I want these to be in the world, but without my name on them. Activation/Content Warning on some entries. Whoever you are, may you find hope and strength and courage… "They tried to bury us, not knowing we were seeds."
PERSEPHONE: Roses are red– sometimes, at least– and irises blue, tulips in all kinds of colors, violets are purple, really, clover is pink or white and buttercups and and dandelions and daffodils are yellow, usually…
APOLLO: Is that supposed to be poetry?
PERSEPHONE: No, I just like flowers. Each spring I wish I had planted more. My favorites are the ones that come back again every year, like hyacinths and apple blossoms. But there’s nothing wrong with marigolds and snapdragons, either.
Inspiration from Kingof Ghosts, and apologies… I was worried I might half remember this poem and not be able to find the whole thing when it was wanted.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.
It will all fall down to dust:
Ozymandias’ statue in the desert, the mistress
whose eyes are nothing like the sun– her name
is lost to time rather than immortalized in rhyme.
And in a thousand years, why not also the same
for her poet-lover, and all the Bard’s verses and plays?
If not in a thousand, surely in 10,000– even roses
sung in children’s rhymes, that outlived the plague
will be no more than dust
indistinguishable from great ones:
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust”
Dust and ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Still, wasn’t the fire warm while it lasted,
beautiful as it danced, even if not for always,
blazing bright before it died into the embers
and dark ashes? As the tale is sometimes told
Cinderella’s loveliness shone through the dust
and ashes where she was banished,
mourning her parents, gone down to the dust.
Rare beauty, her gentle heart broke
somehow without a jagged edge, patient pieces
of hope still smoldered, protected from cold cruelty
by soft ashes banked over them.
Her courage, too, flamed out of the ashes
defying years of lies when she spoke
truth: “I am also a maiden of the land,
the king’s invitation includes me, too,
in this ball for all, if only for one night.”
Claiming her worth, she grasped the fleeting chance
to see the palace, to join the ephemeral dance,
a candle-blaze of waltzing romance.
Not knowing that her life would change,
she wished for a moment, a glimpse, a glance
to glow in memory later, when she returned
again to ashes, cinders of magic extinguished
at midnight. She could not have known love would
find her again, in her humiliated circumstance.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
the priest tells us as Lent begins–
the palms from the triumphal march
were burned, and Jesus wept for Jerusalem,
its temple of stone brought soon again to dust.
He told the city’s daughters not to weep for him,
the green tree, yet I don’t know but that also He
too is now become only dust.
Still, He washed the dust of the road
Off his disciples’ feet before his death.
Dust thou art, to dust we will return, wash off this dust
and is there anything, anything that remains
once the grime and dust are washed away?
Maybe He thought so, the king inviting all
who will come to a feast for everyone,
a burning bush that could give light
and warmth but not itself fall
into ashes. Or maybe, no, ALL is dust,
and dust and ashes, late or soon,
the dust of the road washed from those who are dust
by one who was also living dust (still glowing
as an ember, the memory not yet burnt out)
Dust, yet for a moment it held
such a strange spark and bright shape.
They brought her to Him in the morning, trapped prey
humiliated down to the dust and left
by the other man who wanted, I suppose,
not to die by the temple that particular day.
They asked Jesus what He would say:
shall we stone her for her sin, grind her into dust?
There is a law written about adultery to obey.
She saw Him bend down and write–
not in stone, but with His finger in the dust.
Afterwards, her accusers turned and went away,
each knowing his sin. The Gospel writer doesn’t say
what shapes or letters His fingers traced–
and if Jesus wrote in dust, why should it last or stay?
One doesn’t need every letter to know the shape of the play.
His entire fleeting life among the dust
He wrote love in the dust, inviting all with love
greater than a lifetime of words could convey.
What beauty can shine through dust,
before it is swept away? It’s Ash Wednesday.
If you wish for the chance to be marked
with this King’s sign, His cross, anyone may.
Let me also be the dust he writes in, I pray.
