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Posts Tagged ‘uncertainty’

What Joins Us

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 3, 2026| 2 Comments »


 
 
At last the river is covered in ice,
a vast white sheet from bank
to bank. A woman, or a rabbit,
could use to cross what usually
feels uncrossable. I think
of William Stafford standing beside
the frozen Methow river, asking a question.
The silent river was his answer.
Later today I will put on my old navy coat
and my big old rubber boots and walk
to the shore with my satchel of questions,
the ones that writhe and twist in me,
the ones that make me tremble.
Perhaps, you, too, will bring your questions
to a shore where winter has hidden the song.
If you have no river, any quiet space will do.
We can stand there together
at the edge of no separation
to see which questions spill out.
No matter where we stand,
we can listen to the silence
that crosses all boundaries, listen,
together, and wade into the current
beneath all listening.
 

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The Channeling

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 20, 2026| 5 Comments »


 
We might as well be divine.
                  —Kate Horowitz, “i tell the ghost of carrie fisher the world is ending”
 
 
We might as well be divine.
As masked agents arrive
with guns, curses
and brutal disrespect,
we might as well be divine.
We might as well sing at the edge
of collapse, bring forth the kind
of harmony that calls goosebumps
to arms and hot tears to eyes.
As we march, as we gather,
as we fight for each other,
we might as well be divine.
As rivers shrink and sinkholes
appear and we face water
bankruptcy worldwide,
we might as well share
what is not ours to own.  
And be kind to each other.
And praise what good we find.
This is it. It’s like this. Nothing
but now. What we bring,
who we are, this is all.
As tears fall fast and voices rise,
as fear grows thick and viscous,
we might as well be channels for grace,
we might as well be divine.

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Not Alone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 12, 2025| 8 Comments »

Through the throng
and past the chatter
we slipped into a small
blue sitting room
and there at the edge
of the chaos, she told me
what the doctor said.
The world became
whirlpool, no shore
in sight, and
we met in a perfect
stillness, holding
to each other, our
friendship like driftwood,
no way to steer, but
for that moment, we
floated, floated!  
no small thing as
all around us
uncertainty crested
and surged and
crashed and swirled.

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Ars Poetica: A Cinepoem on Uncertainty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

What is it like to meet a blank page? Anything at all can happen. It’s part of why I love writing poems. Ars poetica is a Latin term referring to poems written about writing poems (I know, pretty meta), and in this particular expression of ars poetica, I explore what it’s like to meet uncertainty when you first sit down to create and the page is still blank. The poem was featured in Uncertain, a limited-run podcast for Scientific American, made by my beloved friend, science writer Christie Aschwanden. Then, the amazing Anaissa Ruiz ( @shethescientist  ) transformed it into this creative video … so sweet all the dimensions of creative wonderment that led up to these 51 seconds! You can hear what went into the making of Christie’s amazing podcast here on episode 109 of Emerging Form. As she says, “The magic really happens when you are open to things,” she says, and openness is only possible when we engage in, you guessed it, uncertainty.

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Never the Same

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 22, 2023| 12 Comments »


Sometimes a person wakes
believing they are a storm.
It’s hard to deny it, what,
with all the rain pouring out
of the gutters of the mind,
all the gusts blowing through,
all the squalls, all the gray.
But by afternoon, it seems obvious
they are a garden about to sprout.
By night, it is clear they are a moon—
luminous, radiant, faithful.
That’s the danger, I suppose,
of believing any frame.
Let me believe, then, in curiosity,
in wonder, in change.
Let me trust how essential it is
to stumble into the trough
of the unknown, marvel how
trough becomes wings becomes
faith becomes math. Let me trust
uncertainty is a sacred path.

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At the Edge of a Wild Sea

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2022| 2 Comments »


 
 
I step into the boat.
You offer me an oar.
Thank you, but sweetheart,
what I really want
is to be in the boat
with no oars
and you.

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Getting to I Don’t Know

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 20, 2022| 9 Comments »




Sometimes, too certain I know what love is,
I miss love.
It’s like thinking water is waves,
not seeing water is also the depths of ocean,
the muscle of river, the body, the air,
ice, snow, fog, clouds, mist.
Sometimes, longing to hear certain words,
I neglect to hear the words that are spoken.
Or craving a certain touch, I disregard
all other touch, and my skin believes it is starving.
There is beauty beyond beauty, love beyond love,
opening beyond opening, an apple inside apple.
Let my prayer be I don’t know.
Let me find the door inside the door,
the glimmer inside the glimmer,
the human inside this woman.
The god inside of god.

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Trying to Get It Right

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »


after Knowing Now You’ll Never Be a Clown by Jack Ridl

I’ll never be a tight rope walker
balancing above the canyon—
no net beneath me, just angry rapids,
no strap tethering me to the tight rope
to catch me should I fall.
But could I be a tightrope walker,
I would know the art of one step at a time,
would know how to tune out everything
except the step that comes next.
Or is it that I would know
how to tune in to everything
so I might better meet the next step?
If I were a tightrope walker,
I would trust myself
know every muscle intimately,
would have faith in my reflexes,
faith in how I respond to wind,
to challenge, to fear.
Instead of all this wondering
about what should come next.
Instead of all this worry about
how to take a step.

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To Say I Don’t Know

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on May 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »


It’s like moving west around the earth
so I might stay in perpetual sunrise—
moving to stay in that moment when the day
is blushing with potential.
 
But sometimes when I am very still,
I notice the sunrise within.
And I wake and I wake, and I wake
and by doing nothing, begin again.

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The Lover of Uncertainty Confesses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 19, 2021| 2 Comments »

Certainty is a frigatebird,
able to soar on the wind for weeks,
its nest a distant thing.
Is it wrong to say I admire it,
sleek and raven feathered,
how it dives from the sky
with exquisite precision,
how it steals what it wants
with no regard for what’s fair.
I have wanted to be that certain,
wanted to take, wanted to believe
my hunger is all that matters.
Is it wrong to notice these thoughts,
to give voice to their midnight wings?
I say I trust what I don’t know.
Meanwhile, I flirt with certainty.
It whispers to me,
I’m the other truest thing.

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