On this path

​I’ve begun asking myself what I need
from the world, and I’ve begun asking why.
And I’ve been wondering about the seeds
of dissatisfaction and alibis,
and how I follow where impulses lead-- 

and why. I slow down and demystify
the feelings I take from tears and laughter
when they arise. And I try not to try.
I try not to dwell for long on after
or before. I don’t get lost in the weeds. 

I try not to try, and I don’t have to
succeed. I’ve begun to take it lightly
when I flail—to say it’s just a draft or
a gift for the compost pile, and rightly.
I began a long time ago to die. 

I drop hold of each day’s motions nightly,
and I’ve begun to wake in strange delight.

Living in the illness

The fever shook the old man and we felt
the floor move trying to believe it.
Let’s be frank; we have no time to be pretty.
The stark sun paints our blood red
and makes tear-streaked faces shine.
Outside this window and the window
of every suffering soul lucky enough
to have a window, the earth spins 
day into night, heat into chill, 
and the world the old man built,
and the worlds we put our hearts into crumble,
stale cake on a small table beside the bed.

The heart does this, and still the lungs fill with air
and empty again. It’s the same everywhere, 
and when we find the foyer quiet,
then the mind decides to calm itself.
For a moment — there --
an invisible tide pulls at us
with a tiny, tender magnetism,
a mother love enfolding us
in our innocent longing to be reached.

I spin with you. You shake with me.
The end comes every moment.
If we look beyond the resting body,
out the window, we know the world 
is with us, unconditionally holding us
with no promise ever made nor broken.

A Visitor Called Sadly
 
 
A certain kind of Sadly
seemed to seep into my soul.
I knew because I noticed
a heavy, heart-shaped hole.
 
I stepped inside the heaviness.
My breath blew out a tad.
I heard the Sadly’s message.
The message was: “I’m sad.”
 
My sense of awful heightened.
My eyes went warm and wet.
My belly dropped and tightened--
I could feel it felt upset.
 
But I sat there with the Sadly,
and I watched it gently cry,
and I felt it in my body
until our tears went dry.
 
And then I saw a window,
a warming ray of sun;
and inside came a lightness
that felt like feeling done.
 
I reached out to the Sadly
that came in so bereft,
but the heavy hole had vanished
and the sadly simply left.
 
And now I think I understand
what made the Sadly melt.
It wanted to be sat with.
It needed to be felt.
 
I leave a doorway open,
a heart-shaped passageway
in case the Sadly comes again.
I think it knows it may.
 

We are just passing through
Published by Poetry Pacific  (forthcoming, November 2018)


The one who shakes
IS the shaking.

A person can turn into
a shout in the woods
or a long spill of loud tears.
We shake to give ourselves birth.

The saints ask outright for what they want:
'Put your hand on my forehead.'
'Lay myself down.'
'Go away!'
'Water, please.'

The saints only answer yes-no questions;
The saints only answer yes.

After the party
From One Way to Ask  (Norfolk Press, 2016)
And published in Wisdom Crieth Without, May 2013


​My friends visit, and I feast, storing up
memories, storing up memories for
when they’re gone and I stand by the cupboard
with my hands, with my hands talking over
each other like they do when thoughts rupture

so fast over my head. If forever
were mine, I would be still as a painting
and reach the exquisite end of wonder.
Wonder why. Now my hands are recalling
their American faces. I suppose

we’re the same around the world—but being
understood at last! Mother, I’ll return.
Mother, I’ll return, but first I’m knitting
this unforgettable, missing garment
from the way my friends are no longer here.

My hands knitting in the Sri Lankan sun,
knitting what’s gone, knitting what’s not yet gone.