Poetry Thursday

By the Stream
 ~Paul Laurence Dunbar

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens
      pass,
And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,
Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.
And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,
For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show,
And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries,
When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.

Poetry Thursday, actually Quote Thursday - still working on this virtue

Difficult times have helped me 
to understand better than before, 
how infinitely rich and beautiful 
life is in every way, and 
that so many things that 
one goes worrying about 
are of no importance whatsoever.

~Isak Dinesen


I get to spend time with my nephew this weekend. It is bittersweet. I cannot be with him and not think of his mother. This trip we will be celebrating the milestone of finishing middle school. These milestone events are the hardest. Though we do our best to be substitute moms while still being aunts, as sisters our hearts break into a million pieces that she is not here to witness her baby's accomplishments.

Last year we watched her daughter graduate from college. I had my mom bring the small heart filled with my sister's ashes to the ceremony. We each took turns holding on to it during the ceremony. I cannot put into words the pain associated with just acknowledging that she is not here, that there are so many important events in the lives of her babies (and ours) that she did not get to witness.

So, this quote is especially timely today. There is no amount of worry that will bring her back or change the fact that she did not get to be here for this. It is beyond important to understand the richness and beauty of life. And the difficult time and the pain just has to be borne.

Poetry Thursday ... actually quote Thursday

Where you are understood, 
     you are at home. 
Understanding 
         nourishes belonging. 
When you really 
         feel understood, 
you feel free to
     release yourself into 
     the trust and shelter of
     the other person's soul. 

― John O'Donohue
    Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Black and orange like me, part 1 (brainstorming)

The other day I was walking to an event on Princeton campus.

It was an event I had been looking forward to attending. Still, that familiar dread was spreading across my body, radiating out from my heart.

Still, I put one foot in front of the other along my way.

In my mind's eye, I began to see a scene from Out of Africa. It is near the end of the movie. Karen is sitting in her living room on a suitcase. Around her all the possessions she has not sold are in various states of packing. It is a huge room, and she seems small in it. She has the phonograph that Denys gave her, and it is playing something. She is eating dinner or drinking tea. Denys enters the room, and we swoon, hoping he will save her even though he isn't that kind of guy. Instead, she saves herself (again). She asks him if he wants to help her play a game. When she thinks she can't go on, she does one more thing (to make it worse we almost hear her say). And so she asks Denys to dance. She puts on a record, and they dance, first in the room and then outside onto the lawn with whatever was not sold.

I am not getting the words right.

But it is that sentiment ... I can't go through one more trauma/emotion/setback, and then I take a breath, and I do.

So, here I was breathing and getting ready to plunge into a room full of rah rah alumni. Black and orange would be sported by all in some fashion (except me... only black and white and a rust jacket I never put on, that was as close to orange and black I could go).

Being on campus is like walking through a graveyard for me.  Unlike my love for visiting cemeteries, walking a graveyard is not a pleasurable sensation. I think of it more like a place where the bones are exposed, not of neat rows of ornate or simple or tender remembrances of beloved people.

The graveyard is like a junkyard of discarded wrecks, you never know what horrifying sight will be around the corner, jolting you back to some memory of trauma. Even if they are not your memories, they sting. The crumpled car, like the one the mothers put out before prom, meant to remind teens that some decisions have irreversible consequence. Worst of all, the trauma may be contained within sweet memories that turned out to be rotten at their core.

Even though I am the only one who appears to catch glimpses of these wrecks or exposed skeletons, my sense is that they demand to be seen.

I hear whispers from every corner, reminding me of my time there, but I suspect that there are other whispers, too, that clamor for attention. "If she can hear the whispers of her own trauma, perhaps she can hear mine, too," they seem to wonder. The pain is palpable, and it can be overwhelming.

Some days I have the strength to listen to the whispers, to let them transport me back to that day or days, to envelope me in the memory whether sweet or sour. Other days, I skirt the university, purposely walk through a newer area (less chance for there to be a memory lingering there) or go out of my way not to touch campus at all, even if it means an extra mile.

Some days, even though I know I will tempt the ghosts, I walk on to campus to something that has been given a chance at new life, like West College now called Morrison Hall. I touch the plaque, take photos of it, try to fit a new memory into that space. Try to give myself some safe spaces to mark my way across campus in future.

Poetry Thursday - double

I had the privilege of hearing these two poets read last week... I think it was last week, the days run together ... in any case, great stuff.

ENJOY!

Forgiveness
~Christopher Soto
                  for Dad

I’m writing you
            10 years later
     & 2,000 miles
                     Away from
     Our silence
My mouth a cave
                That had collapsed
         I’m writing
 While you
You wear the
                  Hospital gown &
          count failures
Such as the body’s
Inability to rise
           I see your fingers
Fumbling in the
       Pillbox     as if
           Earthquakes are in
Your hands
             I think it’s time
For us to  abandon
Our cruelties
          For us to speak
So     s    o    f    t
We’re barely
                  Human.


