Light a candle. Draw the curtains. Lift a stone, and press it to your heart. Let the cool weight awaken the stone of your heart. Feel its walls soften, sprout holes, spout space.
Me is hiding beneath piles of dread and worry.” In my heart, I’m sending you a pile of cozy blankets in the hopes that maybe you can spend a few moments hiding there instead! A, I love the playfulness of the “me” paired with the so real and so relatable anguish and anxiety threaded through the poem. 💔❤️
I feel this, A. The flailing and fishing for some semblance of control...and the surrendering to not knowing and just holding on. Just holding on is enough.
This is so wonderful, A., powerful and strong! You are skilled at holding on, and your lovely poem reflects how many of us may feel in these days. Blessings to you, friend!
This is marvelous, Rebekah! These lines: “I know what it’s like to be a small motor never/ toggled/off”. Oh yes! “I am holding my house up one caulk bead at a: time.” These are superb opening lines to the sun as they inhabit. I live how you do artfully integrate the living and the lived with the metaphysical and the spiritual. Your poetry is one of the healing tonics for me in these desperate times.
Wow, you take the simplest things - ambient house noises - and describe the stress of modern life so vividly! Those final lines "I set my app to 'stream water flowing.' I crank it / past flood stage, and gladly drown" are soooo good.
I was just about to type that reading a poem from you feels like medicine, and then I saw that my sister already used that exact same word in response to your poem, which either means that we're genetically related or that we're objectively right. I think it's both. You have such a gift for shaping life's impossible tensions into words and for shaping words into music, and reading all of that together creates a shape inside me that feels like catharsis. Thank you for this!
What a gorgeous visual, my words as music and all of it coming together into the shape of catharsis inside you <swoon>. Your comment is a poem in and of itself, thank you so much, friend. 💝
Keith, this is magnificent and so powerful, prophetic, testifying and true. I love how you end with the hopeful words of repair and healing. There is much damage being done, but I am deeply moved by the interfaith and beyond faith group called “Repairers of the Breach” led by Rev. Dr. William Barber who are true light in the shadows and resisting in the way Dr. King and others urged us to, with a fierce and unrelenting Love steeped in justice, equity, mercy and grace. You, friend, are a prophetic witness and one of the healers do needed in the times ahead. 🙏🏻
Thank you, Larry. Both for your always-kind-and-supportive words, and also for telling me about Repairers of the Breach. I just looked it up and will enjoy perusing the web site and learning more. And lastly, thank you for being such a light in the dark to me and many others. <3
Lisa, The impact of your poem on my life and my heart is immeasurable, and I know it is very real and lasting. At the end of a hard week, this one came out of the closet.
Holding On
^
When the spiral begins,
swirling like a cyclone across the land,
I pray to hold on,
pray to find something, someone
anything to hold onto, to break my fall.
^
This morning it comes swiftly and hard,
decades of shame and self-loathing,
traumas seen and unseen,
rushing like a slide show in reverse,
soaring down a pit with no bottom.
^
I yearn to see the one I know is there, somewhere,
the me that gets its right,
the self I know will hold the center,
the voice who speaks into the angry crowd
of memories and failures and things left undone.
^
I know this day that the damage
will take a long time to clear,
the house where love lived
leveled and broken into a million pieces,
survivors nowhere to be found.
^
So I hold on,
praying that this time will be the last,
and knowing that it won’t.
Praying that in the shadows of this fall,
Love’s light will hold me until I am whole, again.
This is such a beautiful, vulnerable, bruising, relatable, and therefore healing poem, Larry! Thank you for sharing yourself. And ohhhh, that slide show in reverse is just the worst - but what a marvelous and vivid way of describing it. May love's light hold you until you sense that you're already whole, friend. And next time I find myself in that spiral, may the same happen for me!❤️
Thank you Lisa, for such a kind, gracious and generous comment. The spaces you create and the inspiration your poems, writing and comments bring are safe harbors in the storm. I am so grateful. 🙏🏻
This is so visceral, Larry -- the awful slide show in reverse, the higher self that "speaks into the angry crowd / of memories and failures and things left undone," except for when he doesn't. I appreciate the vulnerability (and self-compassion!) it must have taken to write and share this beautiful poem.