I love this: the– wonderful– joy of celebrating the– wonderful– shape of your body, alive and real
your bodymindsoul is
perfectly life-size fascinating, unique amazing delight richly abundant, a gift comforting, beautiful, solid, delicious, beloved.
I celebrate with love the YOU who are more— more than I know or could entirely comprehend who I behold, recognizing wonder. YOU are incarnate. I’m in love with the shape of your body, living on earth, full of you.
This started out as a collection of words that I clipped out of three catalogs: L.L. Bean, Harry & David, and For Small Hands: Montessori Resources. The phrase “the shape of your body” was part of the description of a mattress, but then I started moving around some of the words, added the last stanza even though I didn’t find anywhere the words “comprehend,” “behold,” “recognizing,” or “incarnate,” and so here we are.
I wrote this at age 30, at the end of my student-teaching internship at Orange High School, to give to my four classes of seniors. Every one of them was going to graduate. It is also an homage to Borges’ poem “Mateo XXV 30” which I had everyone read (translation by Alastair Reed) and discuss in class.
I can’t sleep tonight, but I remember
in the oldest Hillsborough High School, first wing, on the second floor…
It’s April, I look out the window at the sky
and recall the line “Stars, bread, libraries of East and West” given
to me with thousands of years’ worth of stories
galleries and museums here and in Europe,
the advice of elders, the nourishment of love,
the invisible, indestructible support of a friend,
a human body to walk the earth, this marvelous
quintessence of dust: lungs that breathe,
feet that dance in delight, hands that speak in the air,
freedom on forest paths, contemplation,
memories of beaches, Pacific, Atlantic,
tides pulled by a waxing and waning moon.
gifts of purple hyacinths and orange juice,
a box of crayons, blue ink, yellow pencils, and index cards,
a black dog whose wiggles welcome me home,
the poems of Borges, Rossetti, Eliot, and Chaucer,
describing truly joy and despair, peaches and the spring,
“dreams like buried treasure, generous luck” that caught me
swaying, before I fell to the floor;
his eyes that sparkle, her gleaming crescent smile,
Algebra, Galileo’s logic, medicine and music,
melodies from this year, from centuries ago,
a stowaway’s patience, the Viking’s courage,
a farmer’s powerful stubbornness in my blood; an ancient castle,
calendars, chocolate, glasses, candlelight and paperweights,
bridges and ferns, the moss on stones by the stream
a ring with a skull, and a cross in a vision,
a voice to lift up in song. Greek myths, and the Bible,
tales inhabited by mermaids and dragons,
languages of the world, and laughter, helpless and healing;
Thirty journeys around the dazzling sun, studying for years
“more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of”
in 18th century philosophy.
“All this was given me, and with it
the ancient nourishment of heroes–”
heartbreak, defeat, humiliation.
In vain have I seen the golden clouds, driving at sunrise
in vain listened in the dark to the rain and the thunder.
I have used up my time, and it has used up me,
never having given you all.
There was that within me passing show,
what it means, the little I could give you, I never will know.
The classroom never actually caught fire.
Oh, but my students, you did so inspire–
my joy and my strength, all to which I ever did aspire.
And still, and still, a mystery you remain
Only the gift of your memories could make worthwhile this exit in pain.
You were my first. No others can ever compare. Dare.
I am the artist who drew the peace circle while locked in a psychiatric ward, using glowing colors.
I am the mother who tenderly holds a weeping, wailing child through the times that try toddler souls.
I am the naturalist who walks through the woods, noticing moss, noticing ferns, touching the ground through the soles of her shoes, feeling gratitude for the support of Mother Earth.
I am the gardener who goes out after rain to smell the herbs and admire the raindrops on silvery leaves.
I am the hurt girl, painfully shy, who trembles and sometimes can’t bring herself to make eye contact with others, who feels a sense of sinking dread when the phone rings or there’s a knock at the door.
I am the reader who stays in the library until it is closing time, bringing home seven books, even though I will come back tomorrow. I am the English major who loves myths and fairytales and poetry, thinking right now of Walt Whitman.
