You may not believe me, but
the building was floating.
Well above its foundation.
Right there in the middle
of the Hudson Valley woods,
surrounded by oak and locust,
squirrels leaping from tree to tree.
You may not believe me, but that building
not only lifted from the ground
and hovered in the air like a hummingbird
might hover above a Hosta or honeysuckle,
it glowed. The building glowed. A soft, golden
hue that radiated through the gray
cocoon of the day, as a lighthouse beacons
through fog.
And if you had been there in the building,
you might have felt it, too, the fluttering truth
of what happens to a body when,
layer by layer it opens and opens,
resists and opens, meets shame and opens,
meets fear and opens, meets ache and disgust
and exhaustion and opens and opens until
all that is left of a person is the opening itself.
You may not believe that we,
who were in that floating building
became the glow, but I know.
In my cells, still glowing hours later,
I know. I know.
Posts Tagged ‘vulnerability’
On the Fourth Day of the Retreat at Omega when Noah Hoffeld Played Cello and We Wrote and Spoke Poems for Three Hours
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cello, Noah Hoffeld, Omega, opening, retreat, sharing, vulnerability on June 18, 2026| 6 Comments »
Blessing for Those Who Are Willing to Be Vulnerable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bees, flower, gratefulness, heckling, honoring, performance, safety, vulnerability on June 8, 2026| 6 Comments »
with gratefulness for all the bees
When you are soft, when you lay bare
your innerness and unfold your layers
for the world like a voluptuous, purpling
O’Keefe iris, it is true, there will be some
so threatened by your opening they will attack,
will sow fear and hatred into the warm field
of the gentle night. When it happens, may you
be surprised by how others rise to protect you
like a humming, swarming swirl of bees
that baptize the air with a wild and fierce
aliveness, a rousing acrobatic vocalizing
that shields you from that which would trample
you or cut you down. May you be astonished
by the power of the hive as they surround you.
Even as fear ripples through you, may you
be so enthralled by the buzz of their joy
that you don’t snap shut like a fist, like a trap.
And in honor of the gift you’ve received,
the gift of belonging, may you stay open.
May you be so stunned with gratefulness
that every word that falls from your mouth
tastes of truth, raw praise and dark, secret honey.
Every fortress I have ever built
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, fortress, self-protection, vulnerability on February 12, 2026| 4 Comments »
around my heart has come down.
Oh sure, I’ve rebuilt them with stones
of indifference. Stones of distraction.
Stones of unwillingness to see and be seen.
I’ve rebuilt the fortresses again. Again.
But then come flames of heartbreak.
Cannons of loss. The triple promises
of entropy, gravity and time. And at last,
too exhausted to lift the stones again,
I shiver with the cold wind of fear.
Sting from the sharp blades of betrayal.
But I feel, too, the gentle hand of another
as it holds my trembling hand.
Feel the body soften as I listen
to the music I could never make alone.
How present I can be when I no longer try
to rebuild the fortress. Present
enough to listen for the goodness
in the hearts of others. Present enough
to listen for the goodness in mine.
The Layers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, cottonwood, layers, self-protection, tree, vulnerability on December 6, 2025| 6 Comments »
Furrowed and runnelled and rough,
the gnarled bark of this old cottonwood.
The dead thickness protects living tissue
from cold, from wind, from flames.
I, too, am older, but somehow survival
shows up for me the opposite.
Any shields I would build up as barriers—
life keeps peeling them away.
What thickens around me now are layers
of dynamic compassion—vital, vulnerable,
ever-growing. They do not protect
against wounds. Instead, they seem to say,
Be with what aches, my dear. Trusting
discomfort is the only way.
This moment I want to remember,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bathing, friendship, joy, seeing, vulnerability on April 29, 2025| 4 Comments »
when my friend filled the giant
white stone resin tub with great mounds
of frothy eucalyptus lemon
scented bubbles and water as hot
as she could stand and I walked in
to find her laughing, laughing!
head thrown back and eyes alive
with her great luck to find herself
here “in a millionaire’s bathtub,”
her giddy giggles ricocheting
around the tiled room, radiating
gladness and naked joy, and though
only her head was visible above the bubbles,
I saw her, really saw her as herself,
the uncurated version—that glorious
creature we so seldom chance to glimpse
in each other. As I walked away, her voice
followed me up the stairs, full-throated
and citrus bright as she sang out
her bliss, the words indecipherable,
the tune a tune I’d never heard before
but somehow knew by heart.