Thank you Rebekah! It was written in a time and place of sorrow, sadness and self recrimination, which I am still journeying through. Thank you for always reading with your heart ❤️!
"The pit with no bottom" feels so present right now, Larry. I love this; it hits the soft pulp inside. The slide show in reverse of all the traumas...yes. Thank you for sharing this beautiful expression of anguish, and praying that your prayers be answered (for all of us).
This is such a beautiful poem that you've hatched out of your porous heart. I found these lines so moving that I read them several times: "as if we’ve never seen/Moon turn her face/toward the salt,/
Your post reflects how I think many of us feel right now. How to engage but keep ourselves safe and whole. How to grieve what’s being lost each day and still get up and keep moving.
We can all do something - perhaps a small something, but something. Maybe we pray, maybe we smile at someone, maybe we cast forth love into the air that surrounds us. Maybe we hold the tension of opposites knowing that it can’t break us. Love the poem - it’s perfect!! ♥️
Thank you so much, Korie! I’m trying to do a small something every day and hoping that by staying conscious and engaged, I’ll see if there’s some less-small something that’s mine to do, too.
Thank you so much, dear! Seeing your name and face here reminds me that I need to head over to your lovely Substack and see what new goodness is happening there. ❤️
This is a truly beautiful poem, Lisa. I listened to it first in the car on the way to a long work day project, and the sound of your voice helped center me for the work ahead. The weight and depth of your poem gets fuller with each reading. The empathy and compassion for yourself and others rings through each stanza, such that, at the end, I realize that I, too, am being held. Thank you Lisa!
Wonderful words of prose, as usual Lisa. A friend once told me to never become consumed with matters that you have no control over....some of the best advice I've ever received.
Thank you so much! It feels like a tricky balance sometimes - caring enough and opening yourself enough that you see what your tiny part is to play and how you might make some ounce of difference. But also, as you say, not becoming so consumed by things beyond your control that you fail to do good in the spheres where you might have some scrap of power.
Candles dont cut it.
I've been told what needs doing.
No give a shit left.
It’s so hard to keep giving a shit if the people in power give zero shits.
They give one shit its just the wrong one shit to give. 🫡
I'm having a hard day - a hard month, really. I needed this.
For dear life
.
I want to run away.
I want to push everyone away,
all of the questions
and all of the demands
and all of the needing me --
Me can't come to the phone right now.
Me is hiding beneath piles of dread and worry.
Me is in no hurry to re-emerge until the world
is much less weary --
I am clearly not cut out for this.
I am clearly failing, flailing my fists and
fishing for some semblance of control and
wishing that some part of me
knew how to let things go;
but I don't. Fuck if I know
how to do anything but hold on,
but I'll continue doing so --
“Me can't come to the phone right now.
Me is hiding beneath piles of dread and worry.” In my heart, I’m sending you a pile of cozy blankets in the hopes that maybe you can spend a few moments hiding there instead! A, I love the playfulness of the “me” paired with the so real and so relatable anguish and anxiety threaded through the poem. 💔❤️
Thank you 🧡
Ohhhh wow, big chills over here, A. This is so beautiful and painful and relatable.
I feel this, A. The flailing and fishing for some semblance of control...and the surrendering to not knowing and just holding on. Just holding on is enough.
This is so wonderful, A., powerful and strong! You are skilled at holding on, and your lovely poem reflects how many of us may feel in these days. Blessings to you, friend!
Thank you, Larry 🧡 Your words are always so encouraging.
This morning the muted roar of my house at rest:
attic fan, ceiling fan, fence transmitter, fridge.
I had hoped for silence but these little hearts can’t stop,
can only settle to ambient as I cue up coffee
and the day begins.
.
I know what it’s like to be a small motor never toggled
off. At night my head swarms with bodies – mine,
my family’s, my car’s, my bank account’s, the ones
in the news, the ones next door. I am holding it all
together with my eyes squeezed shut.