I am the star-gazer who looks for Jupiter and Venus in the sky, studying constellations.
I am the journal writer with the slanting cursive handwriting, the lines of it layered over drawings of trees and chess pieces, birthday cakes, hourglasses, feathered arrows and mountain lakes, starfish, turmeric root, pomegranates and roses.
I am the friend who calls every week, year after year.
I am the aging human, bewildered by the stiffening of her muscles and instability of her joints, repulsed by the changing texture of the skin on her freckled hands, and ashamed of the stretched-out softness of a body that has been pregnant three times (though I have only two living children).
I am the feminist who is ANGRY at the capitalist, patriarchal culture which hijacks her emotions, shaming women for having bodies that bleed and flesh that wrinkles and sags.
I am the recovering physical therapy patient who rejoiced, running on the path in the moonlight and running up the stairs on a sunny afternoon.
I am the practicing Christian who knows her faith is absurd, and prays every day to be an instrument of peace, to spread compassion. I pray for courage and wisdom and daily bread.
I am the wife who matches socks, mends, sews buttons back on, proofreads cover letters, makes the bed, and finds keys.
I am the ambivalent daughter who knows they did the best they could, and that their very best sometimes wasn’t much good.
I am the swim instructor who tells learners to stretch out their hands in the direction they want to go, making their bodies like arrows.
I am the poet who longs to reach out, who longs to be found.
This is another re-working of the form inspired by Frank O’Hara’s “Song” which I first used writing before the Spring Equinox here.
In the aisles of the grocery store, I noticed pomegranates and then blackberries– not on my list– and bought them anyway.
I was thinking of you.
Sewing a long, straight seam on the Singer machine, I almost lost my breath.
I was thinking of you.
As I heard music I hadn’t listened to since several dozen iTunes updates ago,
I was thinking of you.
I went alone, but after hearing a text that appears in our lectionary only once every four years: “The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come,” as I struck the match to light a candle before the church’s icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help–
I was thinking of you.
As I walked through the community garden by red roses, and white, and with roses with pink on their petals, still blooming after Equinox even as the leaves start to change,
I was thinking of you.
And right now, though I spoke to you yesterday, I am looking at the clock (subtract three hours for your time), eager to speak to you again, and I am thinking of you.
And right now.
And right now.
I have some strategies for coping with panic attacks that do not require materials, but in order to help myself feel more generally prepared for sudden, overwhelming fear, I made myself a kit containing various paraphernalia that I thought might help in an emotional emergency. I wanted my kit to fit in my purse, be sturdy and light, to be reused/upcycled, and to be beautiful. Eventually, I settled on this tin box in which the glow-in-the-dark stars that now adorn the nursery ceiling were originally packaged. It’s a little larger than might be ideal, but the label seemed perfect. I wanted something like the phial of Galadriel given to Frodo that would be a light in dark places, when other lights go out.
By making this myself, I became in this way Galadriel who gives as well as Frodo who receives light.
In addition to a handkerchief and some beautiful reminders of peace and goodness, the box contains materials (tea-light and matches) for making candlelight, just in case I need a glow to focus on, or a flame to show me more clearly the movement of my own breath. I also light candles sometimes to pray. I have not yet used the candle, but have used the handkerchief. The plastic bag is so that if the plastic bag containing the lavender essential oil ALSO leaks, the matches will still light. Aura Cacia’s lavender oil is lovely, and applying a drop to my forehead and rubbing another on my wrist has helped soothe me many times, reminding me also of working in my grandmother’s garden.
I decorated the inside lid of the box with reminders of some of what is good and lovely in the world: moss, stones, mountains, waterfalls, trees, and my loving husband (who studied diligently to learn ninjitsu, and has never had to use it outside the dojo, but I believe absolutely would, if necessary, to protect me or our children).
By the lid, you can also see some of the small squares sheets of paper that are decorated with more reminders of what is good and beautiful in the world: birds, flowers, waves, patterns, light, color, art, languages. These are usually stored folded together in a small book, with notes on the reverse side to help me remember what I need to do if I’m in a panic.
