Her head is littered with poetic debris – random shrapnel of thoughts the daily barrage of metaphor that obscures her vision:
the cairn of rocks from her nature walk how trees grow through fences (and how they’re like some teachers) the many places where she stores her ideas how grief attracts more attention than joy the waiting-for of lilacs the student who opens her eyes to hyenas, misunderstood the giving-away of writing time (and the pale ritual she’s resigned to)
She can’t not see things as a poet, without lines and images swirling, accumulating in staggering piles so all she can do is sweep up after herself or open the door and let them blow away
Today is a Sunday. Which is traditionally my Sunday Sit-Down day. But it is also April 18. So today, Sunday Sit-down will have to take a proverbial back seat.
Six years ago today, I was with my husband, enjoying a beautiful spring day while working the hostas in the garden. I received a phone call that my brother was in the emergency room in St. Louis, five hours away. Things didn’t look good. I lightening-quick packed a bag and jumped into the car, only to find out he was gone by the time I hit the highway.
After a seemed-like-forever road trip, and after a few heartbreaking hours at my sister-in-law’s house, and a weary, disconsolate landing at my parent’s place, I was alone, silent with my thoughts. Six years ago, on that couch in a darkened living room, I felt myself in the midst of everyone’s else’s grief and sorrow and this poem is what came to me. I’m sharing it again now.
So I heard this story the other day About a guy Who saw a lama for his pain.
And the lama Had trained his heart To grow big as the sea So it could shoulder the Burdens of the suffering And replace them With love.
The lama Asked for the guy’s hands And took them Into his And he asked for the guy’s grief And took it Into his heart And the guy felt better.
I want to do that.
Not to be the guy.
The lama.
Let my heart swell Limitless Let love flood.
Place your hands into mine. I will ask for your pain And my heart will open wide Wider Wider And swallow your pain In love.
Here’s another poem I’ve brought out from the dusty corners. I remember when I wrote this, and everything about this writing hummed along until I got. To. One. Line. I worked and reworked and reworked, and put the whole darn thing away because I couldn’t get the right word.
I STILL don’t have the exact right word for that line. Bonus points if you can figure out which one I struggled with.
Who knows? Some day, that right word will come to me and I might, just might, come back and make one last edit to this poem. But until then, as they say, I shall “bless and release.”
In the meantime, it’s also hit me that I started this poem in pre-COVID times. I think it reads differently in today’s context. That’s okay with me too.
Just like the kosher lady who sneaks pancakes with bacon I awake into action Cheerfully rouse the troops Serve a nutritionally-balanced breakfast Drop the kids off with a smile Hi! How are you doing today? Great! And you? Just fine. I greet my colleagues in the same fashion As we Gather In important meetings And sit rapt. I stop at the store, exchanging Currency and small talk Great! And you? Just fine.
Just fine. How I want How I wonder How I wish
The feeling of Shrugging off appearance Sloughing away Thick skin Broad shoulders Heavy heart A shedding of pretense Leaving me At the intersection Of intent and reality.
Found this poem, incomplete, in my notes. I had started with the seasons and their respective nouns, and I had toyed with the haiku structure but never quite reached satisfaction on the stanzas. Still can’t say that I have, but I’m ready to let this one make its way into the world.
Summer: loosening A relaxing of long days Into sun and light
Autumn: a shifting Into clarity, crispness, Deepening of hues
Winter: reckoning Hibernation of spirit, Our souls in retreat
Spring: Awakening speaks of cliché yet never fails to inspire awe
When I was ten, my grandma-from-California paid for me to have piano lessons and whenever she came in town she’d sit me down at the piano bench and say
“Well, let’s hear my investment,” and I’d play And most often she would nod and smile as I played because I sure did practice because she needed to get her money’s worth
And then in high school I learned how to play guitar on a four-dollar flea market cheapie and I’d struggle in my room for hours with guitar chord charts torturing the life out of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Peter, Paul & Mary
until my mom brought me to the guitar store before I went to camp, saying it was “to get a better case for you,” except it was for a new guitar, a hundred-dollar one, with a real case with real fake furry lining and I thought oh boy I sure need to practice because she needed to get her money’s worth
And now that I’m a writer and I’ve poured myself into words and I’ve started to understand that even though I mostly shout into the void I still have things to say
so I’ve bought myself a real live domain and a real live plan which might change the way my soapbox looks or maybe it might not but it might be a way to put my money where my mouth is where my fingers are where my heart is and I deserve to get my money’s worth.
