Longing The stripe between snow and sky is fire red and rising, but the amaryllis is darkening, dropping petals onto the desk where I sit— warm, inches away from the frigid teeth of winter wind. Everywhere, there is heat and decay.
Thank you for sharing, Chuck! At the risk of sounding like a broken record of the comments already posted - wow, you just said so much and stirred so much feeling with so few words. Happy belated birthday to your dad. I hope he can still enjoy a few vices wherever he is.
This really packs a punch with such an economy of words. Winter does come early sometimes, and sometimes it hangs on, too. Thanks for sharing your poem, Chuck.
Nice to see your poem, Chuck. I can hear in your words the push and pull of navigating a loss when the life lived is full of contrast and complexity. Love and light to you as winter unfolds.
"The seeds of love placed right between the shadows!" Larry, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for taking us on this lyrical stroll through gradients of light and darkness and into the reality that maybe light and dark don't exist on a simple spectrum - maybe they are siblings, as you say. Maybe they are kin - more alike than different. Maybe if we go deep enough into our darkness, we will find light there. Maybe if we go deep enough into light, we will come to understand darkness, too. What a lovely, thought-provoking, heart-awakening poem.
Thank you, Larry! I feel like I’m just sort of bumbling along here making things up as I go, but by some sort of magic, we all stumbled together as this lovely little community.
This is a gorgeous ode to liminality, Larry. So many beautiful lines and images. "Dropping like a ball from a barn roof," "this paper thin society where duality reigns," "the bewildering spaces between." The bewildering spaces in between (the "hell in the hallway" moments) are sometimes harder than those periods of dark. The not-knowing is a place of such potential and sometimes fraught with anticipation that can spill right over into terror. I really loved this poem.
Oh my goodness but this sections just has me in tears. I am doing that very thing. Burdening this space I am in with my fears of what is to come. This could be a poem in and of itself....thank you so much for these words. I am sending this to my mom who is having surgery on her broken arm in a few weeks (one of my stressors)....thank you thank you thank you.
"Our lives are lived in light and darkness,
and the bewildering spaces in between.
Asking not to be judged or burdened with our fears.
Thank you Karri. I am glad this resonated. I am also glad you are a wise person who lets their tears flow. Much of my life I just dammed them up. Now they come forth like floods, others as trickles. But they come more easily now.
My prayers and heart songs are with your mom and you as she faces her arm surgery. Light and darkness in all its beautiful mystery to you, Karri.
I love the liminal! Larry, I second what Keith said, "This is a gorgeous ode to liminality." And you elucidate this beautifully as the contractions between light and dark that we as a society construct. And the deeper truth that dark and light are "siblings, partners in creation, full of shades and degrees and nuance" The dusk and dawn. Ohhh my favorite times!
I went full cynical today with this one. I'm not exactly sure how "contrast" led me here, other than I guess the idea of gratitude, a word we would normally have only positive associations with, leaving a funny taste in my mouth. I was trying to share some of these dour thoughts with a friend yesterday and couldn't quite find the words, but they came along pretty readily when I plugged them into a poem.
I love this poem. It feels full of compassion and of genuine questioning - including self-interrogation. Maybe there's a sense in which what gets called gratitude can in fact be a type of cynicism because it's all about self-interest - about using gratitude to avoid action or responsibility or the kind of self-inquiry your poem engages in. I love (and hate) the image of gratitude as a curtain, drawn to avoid actual witnessing, which is also about avoiding actual change. I think that genuine gratitude can be an opening, a window or door that encourages witnessing and inspires change, but meanwhile, performative gratitude does real harm.
oooh, I love your full cynical, Rebekah! It seriously thrilled my inner teen, who is really my inner truth-teller. I read this as a sort of an anti-credo. The idea of privileged progressive folks being grateful *at* you is such a succinct and incisive way to describe the ways in which real sentiment can become warped into weaponry in order to protect privilege and deflect guilt about privilege. Perhaps I'm reading way too much into it, but I really felt that in my gut. And yes. bombs seeming to fall everywhere but my comfortable home. You make so many important points so beautifully here. I wish this could be mandatory reading at every possible karen gathering around the country (book clubs, yoga classes, you name it). And I'm with Larry. You are no karen.
OMG I'm dying thinking about all those Karen gatherings! Keith, you are too kind. I'm so glad this resonated with truth-telling (teenage) you. As with Larry's comment, I feel like you made my poem bigger and better. Thank you!
Every time I come here, I feel less alone. Your poems give words to feelings I've sometimes only vaguely been able to name myself. The whole poem from top to bottom is so good, but "gratitude feels ill-fitting, skimpy // like something I should have // aged out of long ago" sums it up so well.