At the bottom of the box is the if-all-else fails section: prescription medicine for anxiety and a safety pin. The safety pin is for the tactile equivalent of smelling salts– I’ve not had to use it since putting together this kit a year ago, but I know a sharp jab to my fingertip and the sight of my own red blood will pull me out of a panic. Also, I might have a wardrobe malfunction and need to pin something. There’s more moss on stones with a little waterfall, too. My kit is reassuring for me to carry into new situations, where I’m pushing myself into situations that require me to stretch beyond my comfort zone.
Ideally I’d have some way to carry a small bit of water within the tin, too– enough so that I wouldn’t have to dry-swallow a pill, but I’m usually in places where water is easily accessible. I haven’t needed to use the pills more than once or twice over the past year. They’re mostly just there for the sake of being prepared– I would rather have them and NOT need them than vice versa. Soon I will post about the writing on the reverse side of my pretty origami papers (one is also blank, in case of sudden insight).
Gray’s Anatomy diagram of the inner ear, showing semi-circular canals of the vestibular system and the cochlea
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, here are nothing else but miracles:
These lyrics in a language we both know,
accompanied by instruments in harmony,
this melody that travels through the air invisible,
touching the delicate membrane and vibrating
intricate small bones within your ear, surrounded
by swirls of the labyrinthine apparatus of balance and
sensed by parts shaped like a seashell, traveling
along nerves into your mind’s perception– all this
formed according to ancient patterns, unseen
(though they are with you always). These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles The whole referring– yet each distinct and in its place.
Now you can hear it, too, can’t you?
I offer this message sent swiftly, silently
in seconds crossing hundreds of miles of sky
to you wherever your feet can carry you,
This is the song I heard, moments ago,
my thoughts set to music, and I thought of you–
Can you hear it, too?
I found this music, and heard it, and sent it to share with you,
using these pocket-objects of ours, their machinery
assembled with such dexterity and skill,
glass glowing with electric designs
wrought of metals and materials
dug from deep within the earth– I know not where,
but far– far both from where you are,
and far from where I am, far away from each other as we are–
you waking to a later dawn, and nearer the world’s other ocean
(yes, and also to me the sea is a continual miracle).
Unlocked by fingerprints, by what miracles
did these miracles of human devising
come to be held in our miraculous hands?
Listen, won’t you, and hear it too:
this song I heard years ago, and had forgotten,
a few measures emerging today from memory,
my subconscious contradicting my skeptical self
with a seven word phrase
full of faith I couldn’t place:
“I believe in mir-a-cles! Praise the Lord!”
Then I must hum the tune stuck in my head,
vexed by verses beyond my mental reach,
the singer unrecalled, unknown the name of the song,
the chorus, and next verse all unfathomable mysteries.
But this is a miracle– a few finger-taps
on a small, smooth surface, a fraction of a moment,
and now I know what I heard a fragment of.
Despite my mondegreen, through a web of miracles,
appear all the lyrics I couldn’t call
unaided into conscious mind (this wasn’t one I heard in church,
though it is filled with miracles) line after line of lyrics
with the band and the title of the song.
Knowing these, with a few more taps, and yes,
yes, unspeakably perfect miracle— I hear the wonderfulness of music, the whole song playing, the wonderfulness of missing pieces of memory reassembling,
of what was lost having been found again.
I recognize what I could not remember,
laughing at what I’ve learned: Yes,
“I believe in miracles,” and, here, take freely, I offer them to you. Can you hear it? I offer them without end.
Miracles, miracles, not just one–
listen to this song, and though the words are not my own,
it sings some of what I would wish to say to you:
If you understand me, hearing this music, what stranger miracles are there?
My father grows beautiful gardens. When I was a child, he built me a sandbox, and a rose garden, a wisteria arbor with a swing, and a toy wooden boat with a rubber band motor that we sailed together on the lake.
