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Posts Tagged ‘truth’

Why Every Act of Kindness Matters

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »

 

 

Mom, she said, is it true? And it wasn’t

that I’d tried to keep the truth from her,

it just never came into conversation,

old horses are sometimes used for glue.

 

Yes, I said, wishing I could soften the message. It’s true.

She knew its truth already, but don’t we all

sometimes long to be wrong? New tears dammed

in her eyes before they fell. Is that really

 

the world I belong to? she rued, then buried

her face in the couch. Two hours later,

I thought her same thought as I read the news:

Anti-Semitism. Bribery. Child sexual abuse.

 

I wanted to hear the stories weren’t true.

Oh world, so broken, still, unglued, I choose you.

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A Shade of the Truth

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

 

How soon the flowers wilt.

Wasn’t it just yesterday

you planted them, just an hour ago

there were mounds of bloom

shining in the rain?

You want to believe there’s a flower

that never stops opening,

want to believe that flower

is you.

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After

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 25, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

cut off my tongue, then,

so I can’t say what I know,

and turn me into a nightingale

 

there are other ways to sing—

feel the sun, how it always tells the truth

 

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Teaching My Daughter How to Lie

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 29, 2015| 1 Comment »

When they ask what you did this morning,

tell them, “Oh, nothing much.”

When they say, “What are you doing tomorrow,”

shrug and say, “Oh, I’m busy.

We have plans.” That is true.

Say goodbye today as if you mean it.

Do not mention the cake, the balloons, the gift.

I know. It’s hard to keep a secret.

And just when you think you would burst

if you could, remind yourself

it’s for their own good.

Tell yourself, it is better this way.

No. Sweetheart. Forget what I say.

If it’s not a surprise, that’s okay.

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Perhaps Whole Is Not What I Aspire To

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 16, 2014| 4 Comments »

It had not yet hit the cement floor
and shattered into incalculable smithereens.
I was, of course, in a hurry.
It was, of course, glass.

I can freeze it, the moment
I knew the bottle was going to fall
and there was not a thing
I could do to stop it—

that moment as brief as when
I decided to tell the truth
after he asked the question
I hoped he would never ask.

All those shards—they never
go back to a whole. How the sunlight
gathers in them, thousands of prisms
scattered all over the floor.

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I’ve Got Tomato Stains on my Pants to Prove It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 25, 2014| 2 Comments »

I know you’re kinda mad I’m late. I’m sorry,
but you see there was this tiger trapped
up high inside a tree who offered me
a cherry tart if only I would help
him down. What could I do? It just did not
seem right to leave him stranded there. And so
I asked a large tarantula to weave
a silken net to catch the tiger when
he leapt. Well, she was tired from having laid
nine hundred eggs the day before, but when
she heard about the tart, she said she’d try.
A tern and toucan flying by said they
would help me hold the net to catch the tiger
when she leapt. What luck! I didn’t know
they lived around here. Anyway, a toad
in a tiara started teasing them.
He said our plan would never work, that birds
would not be strong enough to catch a tiger.
That’s when the triceratops came rambling
by and said he’d help us, too. But he
began to sneeze, his allergies were acting
up, perhaps it was the tulips? Or
the toadstool? I don’t know. The bummer was
he sneezed so much he had to go. The toucan
and the tern, offended by the toad,
flew off. They said, “A tart is not enough
for this abuse!” So there I sat beneath
the tiger, not sure what to do. That’s when
a turtle sat beside me and suggested
we could use his thimble as a diving
pool. The tiger had his doubts until
he saw a trout tail swish inside the thimble.
And he dove! And landed with a splash!
And came up with the trout between his teeth!
The bad news is he left the tart up in
the tree. And then the grumpy toad began
to throw tomatoes at the turtle. And
at me! And so I ran the whole way home.
I don’t know where the tiger’s gone—he mentioned
wanting to audition for a band.
He said he plays the triangle. It’s weird,
I know. So weird I worried that you’d not
believe me. I thought maybe I should lie
and tell you that I’m late because I didn’t
want to leave my friend’s house in the middle
of our game. But lying is so rude.
I knew that you’d appreciate the truth.

*This is a T poem for Lian Canty’s Alphabet Menagerie, http://www.alphabetmenagerie.com

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What Difference Does it Make?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2014| 2 Comments »

So Eve said to the snake,
I don’t really like fruit,
and the snake said to Eve
that the story would sound
much better down the line
with an apple instead
of a forbidden parsnip.
No one craves parsnips anyway,
he hissed. No one would believe
in the centuries to come
that a woman would risk everything
for a root. He was the kind
of snake that knew
what a difference
the right symbol can make.
Nope, said Eve, I’m just
not into apples. So
the snake did what any
snake would do, he
offered her what she
wanted, a parsnip,
with cream-colored flesh
and cream-colored skin,
and she bit
as he knew she would do,
but then he lied about it all,
said she’d eaten the apple.
It was better this way,
this lie so small, just one
tiny seed inside a much
greater garden.

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Every Time, It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 13, 2014| 1 Comment »

I’ve erased
every word
I’ve written
for an hour,
not one of them
as true as
this splinter
in my finger,
this naked moon,
this voice in my head
that says,
“Turn it inside out
and tell me
if the opposite
of everything
you’ve said
isn’t also
true.”

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Should It Be a Capital T?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on February 22, 2014| 4 Comments »

The truth doesn’t care if I try to hide.
It knows exactly where I am and what
I am doing. It is perhaps like the game

I play while walking downtown
with my daughter. She runs ahead
on the sidewalk, then tucks her body

into a breezeway between buildings.
I pretend I do not see. Vivian? I call.
Vivian? Yooo hoooo. I walk past her,

while looking the other way.
I know that she knows that I know
that she knows that I know where she is.

Here, truth, here I am, I could say. As if I could be
anywhere else. As if I am longing for it to call
out my name so I might run toward it,

my arms open, laughing at the very joy
of being found at last, the joy of knowing
I was never really lost at all.

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One Conversation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 28, 2013| 1 Comment »

heart to heart
with myself, the eavesdropping crow
calls liar, liar

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