tying my prayer
to a passing cloud—
come wind
Posts Tagged ‘wind’
One Unusual Delivery Service
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cloud, prayer, wind on September 3, 2022| 6 Comments »
Looking at Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Cypresses”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, change, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh, wind on May 16, 2022| 9 Comments »
while listening to Kayleen Asbo’s “Cypresses”
The wind, that knows itself only by what
it touches, does not whip your hair
as it churns through the wide golden wheat fields,
does not steal your hat as it tosses
the clouds into frothy white and violet whorls,
does not slap your face as you stare
at the silver-green branches of olive trees
upswept into turbulent curves. You’re just looking.
Until you realize the wind has breached the frame
and touched you the way it touches all that it loves,
and your heart knows what it perhaps wishes
it did not know—that all is changed and rearranged,
all gets stirred up and remade, even the cypress,
even the mountains, even the stubborn heart.
you can see the painting here
Becoming the Bird
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, emily dickinson, grief, hope, wind on November 14, 2021| 13 Comments »
Once on a bridge
I had met a hope,
a radiant maybe,
a glint of perhaps,
but I am so far
from that glint today
that when I stand
again on that bridge
I almost hate hope
with its stupid wings,
always promising
to carry us toward
something better.
I stand on that bridge
and stand on that bridge,
my inner perch
empty, silent.
I turn to face
the autumn wind.
It batters my bare skin.
I sing full-throat into the gale.
*This poem is in conversation with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” which you can find here
Listening to the Wind on Mars, I Consider the Unsaid
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communication, mars, silence, sound, wind on February 23, 2021| 3 Comments »
Just because I can’t hear the wind on Mars
without the sound being raised two octaves
doesn’t mean the Martian wind wouldn’t open a sail—
doesn’t mean it wouldn’t blow off my hat
or fly my kite or create thick swirls of red dust.
Just because I could barely hear the wind on Mars
with my human ears doesn’t mean
the wind wouldn’t flip up my skirt. So many forces
just beyond our senses have powerful effect—
like the words that just today I didn’t hear you say,
yet I know by the way my skin shivers they’re true.
I know, just as sure as the wind blows on Mars,
it takes just one gust to make a thousand seeds go flying.
And I am a weed with ten thousand seeds.
And those words I didn’t hear today, they’re the wind.
Rather to Praise What Is Still, But
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ferocity, praise, self awareness, wind on November 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Today when the wind
wrests branches from trees,
cartwheels the watering can
snatches my peace,
I search in me
for a way to praise it,
praise a force strong enough
to rip trees from the earth,
push a ship cross the sea,
and shred what I think I know.
There is in me
a vehement storm
that I have tamed
for fifty years.
Is it any wonder
the wind makes me nervous—
not that I don’t know
how to relate to it,
but oh, because
I do.
One in the Center
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged stillness, wind on July 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It Takes (Almost) Everything
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, stillness, wind on June 15, 2020| 2 Comments »
The wind, every day now, the
wind, the wind, the clamorous
wind, it lifts my dress and whips
my hair, the riotous wind, it
steals my words, unwinds my thoughts, the
demanding wind, the wilding wind, wind
that spreads fire, wind that unbranches the
cottonwood trees, the wind, the wind unlayers
me, invites me to find someplace still in me,
the wind, the relentless wind.
Ode to the Letter I Didn’t Write
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anger, letter, ode, wind on June 8, 2020| 2 Comments »
In the spaces between
the words I didn’t write,
there was a pour of poison.
A wall-full of bricks.
The barbs from a hundred hooks.
I almost forgot how in the writing
some of that poison would
slip into me, how I despise
a wall, how each hook
demands a bit of my blood.
I spent hours not writing it,
used up reams of thoughts.
It was a relief when the wind
blew away all the words
except these: I understand.
Those, it let me read again
before they, too, blew away
and I didn’t chase after them.
Invitation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choices, poem, poetry, presence, tree, wind on January 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The day dares me to become a tree,
dares me to root, to stay in one place,
to choose this here, to plant myself in this now,
to stretch down even as I reach up.
But there are gusts in me, and wild squalls,
whirling impulses that swirl and spin
and whisper to me to be current, be flow.
Winds in me that says go, darling, go.
And the day says stay to me. The day
says, find evergreen in the moment.
The day offers me its ground, its generous soil.
One Resilience
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cottonwood, poem, poetry, resilience, seed, tree, wind on February 24, 2019| 6 Comments »
my heart a cottonwood seed
landed on rock instead of soil—
love says, time to trust the wind