
where my belly meets your spine,
where the bend of my knees
meets the bend of your knees,
where my warmth meets your warmth,
the night a vase
in which we place
the stems of our bodies,
in which I know myself
through touch.
And nothing must be said
and nothing must be done
except to meet the long familiar flesh,
this honoring of nakedness.
Perhaps I know you best in the dark—
these lightless hours when
we sit in the midst of brokenness
and my hand finds your hand,
and my silence finds your silence,
my loss finds your loss,
and together, somehow,
we find peace.
And nothing can be said.
And nothing can be done
to change the past.
We meet in the these darkened hours,
with nothing but our willingness
to meet these darkened hours,
these hours we would have pushed away,
these hours that bring us closer to each other.
Handling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, pain, softening, time, touch on October 21, 2022| 4 Comments »
After years,
what once
was enormous,
sharp and piercing
now is rounded,
polished,
fits like a marble
in the palm
of my hand.
This is what comes
from touching it,
brushing up against it,
holding it
again and again.
And again.
Once, it cut me.
Now, as I rub it
beneath my fingers,
it soothes me,
reminds me
how I, too,
have been softened,
how I, too,
have been embraced
and held
and nestled
until I am smooth.
Grateful for Those Years
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, holding, missing, son, touch on August 4, 2022| 13 Comments »
Tonight it’s his willowy body I miss,
the way it fit so easily into my arms,
the way he’d find me on the couch
and slip in beside me and loan me
for a time the full weight of his loneliness.
I miss how sometimes we’d say nothing
and let the quiet crests of our breath
be the only thing that need be said.
I miss how sometimes we’d talk for hours,
our thoughts unspooling like ink-dark yarn.
I miss nuzzling my face in his hair.
I miss being with him everywhere—
in the kitchen, in the car, in the yard,
on a plane, in town, on the pond,
in the store, by his desk. But most of all,
tonight, I miss him in my arms,
here in my too empty arms,
this place where so many years I held him,
this place where the memory of his beauty
still leans full weight against my chest.
Oh, the Tenderness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, touch on June 10, 2022| 2 Comments »
To be touched.
That skin language
of hand and cheek,
arm and shoulder,
that is what
I need. Words,
yes, I love them,
but what has healed me
and held me
and kept me from drought
is a palm on my arm,
a chest where my head
can rest, an embrace
that lasts until my breath
becomes slow tide
and my whole body
leans into the trunk
of the one who is holding me.
I have been held
by near strangers,
held by beloveds,
held by invisible hands.
We are, of course, spirit,
but it is the body
that makes us human,
the body that bears
the grief. To be touched.
It saves me. Each caress,
a ray of light. Each embrace,
a soft rain that seeps
into the soil of the day
and says nothing at all,
but encourages what is still here
to grow, to believe
in green, in spring.
Biomechanical Creature
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged find holiness in the everyday, hand, kayleen, self discovery, touch on February 4, 2021| 4 Comments »
Anything can be a holy path, says Kayleen,
and I begin to trace the outline of my left hand
with my right index finger, following
the familiar shape, surprised
at how intimate it is, this tiny tactile journey
of wrinkles and knuckles, fingers and thumb—
I close my eyes and my finger continues
to slowly travel the tips and webs, rises
and vees, a labyrinth of skin and nail
I navigate through touch.
How many years have I avoided knowing
myself as holy? How many days
have I desecrated this temple of flesh
and breath with belittling thoughts?
How many hours have I resisted the pleasure
I feel now as I explore this fleeting path,
this haptic trail steeped in awe?
Perhaps science could explain away
this divine excursion as nothing more
than a series of electrical impulses
moving at eighty feet per second
through my neural infrastructure,
but somehow knowing how the body works
makes this gentle path I choose today
even more oh! more holy.
*quote from Kayleen Asbo in “Blessing Thread: Wales and Ireland,” an online class
So Far Away and Not Allowed In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, healing, hospital, separation, touch on May 13, 2020| 12 Comments »
Because I cannot be there to hold my father’s hand,
I walk into my children’s room and hold my daughter and son—
as if love in one room emits a wave strong enough
to be felt many states away. Because I am afraid,
I don’t try to pretend I am not. Tears run hot
down my face and I don’t dam them.
When they dry, I let them dry.
Because I am helpless to fix my father’s kidneys,
I tell him I love him, as if words could help
filter his blood before returning it to his heart,
his tender heart.
Because the helicopter is flying him to Miami,
the blades of my worry begin to spin.
Because I can’t stop them, I turn them
into a giant wing that carries prayers
into the rooms where I’m not allowed to go.
And though I’m not there, I hold his hand,
imagine it heavy in my own. Because maybe
he can feel it. Because I don’t want him to be alone.
Song of Touch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, touch on April 22, 2020| 4 Comments »
The world wants to be touched—
thin spikes of grass push up to bare soles,
the near weightless of the paper wasp nest
graces the open palms.
Cool earth crumbles between fingers.
Onion starts celebrate smoothness.
The chill rush of the river.
The comforting heat held in south facing cliffs.
The cactus spine was made
to prove how sharp it is.
The thorn bush tugs on the legs because it can.
And I, though I can be pricklesome,
I, too, long to be held, to be cradled,
to be kissed. I long to know myself
through the hands and lips of you,
the way the piano is most itself
when it’s touched, the way
bread becomes bread
when kneaded.