.
I am holding my house up one caulk bead at a time.
I am surveilling the mold, beating back the flames,
dreading the letter from my insurer. To sleep,
I set my app to “stream water flowing.” I crank it
past flood stage, and gladly drown.
This is marvelous, Rebekah! These lines: “I know what it’s like to be a small motor never/ toggled/off”. Oh yes! “I am holding my house up one caulk bead at a: time.” These are superb opening lines to the sun as they inhabit. I live how you do artfully integrate the living and the lived with the metaphysical and the spiritual. Your poetry is one of the healing tonics for me in these desperate times.
The "muted roar" and the head swarming with bodies and "holding it all together with my eyes squeezed shut" - I really felt this, Rebekah.
Wow, you take the simplest things - ambient house noises - and describe the stress of modern life so vividly! Those final lines "I set my app to 'stream water flowing.' I crank it / past flood stage, and gladly drown" are soooo good.
This is what came out of me on inauguration day:
***
Something is holding, clenching,
bracing for the impact of the coming collision
between this unbearable disbelief
and the grief of what is coming to bear.
The something that braces sees
far too few traces
of consciousness, compassion or care.
How could so many millions
overlook so many millions
of lies,
drown out
so many anguished cries
of distress over this steaming mess?
How could they?
Why did they?
And how will we
ever relate
rightly to each other again?
How will we repair this? Who
will reconcile us, and when?
I don’t know, and so I chop wood,
carry water and try to tend
what flowers remain in this garden
of ours and to believe --
against all odds –
that broken hearts can
and will eventually mend.
And while I do these things,
I hold fast to the truth:
we are all stars.
Without beginning and
without end.
I was just about to type that reading a poem from you feels like medicine, and then I saw that my sister already used that exact same word in response to your poem, which either means that we're genetically related or that we're objectively right. I think it's both. You have such a gift for shaping life's impossible tensions into words and for shaping words into music, and reading all of that together creates a shape inside me that feels like catharsis. Thank you for this!
What a gorgeous visual, my words as music and all of it coming together into the shape of catharsis inside you <swoon>. Your comment is a poem in and of itself, thank you so much, friend. 💝
I wish you could have read it *at* the inauguration, Amanda Gorman style.
Thank you for this, Keith. Reading it aloud is good medicine.
This feels like a huge compliment! I'm so glad, Rebekah. Thank you for telling me <3
Beautiful, Keith. So many tender questions I've asked myself as well, and that ending brings it back into perspective.
Thank you, A. <3
Keith, this is magnificent and so powerful, prophetic, testifying and true. I love how you end with the hopeful words of repair and healing. There is much damage being done, but I am deeply moved by the interfaith and beyond faith group called “Repairers of the Breach” led by Rev. Dr. William Barber who are true light in the shadows and resisting in the way Dr. King and others urged us to, with a fierce and unrelenting Love steeped in justice, equity, mercy and grace. You, friend, are a prophetic witness and one of the healers do needed in the times ahead. 🙏🏻
Thank you, Larry. Both for your always-kind-and-supportive words, and also for telling me about Repairers of the Breach. I just looked it up and will enjoy perusing the web site and learning more. And lastly, thank you for being such a light in the dark to me and many others. <3
You are a real gem, Keith!
Lisa, The impact of your poem on my life and my heart is immeasurable, and I know it is very real and lasting. At the end of a hard week, this one came out of the closet.
Holding On
^
When the spiral begins,
swirling like a cyclone across the land,
I pray to hold on,
pray to find something, someone
anything to hold onto, to break my fall.
^
This morning it comes swiftly and hard,
decades of shame and self-loathing,
traumas seen and unseen,
rushing like a slide show in reverse,
soaring down a pit with no bottom.
^
I yearn to see the one I know is there, somewhere,
the me that gets its right,
the self I know will hold the center,
the voice who speaks into the angry crowd
of memories and failures and things left undone.
^
I know this day that the damage
will take a long time to clear,
the house where love lived
leveled and broken into a million pieces,
survivors nowhere to be found.
