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Posts Tagged ‘vulnerability’

Again and Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 5, 2013| 5 Comments »

In less than a minute
the citadel
around the heart
is reduced to sand,
not by the wrecking ball,
not dynamite,
but with the softest voice
speaking the painful truth
of how sad, how broken we are.
In that unlocked moment,
even the air is naked.
It is impossible to imagine
that anything ever came between us,
or that anything ever will again.
But it does come back,
doesn’t it, that thick gray wall.
Sometimes thicker
or taller than before.
Birds come to roost there.
Ivy grows up the face.
Who knows who scrawls
all that graffiti on both sides.
And then, in an instant,
it’s gone again. Nothing but dust.
With the softest voice.
The painful gift. It’s
so messy, so beautiful,
how broken we are.

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Nowhere to Go

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 26, 2012| 4 Comments »


with Rumi’s quotes from Undressing, trans. Coleman Barks.

I have just pulled out
my best armor and scrubbed
it with Kroger oven cleaner,

the only thing strong enough
in my cupboard to pull out
the metal’s intrinsic shine.

It glitters as I step
into the tall, silver legs,
the breast plate shimmers

in the afternoon sun,
and Rumi walks into the room
and pushes me with his hand.

I fall like a pin, like a tree, like a woman,
and clatter and clang echo
all around the room.

“Learn the alchemy true human beings know,”
Rumi says. “The moment you accept
what troubles you’ve been given,

the door will open.”
I struggle to stand and he tickles me
under the arms where the armor

exposes my skin.
“Joke with torment brought by the friend,”
he says. I stick out my tongue at him.

I clatter and clank and fail to stand.
This time he sits on the wooden floor beside me
and motions for me to be still.

The armor is uncomfortable,
and his fingers so soft as he cradles my face.
“Sorrows are the rags of old clothes

that serve to cover,” he says. “Take them off.”
“But I’m scared,” I tell him.
“I’m under attack.”

He looks at the empty room.
I want to tell him about
the woman who stabbed

at my back today, stabbed
from a hundred miles away. And
the man who would eat me alive.

But the space grows bigger all around us,
inside us, and the armor, it disappears.
It’s as if it the armor were never here.

Nothing left. Not a clang,
not a clunk, not a screw.
I am naked in the open room

with the sunlight reaching through.
And Rumi, he is gone.
No one here but quietude.

And the long, long sword.
And the butcher knife. And a note
in Persian script:

“Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade,”
Rumi has written, “And PS: That undressing
and the naked body underneath,

that is the sweetness that comes
after grief.” Goosebumps
rise on my naked arms, my belly, my chest.

A breeze goes over my cheek.
I do not reach for the robe
nearby, do not shrink

from the weaponry. I sit.
And doors I never knew were there
swing wide, wide open.

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Love is Like This

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 25, 2012| 5 Comments »

Above the deep river
on the slenderest branch—
a nest.

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Wanting to Believe It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 24, 2012| 3 Comments »

It’s okay,
she croons to her doll,
and cradles it
in the small angle
of her arm. It’s okay,
and she holds the doll closer,
closer than that.
Then she raises
her voice above the roar
of the vortex dry
and says to me,
Mommy, she’s scared
of the noise.
And in the back seat
the two girls
snuggle against
the clatter and blast.
It’s okay, it’s okay,
it’s okay.

And it’s quiet,
so quiet,
later that night
when she calls to me
from her bed.
Mommy, it’s so dark,
she says.
And we curl
our softnesses together
and I whisper to her
the words
I most want to hear.
It’s okay,
it’s okay
I say.

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three haiku on the how of it

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2012| 3 Comments »

adios map
from now on I travel
in

flower to flower—
so much honey here I turn
it into work

why are you surprised
I’m naked? I don’t know why
you’re not

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what a year it’s been tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 31, 2011| 2 Comments »

despite snow
despite cold
though it makes no sense
this heart
still unbuttons its coat

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