with thanks to Karly Pitman
There is this stark moment
when I see I am not my worry.
When I do not chastise
myself for worrying, nor
do I demonize the worry.
I do not imagine the worry
as a snake or a tick or a nail.
I welcome it into my lap,
uncomfortable teacher,
and pause here
on the hard chair of curiosity.
Softness arrives with conscious breath.
In and around me blooms
spaciousness.
Silence is the tenderest lullaby.
It holds both the worry and me.
It has no tongue, yet the lyric is clear,
There is nothing here you cannot meet.
Posts Tagged ‘worry’
Sitting in a Quiet Room
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, silence, worry on September 8, 2025| 4 Comments »
When Worry Showed Up Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged pond, presence, worry on September 7, 2025| 6 Comments »
It slithered in snakelike, the worry,
and hissed in a sinister whisper,
What if you said too much?
Why can’t you just be quiet?
I felt its eyes measure my long, bare throat,
felt its fangs against my skin.
Doubt in my safety flooded in.
But I did not speak back.
Instead, on instinct, my body
took me to the noon-bright pond
to float like a leaf on my back.
I felt the water lifting me.
Felt the summer-warm kiss of sun.
Listened to dragonflies moving
the reeds as they landed
and took off again. Listened to trees
rustled by wind. The more present
I was in my body, the less strangled
by worry I felt. The more I could see
how worry wasn’t everything,
the easier I could breathe.
Hours later, I marvel how the body,
knew just what to do,
an ancient wisdom moving through.
Of course the snake didn’t disappear.
I still hear its disturbing, insistent hiss:
What if, it insinuates. What if, what if …
But it’s harder now to believe the snake
when I feel more aligned with what’s here.
What’s here? The heart ever learning
to open, to trust. The wonder of having
a voice at all. The wondering what I am
here to learn. Dozens of dragonflies.
Reeds. A slender snake of worry. Trees.
Sun. Pond. Wind.
All at Once
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, fear, night, paradox, worry on June 18, 2025| 8 Comments »
Walking alone into the dark,
my fear comes with me.
I feel it small and hard
in my belly like a tiny grenade
the mind has conjured
in case I need protection.
Meanwhile, all around me
the night is peaceful.
The dark spills its generous ink
into every open space.
Crickets rub their legs in bright music.
The misty rain makes no sound.
But the mind is not convinced
the night is safe. It clenches tighter
around its fear. It does no good
to tell the mind not to worry.
Hello, tiny grenade.
I carry it with me as I walk
through a field of fireflies—
and I’m laid bare by the beauty
I find there—thousands of glittering sparks.
Isn’t it a marvel how a person
can be both clenching and opening
at the very same time
while moving alone through the dark?
The Minimum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breathing, spring, surrender, worry on March 25, 2025| 1 Comment »
Even when worry wrecks us,
leaving us broken on the shores
of the life we had,
even when we have been wrung
like rags, even when we
are brittle, snappish things,
even then the scent of spring
can reach us with its notes
of damp soil, sharp pine,
and sun-warmed grass,
the air clean and slightly sweet.
We don’t need to open
our eyes. Don’t need to try.
All that is asked of us: breathe.
After Years of Seeking Peace, I Stop
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged peace, presence, worry on March 5, 2025| 7 Comments »
right where I am
and find the peace
that is already here,
notice the way
peace is what
holds all the tension
in the same way
silence holds noise,
in the same way
the dark holds the sun.
Right here. Right here.
An infinite peace,
an unwavering peace
great enough to hold
all agitation, tender
enough to hold
even the most
shattered heart.
One Incongruous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged embroidery, irony, worry on September 20, 2023| 12 Comments »
this tattered cloak of worry—
with my best silk thread
embroidering the holes
One Encouragement
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, encouragement, friendship, sailboat, worry on August 30, 2023| 12 Comments »
the day flooded with worry,
I become sailboat—
your words the wind
A Fearful Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear, fruit fly, insect, worry on January 31, 2022| 6 Comments »
Worry comes in like a fruit fly—
slips through the tiniest crack,
a crack I didn’t even know was there—
or it comes in the front door
with something I love—
and soon, worry is everywhere,
laying its eggs in all that would ripen.
Almost instantly, worry multiplies.
Of course, worry would have red eyes.
