good will

21 May

My back seat was full yesterday, and when a small window of time opened up,  I crawled amongst the beach traffic to a Goodwill drop-off point.   When I pulled up, the worker was standing ready to help me with the boxes. On top of one box was a skirt that has made it through all my many moves the past 10 years.  It was a beauty, rich fall colors, a mix of fabrics.  Time to say goodbye, but my hand couldn’t help but fondle it one last time before I picked up the box to hand it to the man waiting in the drop-off.

May the next owner of that skirt be well.  May the skirt live the next phase of its life with joy.

“How are you doing, today?” I asked the man, present.

He told me as we shifted these boxes to his arms that he was not doing so well.

I asked him why this was and he said that “it started out okay but…” and his voice faded out, so I added into the words unsaid, “Then all hell broke loose?” and this made him laugh.

“Yes,” he said.

More boxes, more shifting of weight from my car to his arms.

“I hope you are able to resolve your trouble” I said as I waited for my receipt.

“Oh, it will be resolved alright.” He said.  “I’m moving out.”

“Oh, big life shifting.” I said.

“Yes.”

“Good luck with your move,” I said in parting.

He smiled.

I do not know what it is, this way life has of bringing me truer interactions with what many would consider peripheral.  It has been this way often.  The moment opens wherever and whenever.   May Mr. Goodwill be well. May his move bring him peace—and may we all meet where we meet in the smallest of moments .

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the turkey and the chef

17 Nov

In the pan

browning on all sides of

my cubist self–forward, back, and side at once.

edge living

is hot!

 

at times I try to jump from the flame,

my own juice

basting over my head

a humiliating baptism to the one

who has forgotten

the agreement of what’s for dinner.

the hairs on my arms seek like radars

trying to read the flames’ intention; even though,

I signed a waiver.

 

veins pulse while

the heart is in its throws–

 

with or without me along.

I’m  cooked so long

falling off the bone

tender

tender

who sees the anxious fingers

slip into the pan

to satisfy the longing

for a preview bite

of this upcoming feast?

 

 

 

 

 

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pain and joy got married

14 Aug

 

Can pain and discomfort glove the hand of plenty bearing gifts?
Joy exists not in spite of but because of obstacles – I assert this morning.
What do we have in the end, after bouts of illness and love, but just ourselves?
And the gift of this self is won in a simple marathon.
Outlasting our every thought, we still exist –
and in the ending miles,
we learn to be there in whatever way we are,
accumulated skeletons,
in need of nothing,
ready for any errand,
sitting in dull evening light,
a raging sunset escaping in rays between our ribs.

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place title here

28 Apr

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

The hover before the in breath,

milk ducts in an empty breast,

the stomach: a hallowed out bruise,

an arm contorted every way to ease a throbbing itch,

slack tide’s final pause,

the coyote hamming to the camera in the air just off the cliff,

my attention’s constant hole never empty yet—

Is it the ohm?

Is it those last shivering atoms releasing the reverberation of the gong,

the hum of what was catching up to the trumpet of what will be,

the sway of the air’s almost embrace of the planet’s constant spin?

Let’s linger here, eyes closed, tongues out to catch the first drops.

Not holding our breath,  not rushing it either.

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kiss and tell

7 Apr

I have a pervasive feeling of discomfort often.  I am finally able to identify this sensation as a feeling of something  pressing down on me about the tasks that are waiting for completion which directly contrasts to the wonders that are spontaneously arising every moment.  This pressing feeling has been so intrinsic to life for me that it is only as it is peeling back that I can feel it in its absence.  Whew.  How exhausting it is, and yet I continue  to have it return as tasks begin to mount, and I become lost to what is unfolding now.     Mas y mas, I am committing in holy matrimony to the moment, not the task.  I wear white, and you, now, wear white; we walk down the aisle together, you and me.  My life partner?  Oh my, perhaps I am even in a polygamous commitment, for I am marrying each moment, which is singular, but in the moment, arises all things.  Scandelous.  Just today I married my scratch pad, my students, my daughters, my cat.  I marry the moon as often as I can.  Today I joined with a bumblebee in the flowering azaleas as I fretted over the over-pruned camellia sticks, overjoyed to find signs of new growth.  We had a tryst, for this bee came on so strong.  So ripe is this romancing – the lover is here.  Dear missed connections – I apologize for all the overlooked love notes that have ever come my way.  I read the writing on your crumbled leaf, peel back your bark;  your hum enters my ear, eternal.

 

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brita with legs

3 Apr

the water coming out is pure (sweet even)

some days,

no matter what goes in,

you might have started to notice.

such is the goal; even though,

the process is not understood.

it’s felt,

allowed.

we’re charcoal,

filters of fine mesh,

pulses of electricity,

forward momentum and reversing, too,

which can at times be experienced like plumbing problems

-street elbows full of hairy regret, sludged up, huh?, valves corroded with Why Me?–

until it can be felt

deep in a body of an advanced engineering

of nerve pipes dumping

into muscle-sadness storehouses

long ago designed for purification,

yet decommissioned until the managers could awaken

in these Holy Water Manufacturing Plants.

the debris cleared out is not even our own.

the pain

processed

is not personal.

the tears the shudder

the retching

our service

at last,

just working it through

trickling out pure water at times.

thank you and you’re welcome.

 

 

 

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parenting by powerpoint

17 Mar

Everyday bad things happen, so-

I’ve drawn you a flow chart

to take you from point a to z

with arrows to the short cuts

so roughly won by me.

Let me help you jump over ditches

and avoid the dead-end streets.

Watch my greatest hits of

heartache, thought addiction, faux pas, shame, fear, regret,

so you can save yourself the trouble.

Look, simply, I can help you

avoid the ramifications of not heeding good advice.

I didn’t even know I had it in me, as non-linear as I can be,

to map it out for you, but I did;  I’ve a crash course on not crashing.

But I’m being asked another task, much different than what I’ve done.

The night now asks me to have a courage I don’t know how to muster –

I’m now to be the watcher and not the player and not the coach.

I’m now to calm my plotting mind.

I’m instructed not to imagine trains flying off of their tracks

even while I feel the lurch and screech

of the metal momentum – see sparking in the air.

I’m to observe as boats sink, as elevators release and fall,

as villains creep most uncartoon-like in dark shadows when you pass by;

who orchestrates such visions – where are the views of nature walks, of laughter,

of joy?   Why the fear, why the wrecks, why the destruction?

Why am I thinking of how my parents must have ached and quaked

sitting in hospital rooms, listening to white coat protocol-

powerless

except to release a real-life child to death, to unthinkable death.

I mouthed the words but I didn’t register the meaning –

because I’m still on the simpler fare—

that love is holding the tongue

and squeezing my own trembling body while

I watch and allow.

I am unable to live for another,

unable to undo words,

unable to iron out the wrinkles

of the kinks forming in the plan.

The night brings what the day allows me to hide.

The learning is only ever mine

and it can only be postponed, never avoided altogether;

now or later is  the only choice I get to make.

 

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