Seagull says: “Look here;
All this abundance! Riches!”
Dances across our crumbs.
Category: Uncategorized
-
Clean for Tomorrow
Women before me look out past their sinks.
My mother with a lawn
of full trees and cardinals.
My grandmother in an alcove
of cheery wood cabinets.
I see blue Norman Creek as day slowly melts.
Familiar porcelain aches fill my sink.
Cookware, utensils, all
spent pots and pans.
Burnt-on leftovers,
Stuck crumbs hanging on,
Hands pruned in water; spine bent to task.
Watch plucky bubbles soon find rivulets
of air. Feel tension ease
as you look up and shift.
How doused we are with
indelible fortune. Tonight, I
chose scrubbing. To be clean for tomorrow.
[Written in April 2020]
-
Here, Time, Gather
Here, time to gather myself
To gather hands
To gather together my hands as if in prayer
As if to hold myself in a way that is kind,
As if to create energy that is bigger than myself
But is still myself
My Self holding hands together, to gather
In a moment, all of what is and what can be.
-
Silver Linings
Pandemic furlough –
My Walden pond.
A chance to sit quiet
On a snowy couch
With Sandburg and
Whitman, and my great-
Grandmother who,
With silver thread,
Ties the past to my
Future roads. How
She loved Frost asking:
Which one will you
Take?
-
all i know is nothing
all i know is
i know nothing,air invisible now
feels viscous.inhale and accept, i
exhale to let go.grief is outrage is
paralysis is promiseis a messy reaction,
nodding and grimace.don’t look to me,
peer closer and within.i may know nothing
but i can learn.when air becomes
voice then we maysee intangible
become action,the many breathing
new life like light.
-
Steady as we prayed
Over lunch, a mantis settled for my Stella de Oro day lilies in the
blazing west sun on my roof deck in Baltimore. A capricious whim,
or calculated move – its motivation irrelevant. To the immediate south,
basil sage perfume, and wild-eyed purple petunia. Air conditioners
hummed mildly for the mantis on a deepening yellow bloom and
just as motionless as a cat perched two roofs away. I watched, captivated.
I willed the insect to move. Electricity rushed the wires. A car door closed.
Wind rustled pollen loose as a police helicopter
charged us to the east. Not one spindly leg twitched. I looked up.– a liminal space, a sudden tumblingwhirring cacophony of
skin
and privilege
and good blocks
and protection, and
murder and
bad blocks and
fear and
and grief and so much grief –Then looked down. Mantis had moved while the rotor blades roared.
It perched upside down mindful, head bowed,
tiny insect arms set in prayer. Steady as the sirens followed
like clockwork. Steady as we thought of our neighbors, knowing not a single one.Written 7/11/16
-
I’m with the majority
Today I think
1 of 2 people love poetry,
one half is convinced 5 of
12 words deliver peace, and
the rest are worthy of
derision, humiliation, and worse.
90% want freedom
from rhyme, 6% love
structure, the others
undecided. I heard 2.75% of grown-
ups are afraid of the dark, which
seems low, and 83%
of kids still believe in
multiplication, which seems high.I’ve made
my camp with the majority,
who is always right. 1 of 2 of us
is happy about it.Written 7/11/16
-
35
35 is
of the world
and not,
a stew of overjoyed
and discontent.Maybe when I’m older
the balance changes?I know when I was younger,
the scale slid far below
the line of happy; Things were so
dramatic then.35 forms a crossroad,
a slow settling into your own bones.Possibilities shine in the distance,
dirt glows under our feetwritten 6.6.15
-
Everything is Waiting For You by David Whyte
Last Sunday, I was able to participate in a wonderful event called Dancing on the Fragile Edge of the World: A Scholarship Concert of Music and Poetry with Michael S. Glaser (my former college professor), Brian Ganz, and Deanna Nikaido. I’d like to share one of the featured readings from this event here in an effort to share the love, light, and positive energy that the event gave to me.
Everything is Waiting for You
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.— David Whyte
from Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press
-
Fiercely, we hold on
We are never more rooted
in this big universe than
when our eyes sting and
our heads hang heavy for loss.When we, a procession of sun
glasses, watch, shifting feet,
as life disappears back into
those thick familiar arms.Our backs, clothed in black,
savor warmth, unaware that
we are at once joyful and empty,
and crying for ourselvesmirrored in the lowering. How
we know deeply: absence
of something weighs more than
substance, and we fiercely hold on.
Poetry by JC Snyder 