Worry doesn’t much care the season.
Winter is as good as spring.
And it circles me, buzzes me,
annoys and undoes me,
resists my attempts to be rid of it.
Invites me to learn to live with it.
I never notice when it is gone,
only when it’s here again.
One Expansion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged sky, spaciousness, worry on October 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
swallowing the sky tonight—
all those enormous worries in me
now like grains of sand
All Day, Everywhere I Go
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged worry on May 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »
in my stomach
only two butterflies
but oh how they flutter
not finding
anywhere to land
The Worrier Goes for a Ride
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bus, fear, poem, poetry, worry on September 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »
And then, as I was walking the dirt road,
it hit me like a school bus: people
might not like me. I felt the rush of air before
the bumper connected with my butt, and knew
in that moment I could choose to be flattened or
choose to somehow crawl into that bus
and ride along with the jeers and snarls and sneers.
Okay, I said, as I clawed my way around the yellow fender
to the open door, a stowaway on my fear.
I climbed the green stairs and felt their stares:
icy, cruel, fierce. Others indifferent, bored.
I stared back, prepared to feel small.
Hello, I said, waiting for shame. But
that’s not what I felt at all. Instead,
some seed of awareness that I was not splattered
by fear but alive, and now moving in one direction
with this busload of what frightened me so,
And I was not flattened nor crushed nor bruised.
I took my seat. Felt their eyes on my back.
And the bus kept driving along. When it stopped,
I stepped off, surprisingly whole.
After the Drought
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged drought, poem, poetry, worry on August 24, 2018| 2 Comments »
even my worry
decides to kick off its shoes
and play in the rain—
forgetting for a moment
its soggy gray socks
All the Way Home
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, parenting, peace, poem, poetry, worry on November 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
—Helen Keller
Three days after
I think the world
is coming apart,
in the back seat
of the car
my daughter
is improvised
by a song—
I eavesdrop
as she mumbles
along
to an accidental
tune,
change is
wonderful
change
is wonderful.
How I Stay Tethered
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, thoughts, worry on September 15, 2015| 2 Comments »
I return to the story about the monk
who put everything he owned into a boat
and rowed it into the middle of the lake
and then sank it. He did not give the stuff away,
not wanting to burden anyone else
with things. I would like to take
a red canoe to the center of a lake
and sink it with these thoughts—
why should anyone else need to worry
the ways I have worried on behalf
of the world? My only fear is that
they would displace so much water
the lake would flood and who knows
how many might be hurt then. No, I think,
better to take them for a walk.
Oh those thoughts, like unruly puppies,
biting at my ankles and running off—
and isn’t it like me to call them back
or run after them, afraid they’ll get lost.
Tasting Them
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, wind, worry on April 22, 2015| 5 Comments »
just as I toss
these ashes of worry
to the breeze
the wind changes
direction
Turn, Turn, Turn
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, poem, poetry, worry on January 19, 2015| 2 Comments »
At six, my daughter doesn’t know
her visit to the oral surgeon tomorrow
is a hardship. She is thrilled about losing
three teeth in a day, just think
what the tooth fairy might bring!
She twirls around the room and hums
a tune that only she knows. I do not tell her
how much it might hurt. I tell myself
it may not be so bad, that children
heal faster. Just last week, she was bit
by the cat and already the wound
has disappeared. I tell myself it is better
this way, the not knowing.
I try to imagine not knowing
how much it hurts when the ones
we love are in pain. I want to save her
in ways I can’t save myself—save her
from the sting of worry. Tomorrow
is nowhere here. For now, there is
this song spiraling out, there is
this spinning, laughing girl, there is
this heart breaking before its time,
this longing to hold something
that can never be held.
But I Write this Poem, So We Know it’s Not Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anxiety, fear, miso soup, poem, poetry, the present, worry on January 6, 2013| 2 Comments »
While worrying
about tomorrow,
I make soup.
Sliver the onion,
thin white crescent moons,
and then peel the carrots,
slice them on the bias,
sauté, add dashi, add miso, add scallion,
and boil the udon,
till the whole house
smells of the rich golden broth
and that sharp little mouth
that ceaselessly sings
what if, what if,
is so busy observing
the tang of the ginger—
so pungent, so silver—
it (almost) forgets to insist.