When I was a child, he often enjoyed scaring me. He would keep teasing, not listening, while I learned that to protest was to prolong an ordeal. If I cry, he’ll keep doing it until I don’t cry anymore. He tells me I am too sensitive, though with his training, by the time I was twenty, you could slam my finger in a car door and I wouldn’t flinch. I have no fear of a surgeon’s knife or needles, though I’m frightened, sometimes, when I hear him now at my door.
My father carefully taught me to go down the stairs safely, and caught me just in time when I tripped and fell, before I hit my head on a concrete slab. He gave me a puppy with golden fur to love and named her after a song. He split open the rocks I brought him, showing me the sparkling quartz inside. He carried me on his broad shoulders. He read me stories and made sure I memorized my multiplication tables. As I grew older, sometimes in the car I pretended to be asleep when we arrived so he would lift me up and carry me for a little while.
He told me stories about his own childhood haunted by grief, and betrayal and lack.
When I was a child, he often enjoyed scaring me.
My mother saw him throw me across a creek when I was four– “Cripple Creek”– because I had trouble walking for a while after that…that’s also a song. Was it just a day that I had trouble walking? A week? I remember them both laughing when I realized, horrified, that my back was hurt in such a way I could no longer touch my toes. Pain is funny? I remember them laughing above me, also, when a different pain terrified me; I was held down, a preschooler, shamed and hurt by a stranger with their permission, not protected. He likes telling this story, as a reminder of what might happen to me again if I complain. I learned not to complain.
My mother watched him set me, still so small, on a concrete post, high off the ground, say he was leaving, and walk away (were we in Baltimore? I can’t remember). I scraped my back jumping down, cracked my ankle, and ran after him, desperate… …and he laughed, because I had believed him.
When I was a child, my father often enjoyed scaring me. The person I most needed to trust was not always trustworthy.
He told me no boy would ever want to kiss me, and he kissed me himself whether I liked it or not (I learned to hold still). He calls himself “The King.” Years later I disobeyed and he took all my letters, my paintings, my journal– and threw them in a dumpster somewhere I could never find. He didn’t ask permission. The things that were most precious to me did not belong to me. I remember hearing, once, how when Dad was young, he threw a person in a dumpster, too, after an insult. Different dumpster, same anger?
My father helped how many– hundreds? Thousands? of children with disabilities graduate from high school, teaching math and history, helped young runners and wrestlers become champions. They needed him. What did I need? After all, I had enough to eat. He said he was retiring from wrestling– it was in the newspaper, I was excited I was going to have more time with him. He broke that promise. Wrestling mattered more, and winning. People told me my father was a great man; a hero. I knew I would never be so important.
My father was proud of my straight “A’s,” though. He patiently, patiently, patiently taught me to drive. When he thought I might be an architect, he took me to New York to see an exhibit on Frank Lloyd Wright. He took me to see paintings by VanGogh and Picasso.
Before my first birthday, he almost drowned me in the Atlantic Ocean. My mother saw the wave go over us both, saw him come up without me and look around– “I lost her. Where is she?” then pointed– they hadn’t known I could swim. Did they not know the ocean is stronger than any hands, that small children are slippery? He pushed me away for holding on too tight.
My father taught me to ride the bicycle he bought for me– purple, with a unicorn. We looked for dragons, and mermaids, and fairies together. He played Candy Land with me, and cheated so I would win. Together, we sang ‘Chantilly Lace’ and there was always music in the house because of him. He wrote me a poem as a baby, “Sweet Potatoe” (it doesn’t rhyme) …and left me to cry myself to sleep before I was two months old.
My father’s voice is the one I hear encouraging me when I run. I wanted him to be proud of me, to love me. Hearing him call my name always gave me the extra surge of speed to cross the finish line strong, though dead last, every time, every race of the high school sport he decided I should do instead of the dancing I loved. (But not wrestling. That might have protected me).
It feels disloyal to write the truth: He laughed at my fear and my confusion. When I was a child, my father often enjoyed scaring me. He did push-ups on the train tracks, with the train coming, my mother screaming, “Stephen! STEPHEN!” The worst thing in the world would be to be left alone with her, without him.