And you saying that makes me feel less alone! This “anti-gratitude” sentiment I’ve been having recently is not something I feel I can share with very many people. It means a lot to me that it means something to you. ❤️
This is a fantastic poem, Rebekah. I like the deep, provacitive exploration of a notion we seem to hold up as an aspitarion for all: gratitude. It takdes a special and attunded person to be able to probe deeper into a seemingly good construct, and view it as others who are not in our circumstances or identities might view it.
I like how you term " the grateful place" thd place of your residing. Your beginning tells us right away, "hang on, this poem will be a wild ride. "
"I live in a grateful place
meaning like all the other
middle-aged white women
I have a gratitude practice
because we are just barely
not Karens."
Oh, this is exceptional. And these lines:
"We will say grateful when we
mean smart, we will say grateful
when we mean chosen, we will
say grateful but to me it will reek
of stump speech, of sermon,
of drawing curtains to avoid
actual witnessing."
Boom! You cut right to the way we can use these good and healthy practices, like gratitude, to hide away or avoid the real work of change and reformation. Your poem feels less like cyncicism, (I actually don't read it as cynical at all), and more like wisdom and prophetic.
witness.
I am not sure this is universally true, but I suspect one tell of being a "Karen" is that one doesn't know they are. You are no Karen, but you are a Rebekah! And I am grateful!
Oh wow, Larry, your comment made me tear up -- thank you so much for seeing me! Your reflections on my poem made it bigger and better. I love your open mind and heart.
Ahhhhh, as a fellow middle aged white woman who grows weary of performative activism, I say bravo! And as one who is also privvy to all the advantages and such described, may it give me the slightest kick in the pants to quit wallowing and move forward :)
Rebekah this is amazing. I feel the angst in this. This place between seeing the dysfunction and bypassing it. "because we are just barely not Karens." And yet I also feel a threshold that is beckoning to be crossed. One done consciously and authentically through the willingness of seeing this sham, fiasco and train wreck for what it is. To be transformed by it!
Lisa, I love your poem about longing. I think we so often are longing for things that are contradictory, or even not knowing what it is we're longing for, and you captured the essence of that so beautifully.
When I thought of contrasts, I thought of my parents' dog, Rival, who we lost a couple of weeks ago, though he was so so full of life right up to the end.
I'm so sorry to hear about Rival! There is so much beautiful, painful contrast in your poem - your puppy brother, white-muzzled, leaping and bounding right up to the end. I hope your best good boy is in the best good place.
Let me add my condolences for the loss of dear Rival. And thank you for sharing a little bit of him and your loss with us here. You really got me with "the best good boy" - something about the combination of best good struck me as the most loving high praise one could possibly offer. And to have offered it as he soaked through your clothes in a way you normally couldn't stand. My heart feels seriously stretched by that. Your ending is also just lovely in its powerful simplicity.
Oh A, I'm so sorry for your loss of your sweet puppy brother! This is such a beautiful tribute to him. I love the contrast of his lively spirit with his pain and the end you saw coming, and the contrast of this significant day for your family with everyone else's "ordinary Monday." Sending you hugs and pouring one out for Rival.
A., thank you for sharingb this wonderful poem. I am sorry for th eloss of Rival, your puppy brother, and so glad you all had each other in Rival's short life. I love the way you encompass all the joy of dog loving--the drool and the bounding, the joy and the letting go. I love that you let RIval drool all over you, Drool on, magic creature, dancing spirit!
Thanks Lisa, yes that longing as "I want to feel it. I want to know the frigid burning, the dark red rising dropping truth of everything at once." I deeply relate and resonate with this.
I have been wanting to participate more, but this month is my crazy work month out of the whole year. As I read your poem today, I recalled something I wrote recently so I will share this with you and everyone else here today...
Also, I wish you extra reservoirs of energy as you navigate a chaotic season at work! And I look forward to more poems from you and to learning what the busy season you’re having now beckons into being.
Julie, thank you so much for sharing this! It’s beautiful. I love the image of winter beckoning summer and summer beckoning winter, as well as the idea of tides that reside outside of time. This all resonates so deeply with me.
Julie, this poem is breathtaking! I'd like to print it and hang it up somewhere to read everyday. It feels like it could be a mantra for living, for aging, for keeping an expansive view as I go through my days and seasons. Thank you so much for sharing!
So many lovely images you invoked here, and I love the cadence of this poem. I can feel the ebb and flow throughout, pulling me to sway as I read. As I read, I also kept getting glimpses of life viewed through time-lapse photography. Thanks for sharing this, Julie.
I love this, Julie. You capture the cycles of life so beautifully. I love the various imagery. While reading, I could almost see a kaleidoscope of all these cycles moving one into another, into the next.