Want to write? i said Want a space where you’re read? i said Then come with me i said You can blog like me i said Here are some ideas i said You can take them or do other things i said
And then they came They blogged They took some ideas And they did other things like:
A journaling of a day, gone by too fast.
An ode to flowers
A poem demanding us to look, just look, at the wonder around us
A treatise on nostalgia
A heart-wrenching poetic series that tells of our inner conflict between our positive and negative selves
Stories about trampolines
Deep dives into all those weird questions that keep us awake at night
A poem that hangs heavy with the unfairness of life
A COVID parody on “12 Days of Christmas”
Soapboxes on humans and our treatment of animals
Stories that they start the first installment of, then the stories that they switch to because why not take a chance and share some writing that isn’t quite your favorite but you’re still working on and want to just put out into the world and see what happens
The latest installments on the Minecraft Saga, on Chokis and Fott’s new adventures, the New Life story, the tale of Test Subject 99,823, all somehow miraculously, magically written with correctly-punctuated dialogue and paragraphing and description and narration because miraculously, magically, they realize that other people are reading their work
This is good, i think They’re figuring things out, i think And they’re taking it, i think And running, i think And it’s hard to keep up, i think
And there are some problems That are good problems to have.
*Special thanks to S.T., whose gratitude for her time together with classmates together inspired today’s poem
Dear Standardized Testing,
Thank you.
Thank you for bringing me these loveys –
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form,
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play and challenge one another to relay races
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play and challenge one another to relay races and remember how easy it is to remember
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play and challenge one another to relay races and remember how easy it is to remember how good it is, sometimes, to be a kid.
Relay races, stretch breaks, hang-out circles and general tomfoolery
Each Sunday, I’m working my way through my experiences with race. I’ll share stories and memories from throughout my life. I know I’ll encounter moments of growth that I wish I could relive. I’ll also have to think back on choices that I wish I could remake. Come join me each week.
All the world is a very narrow bridge*
between the world as I know it and the one too many others live
between power of identity and the insistent tug of justice
between guilt for sins of fathers and mothers and the compelling urge to act, to do
between apologies for who I am, what I represent and the abiding sense of right and wrong
between my moral compass and true north, shifting beneath my feet
between the self I am and the one this world needs me to be
Today, I had the privilege of working again with other leaders from my Just Schools Cohort. Together, we’re working across districts to advance equity and justice in schools. This team of professionals…they’re amazing. And even on days where I feel discouraged about my own work, and my own progress, they are there to remind me that building a more just society is HARD. That we have a LOT of work to do. But that we can – and MUST – do it together. They inspire me.
It brings to mind a line from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish teachings. Rabbi Tarfon said: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” This Golden Shovel poem is my tribute to the incredible efforts of my colleagues.
Cathedral Rocks by Albert Bierstadt
When you stand at the base of a mountain, you can’t ever see the top. Your feet are just plunking down one after the other, not knowing when-how-if they’ll arrive. They just know they’re obligated by faith to get you to a place where the work is complete and whole and holy. The temptation to be solitary in your work is great, but you know this journey is neither easy nor short. So you are going to need others with you, others who know the only way to be free is to be strong, be strong, that our strength never allows us to desist from the lifedream of reaching that mountain top, or from the struggle of climbing it.
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 