He painted me a rainbow and encouraged me to sign my crayon drawings. He was the only one who would brush my hair gently, not yanking my neck against the snarls or scraping my ears. He put chocolate syrup on my creamsicle ice cream, and drove to Baltimore to find his little girl a kangaroo to hug after I cried over that Australian cartoon Dot on TV. Years later, he thought I should see Old Yeller and War Horse. He said, just the other day, “I called to speak with my granddaughter, I didn’t want to talk to you.” He makes sure I know he thinks my religion is a delusion. As I walk on two sprains, and he’s tired of my slowness, he tells me it’s not that bad. It doesn’t hurt as much as I think it does.
It didn’t really hurt when he spanked me, either, of course. He didn’t hit me with a closed fist, or a stick, or a belt… why would anyone be frightened of being hit by someone more than twice their height and six times their weight? And by the time I was five, I had learned so well he didn’t have to hit me at all. I used crayons only on paper. I did not sing at the table. I did not scrape my fork on my teeth. I did not scrape my spoon against the bowl, even if I was still hungry. I took care of myself and my sister in the mornings, quietly, so as not wake him up.
When I was a child, my father often enjoyed scaring me. He was also my only secure place: he was strong, my most comforting parent, he didn’t usually get very drunk; he was the one who never gouged my skin for being ugly or looked at me with hatred or utter indifference in his eyes. He never forgot me. The little fool you enjoy scaring has at least some value.
I crawled into his armchair and sniffed the pipe-tobacco Old-Spice smell for comfort. I wrapped myself in the satin-edged blanket he had given me, and hugged my bunny like the Velveteen Rabbit.
He took me out at night and showed me Halley’s comet, which would never appear again in our lifetimes. As a child, we walked together where the forest and mountains come down to the sea, looking in tide pools with wonder. He showed me how you could shove cicadas up your nose, or eat them. As I didn’t want to try, he chased me with the red-eyed bugs, laughing. He dropped starfish– cold, clammy, covered in suckers, down my back– or was it Kate’s? For fun– his, not hers, not mine.
When I was a child, my father often enjoyed scaring me.
This is what I knew as love. This is what I was told was good. This is what I believed was better than I deserved. I’ve been a fool.
Growing up in my father’s garden, I am about 11 here, with my sister, age 6. He built the birdhouse, too.
Mid-day, almost mid-summer: I squint in the sun, but nothing is light. We’ve walked to the pool. Danger: No lifeguard on duty. Not today. My daughter asked to come, all excitement, “Mama, teach me to swim like a dolphin!” I can make her happy, though I can’t be today. Past grief obscures present love, casting shadows of fear. My throat tightens and aches. I can’t cry over what’s lost. No tears and no peace. Not today.
Heavy-hearted, breath constricted, I flail against emotion like my daughter learning to swim—I’m sinking. What can I hold on to? As she fights the water, I say: I’m here, I’ve got you, you’re safe—just breathe, breathe, and breathe. Is it possible to trust this deadly element so unstable, so essential to life? Not for her. Not for me. Not today.
I grope for some handhold, some foothold, in prayer or in memory, so I won’t be swept away. I grasp and slip, reach out and grip. If I look down, it’s a long way. Have courage. Isn’t it exhilarating to climb, knowing you’re safe, rope knotted tight, fastened, secure? Not today.
I need something buoyant, to keep me afloat. I need an anchor, so I’m not swept away. I’m blind and I’m lost— I don’t know the way. Hold on to me. Help me. I’m still here. If you look, you can find me. Ask me to stay.
I gasp for air before the depths overwhelm me. Before I fall, I tie the cord to my waist, grab the line reaching from danger to you. Sunburnt, I search for glimmers of hope as the darkness descends. It doesn’t end. Not today. I can hold on if you tell me to stay.
I am the artist who drew the peace circle while locked in a psychiatric ward, using glowing colors.
Buried Verses 