^
So I hold on,
praying that this time will be the last,
and knowing that it won’t.
Praying that in the shadows of this fall,
Love’s light will hold me until I am whole, again.
This is such a beautiful, vulnerable, bruising, relatable, and therefore healing poem, Larry! Thank you for sharing yourself. And ohhhh, that slide show in reverse is just the worst - but what a marvelous and vivid way of describing it. May love's light hold you until you sense that you're already whole, friend. And next time I find myself in that spiral, may the same happen for me!❤️
Thank you Lisa, for such a kind, gracious and generous comment. The spaces you create and the inspiration your poems, writing and comments bring are safe harbors in the storm. I am so grateful. 🙏🏻
This is so visceral, Larry -- the awful slide show in reverse, the higher self that "speaks into the angry crowd / of memories and failures and things left undone," except for when he doesn't. I appreciate the vulnerability (and self-compassion!) it must have taken to write and share this beautiful poem.
Thank you Rebekah! It was written in a time and place of sorrow, sadness and self recrimination, which I am still journeying through. Thank you for always reading with your heart ❤️!
In my heart, I am sending you trail mix and a big thermos of tea for your ongoing journey, Larry!
There is nothing better than heart infused trail mix and tea, especially when it comes from you!
"The pit with no bottom" feels so present right now, Larry. I love this; it hits the soft pulp inside. The slide show in reverse of all the traumas...yes. Thank you for sharing this beautiful expression of anguish, and praying that your prayers be answered (for all of us).
Thank you Keith, for your kind and compassionate response and your remarkable insight. 🙏🏻
This is such a beautiful poem that you've hatched out of your porous heart. I found these lines so moving that I read them several times: "as if we’ve never seen/Moon turn her face/toward the salt,/
hoist entire oceans"
Thank you so much, friend! 💜
Your post reflects how I think many of us feel right now. How to engage but keep ourselves safe and whole. How to grieve what’s being lost each day and still get up and keep moving.
That balancing is so hard! It can feel like a new negotiation every single day. Thank you so much for your reflection, LeeAnn!
We can all do something - perhaps a small something, but something. Maybe we pray, maybe we smile at someone, maybe we cast forth love into the air that surrounds us. Maybe we hold the tension of opposites knowing that it can’t break us. Love the poem - it’s perfect!! ♥️
Thank you so much, Korie! I’m trying to do a small something every day and hoping that by staying conscious and engaged, I’ll see if there’s some less-small something that’s mine to do, too.
What a wonderful note, Korie. You are doing the small things that grow into big things as they are received by others!
Oh, I love this, Lisa! All of us holding so much right now. What beautiful images, of perforations and flowing and being held. I love all of it.
Thank you so much, dear! Seeing your name and face here reminds me that I need to head over to your lovely Substack and see what new goodness is happening there. ❤️
This is a truly beautiful poem, Lisa. I listened to it first in the car on the way to a long work day project, and the sound of your voice helped center me for the work ahead. The weight and depth of your poem gets fuller with each reading. The empathy and compassion for yourself and others rings through each stanza, such that, at the end, I realize that I, too, am being held. Thank you Lisa!
Thank you so much, Larry, and you are so welcome! It's such a gift to have such generous readers to share my poetry with.
"Go porous...."
we don't like to do that.
'specially us guyz.
Fair! I’ll go change that line to “contract in on yourself.” 😜
Wonderful words of prose, as usual Lisa. A friend once told me to never become consumed with matters that you have no control over....some of the best advice I've ever received.
Thank you so much! It feels like a tricky balance sometimes - caring enough and opening yourself enough that you see what your tiny part is to play and how you might make some ounce of difference. But also, as you say, not becoming so consumed by things beyond your control that you fail to do good in the spheres where you might have some scrap of power.
Exquisite!
Words from an Angel - I’ll take them! Thank you.
Beautiful! May your light continue shining!
And yours, Leila! Thank you. ❤️
Beautiful, thank you
Thank you so much, Tanya! 💙