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Posts Tagged ‘transformation’

One Hearing My Daughter Laugh

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 24, 2024| 4 Comments »


just when I think
I’m made of sludge
you candle me

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Once grief was bonfire

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 4, 2024| 7 Comments »


 
consuming everything I touched.
Every surface. Every person.
Every minute, every thought.
Nothing went unlicked by flame.
Everything charred. Seared.
Scarred. Ash.
It scared and unmade me.
I’d never before
been so nothing.
Had never before lost
every wall, every line,
every idea, every mask.
Such a merciless,
astonishing teacher.
Tonight, grief is more a candle.
Sometimes, I feel the heat on my skin,
smell the acrid singe of my hair.
But for now, familiar with
its gentle light, I’m more attuned
to shadow, more at home in dark.
Now, this small flame of sorrow
reminds me who I am,
who I’ve loved, and
how I would not give up
a half Planck length of love.
Not that loss is easier, no,
but god help me, I’ve learned
it’s a gift to burn.

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One Inner Revolution

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 29, 2024| 4 Comments »


 
 
these places
I once dreaded
now my playground

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How Things Change

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 25, 2024| 10 Comments »


 
 
Between when the hummingbirds come
and when too soon they leave,
we sit in the warm dusk and watch
as broadtails and black chins dart
and dive, defend and chase—
the feeder a loud, competitive zone
where small feathered bodies block
and jostle, crowd and race—
almost impossible to imagine
five months back when this deck
was a still, chilly silent place.
That’s how it is with transformation.
The first thing that must go is the self
who doesn’t believe it can happen.

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Imagining Rose

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 20, 2024| 7 Comments »

Red were the leaves
in that Illinois fall,
red was the blood
she did not bleed,
and brittle was the straw
in the hat she did not wear
as she did not walk
to the store. Instead
she sat on the small
metal chair in her room
and did not cry,
my grandmother all those
years ago, and she
thought of the baby
she would have
with the man who
she married but did
not love, and green
were her thoughts
as the child began to grow,
green as the garden
she did not sow.
She did not yet know
how he would learn
to spin all that
nothing she had
into gold.

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Reasons to Celebrate

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 28, 2023| 7 Comments »


Chocolate, of course,
the cake we baked
to celebrate the birthday
of Timothée Chalamet,
not that he will ever
taste it to know
we added pure imagination
with the sugar, the butter,
the flour, the grated beets.
Still, such joy as we baked,
as we sang. Such joy
as we made the sweet batter,
as we buttered and floured
the pans, as we waited
for heat to do its good hot work
transforming sugar and flour
into cake. Every day
the heart breaks and today
there is also the chance to play,
to make joy where before
there was only an egg,
a pinch of salt, a bit of milk,
some flour, two empty pans.

*

yes, friends, you may recall this is our THIRD year baking cakes for Timothée Hal Chalomet. He’s basically one of the family now!

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How

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 16, 2023| 13 Comments »


 
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
            —Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sonnets to Orpheus 2, 29,” trans. Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
 
 
When so much is bitter,
it is hard to believe in patience,
hard to trust transformation,
the goodness of time.
How to turn the self
into something it’s not?
The ripest, sweetest grapes
make the strongest wine.
Whatever is sweetest in me
is not me—
is whatever shines through me.
That. I am learning to trust
the sweetness, the ripening
of that.
 

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Transmogrification

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 19, 2023| 12 Comments »

            while looking at Klimt’s “Tree of Life,” I consider
 
 
After grief carved me, dismembered me,
scattered my parts, I couldn’t imagine
how I’d ever be put back together.
This is how it is life grew me again,
less like a woman, more like a tree
rooted in compassion and forget me nots,
nourished by all that had happened,
rising out of old stories, old wounds,
old parts, old love, new love.
The person I was is gone, yet here,
fueling the flourishing, the unfurling,
fashioning my limbs into a resting place
for dark wings, for golden light.

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When She Is Being Herself

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 28, 2023| 4 Comments »

I listen as she spins
gold out of words,
infusing the room
with grail and goddess,
with Celtic greens
and Grecian blues,
until the whole room
is glowing and golden, lit
by her love for the world.
Stories are, perhaps,
one of the simplest
proofs that miracles exist.
Look how before
there was only a room.
Now everything
and everyone in it
is shining, changed,
drenched in grace.

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Above Treeline

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on July 23, 2023| 4 Comments »

 
 
Everywhere I turn,
the measureless sky,
wild open sky,
deep bluing,
unencumbered sky,
and how is it
it enters me
and fills my lungs
with vastness,
steeps my mind
in spaciousness,
slips immensity
into my cells,
and I, who
have been stone,
who thought I knew
something of
what a life is,
I feel myself dissolve
into blue
as if it’s the only
thing I could do.
When I leave,
the blue comes
with me.

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