Skin-Light
 ~Natalie Diaz
My whole life I have obeyed it—
            its every hunting. I move beneath it
            as a jaguar moves, in the dark-
                          liquid blading of shoulder.
The opened-gold field and glide of the hand,
            light-fruited, and scythe-lit.
I have come to this god-made place—
           Teotlachco, the ball court—
           because the light called: lightwards!
                        and dwells here, Lamp-land.   
           We touch the ball of light
           to one another—split bodies stroked bright—
                        desire-knocked.
                                    Light reshapes my lover’s elbow,
           a brass whistle.
I put my mouth there—mercy-luxed, and come, we both,
           to light. It streams me.
           A rush of scorpions—
                        fast-light. A lash of breath—
                                    god-maker.
           Light horizons her hip—springs an ocelot
           cut of chalcedony and magnetite.
                       Hip, limestone and cliffed,
slopes like light into her thigh—light-box, skin-bound.
           Wind shakes the calabash,
           disrupts the light to ripple—light-struck,
                       then scatter.
This is the war I was born toward, her skin,
           its lake-glint. I desire—I thirst—
           to be filled—light-well.
The light throbs everything, and songs
           against her body, girdling the knee bone.
           Our bodies—light-harnessed, light-thrashed.
                       The bruising: bilirubin bloom,
                                    violet.
A work of all good yokes—blood-light—
           to make us think the pain is ours
           to keep, light-trapped, lanterned.
                       I asked for it. I own it—
                                    lightmonger.
I am light now, or on the side of light—
           light-head, light-trophied.
           Light-wracked and light-gone.

           Still, the sweet maize—an eruption
           of light, or its feast,
                       from the stalk
                                    of my lover’s throat.
And I, light-eater, light-loving.

Not so small victories

homage to my hips
By Lucille Clifton
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,  
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips” from Good Woman. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Source: Good Woman (BOA Editions Ltd., 1987)
Borrowed from Poetry Foundation

Today I mark 12 weeks of re-learning to eat healthy (and love the body I am in at any weight).

My not so small victory is that I have lost 20 lbs.

I am trying to change my relationship with food ... not just that I want to eat healthier foods. I want to use food as nourishment. I want to taste my food. I want the meals that I eat to feel satisfying.

I realized not so long ago (in relationship to my time on earth), maybe ten years ago, that I was an emotional eater. I realized it while I was on a meditation retreat. Going deep into myself caused me great anxiety, and I discovered that I tried to take refuge in food. Shoveling is what I called it.

What I didn't understand at the time was that coping with anxiety was not the only time I was compelled to shovel food.  [Subsequently I shoveled when sad, angry, grieving.]

I also did not connect shoveling with feeling deeply unsatisfied. I didn't note how I could not taste the food as I shoveled.

I thought the not tasting and not feeling satisfied had to do with how fast I eat.

I don't know if I will ever master mindful eating, especially as it pertains to slowing down the eating process.

But I can now say that after eating not just healthy but really good tasting food for the last 12 weeks (mostly thanks to my amazing housemates), I notice when I feel unsatisfied and when I don't taste the food.

It has nothing to do with what I am eating and everything to do with my emotional state.

I am getting much better at noticing my emotions; and my discomfort at having to deal with so many emotions.  Noticing the food I eat, tasting the flavor, feeling satisfied and nourished, is one way that I have accomplished this.

I am still working on how to more effectively feel my emotions. That is to say, how to allow my emotions to move through me without trying to stifle them by numbing.

I am learning to notice the desire to be satisfied and how food does not bring the salve my coping mechanism had led me to believe it would.

This not so insignificant victory of shedding unnecessary weight is a leap forward on loving myself, feeding my body and soul, and treating myself in the ways that will keep me on this road to self love.

Liars lie

Liars lie
It's what they do
And when they are caught
They lie some more

Liars lie
It's what they do
The webs more intricate
The lies more perverse

Liar lie
And they blame
And they duck
And they weave

What do we call the people who believe them?

Poetry Thursday

All of Us
 ~Erika L. Sánchez

Every day I am born like this—
No chingues. Nothing happens
for the first time. Not the neon
sign that says vacant, not the men
nor the jackals who resemble them.
I take my bones inscribed by those
who came before, and learn
to court myself under a violence
of stars. I prefer to become demon,
what their eyes cannot. Half of me
is beautiful, half of me is a promise
filled with the quietest places.
Every day I pray like a dog
in the mirror and relish the crux
of my hurt. We know Lilith ate
the bones of her enemies. We know
a bitch learns to love her own ghost.