To the Bunny Who Lives Under the Porch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bunny, elegy, fear, spring, vulnerability on March 9, 2025| 8 Comments »
Snug little lump of timid flesh
whose fur matches the brown
grass of late winter, silent
little being with your long
pointy ears twisted back,
oh, soft little wide-eyed prey,
thank you for returning
to the yard this morning.
After two weeks of not seeing
your fidgety-whiskered nose,
I met your apparent loss like an elegy
I didn’t want to write. I am tired
of writing elegies, though this
is what life asks us to do—
to meet the world of loss
and learn the beauty
that grows from it.
So imagine my joy today when
I was driving in a faraway town
and my husband sent me a photo
of your mild, quiet bunny-ness
nibbling grass beside the porch,
one shiny brown eye open
to the camera. A wild gratefulness
for life flooded me then, keen
as a pasqueflower, bright
as a globe willow greening
on the winter side of spring;
and my heart leapt out
from beneath its shelf of fear,
vulnerable as you, little bunny.
Thank You Letter to My Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, heart, open, vulnerability on January 5, 2025| 4 Comments »
Thank you, heart for breaking open
every time you hear of the throbbing
ache of war. The devastation of hunger.
The agony of humans choosing
to hurt each other. May you always break.
May you never grow callous enough
that you listen to news of bombs
and betrayals as if you are listening
to the weather report. Thank you,
heart, for letting yourself be stunned
by joy at the slightest of beauties—
by the stilting gray hop of the bunny,
the pink pucker of grapefruit,
the crimson blush of amaryllis
as the tepals burgeon against the green bud.
Though the mind longs to organize,
you thrive on surprising me. Like the way
you rise up for the same rain I once reviled.
Like the way you crave the silence
that once I feared. Like the ways
you have taught me to love the parts of me
I once thought were unloveable.
For all the times I have forgotten
to say thank you, forgive me.
I am still learning. I will forget how to love,
will forget to thank you again.
But here, on the edge of who I will be,
here I am, open as I know how,
gratefulness growing, pushing
against my own green.
The Unsheathed
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, peach, peaches, tenderness, vulnerability on August 29, 2024| 5 Comments »
Like skinning a peach,
I sometimes want to peel back
the masks of the world and myself
to uncover in each other what is
naked and glistening—
an essential sweetness
that can no longer be contained.
If it is wrong to wish this, I wish
it anyway, wish to meet each other
defenseless, with softness,
so moved by proof of how easily
our flesh is bruised, reminded
how tender with each other we must be.
The Choosing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, connection, daughter, grief, happiness, intimacy, love, mother, vulnerability on May 25, 2024| 10 Comments »
Perhaps I no longer believe in happiness
as the goal. Not that I am against happiness,
but being in this very uncomfortable moment
with little light and a vicious chill, my arms wrapped
around my growing girl, both our hearts breaking
from sorrow and fear, both of us too well aware
of what can be lost, well, I would not trade this moment
for any wide-grinned hour of beach and sun,
wouldn’t rather be anywhere else with anyone—
I would choose again and again to be here
on the dark sidewalk with my girl in my arms,
our hearts so raw, the space between us so warm.
Like the Peony
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged blossom, peony, resilience, vulnerability on February 27, 2024| 12 Comments »
Like the peony that opens
and opens and opens,
this is how I want to meet life—
surviving the cold
then returning to bloom
again. Again.
That vibrant. That many-petaled.
Embarrassingly fulsome,
as if life just can’t
get enough of itself.
Truth is, life cuts you to the ground
and you lose all but the roots.
Sometime you lose those, too.
How is it, then, comes
the chance to bloom again,
to be less master of life,
and more servant to the life
that pushes through.
I want to be fluent in blooming.
I want to trust the possibility
of sweet spring perfume
as much as I trust
the inevitability of frost.
I am so grateful for beauty,
albeit brief,
for the chance to be naked,
tender, soft.