As I read everyone's comments, they are all amazing poetic responses! A., I love "a kaleidoscope of all these cycles moving one into another, into the next."
This is a special poem, Julie. I love how connected you are to your own jnner soul and spirit, to the earth, to the rhythmss of life, to nature, to the mystical force beyond ourselves. You portray the dance of moving between pieces so very well. You are a wisdom keeper.
I love your phrasing, and these lines: In this way, birth summons death, life matures through the years. So sweet and clear. When I read this poem.,I feel connected and in tune, intact and hopeful for this journey between the years. Thank you for sharing such a lovely gift today.
The ending to this took my breath away, Keith! The sun sets, or grief strikes, and at least for a time, all our bumper stickers fade away. I love the honesty and rawness of your poem. I love that you used the word fart. I love that a person who seemed like he would be a jerk in all the ways turned out to be decent in at least some of them and an actual human in all of them. Thank you so much for sharing this! It feels like an invitation to notice my own knee-jerk judgments and be willing to entertain a little curiosity in their place.
And I love the idea of sunsets and grief and other universal and unifying commonalities that no sort of conflict or controversy or politics can extinguish!
I so related to this poem! These are my thoughts as well. "This guy in his truck" that should be a bumper sticker. And when I am all ready to hate, I am greeted with kindness. I feel deep down we are all love. Yet, it gets covered up by the diesel fumes of insults, opinions and judgements. And there we have the contradictions...
So glad to know you related. And I agree - we all come in as love, but it gets corrupted and obscured and sidetracked as we go. And every now and then the clouds part and we grasp and glimpse the love that is always there.
Whew....that was quite a ride. And it is sooooooo hard to find humanity when it is wrapped in such hate. But yes, we have to try. Thank you for the reminder.
Thanks, Karri. It really does feel so easy to overlook the humanity that's always there, especially when it's camouflaged by slogans and rhetoric that spring from and play to fear and separation. I think of that poem you shared, with the line about holding on tight to everyone you meet. That has stuck in my mind.
Ohhhhh this is so good, Keith! What a story, and what a way to tell it. I can so relate with big diesel trucks, bumper stickers, and taxidermy-forward probable tool sheds (ha! that tickled me) bringing on all my judgments. I love your passage into the haze of rhetorical questions, and the soft ending. Thank you!
Thanks, Rebekah...it's stunning to see how my mind is able to spin such an intricately detailed narrative in the blink of an eye. Stunning and terrifying to think that we all do that, and sometimes big and/or irreversible decisions are snapped on those narratives <cringe, cringe, cringe and throw in a wince as well>
This is so powerful, Keith. We all need this reminder sometimes. I, too, love the soft ending, and how you bring us back down from the "accelerat[ion] into hatred" back to the peaceful earth and the sunset and our shared humanity.
Thank you for your reflection, A. So grateful for support like this, and also for the curative and restorative powers of a sunset and other natural balms for the frazzled nervous system (and soul). <3
Keith, what a profound and searing poem. I like the way you pull us between outrage and sympathy, affection and rejection. Your honesty in responding to the triggers of symbols and stickers and the recognition of the kindred human also there; able to welcome you to walk across; going to grieve and mourn a loss. Your refusal to not only see this truck driving person as a caricuture but also as a person with inconsistencies, fears and also tainted by the toxic stew served to us daily. Allowing yourself to glimpse the other pieces of these humans, who can cause so much damage with their group think and mean mad leaders, is also an act of resistance, and a step out of the dichotomy we are so often pushed into. Thank you for your complexity and your depth; your willingness to be open even in the midst of rolling provocation; and your heart that sees beyond and beneath the surface, are flames of hope in the darkness.
Thank you for this very thoughtful reflection, Larry! I love the idea of glimpsing humanity as an act of resistance to the way we are herded (like sheep!) into dichotomous thinking. I feel heartened as I take that in. May I/we all have the space and grace to practice that resistance more of the time.
"The frigid teeth of winter wind," "the cold returning of light," "frigid burning"...so many delicious phrases and evocative images to savor in this lovely poem. Who knew cognitive dissonance could be so beautiful? I loved the big existential and metaphysical questions it led you to along the way, and that you tied it lovingly with red ribbon at both ends.
Karri, I love the honesty and simplicity of this poem. I can relate to the stuckness of being pulled between so many different things/mindsets/demands/moods that you’re unable to just move deeply into any one of them. The ending is so beautiful and to me also feels really hopeful - “all I know to do is to take one or two or three steps in the direction of the dawn.” I hope all this pre-dawn walking leads you somewhere wonderful.
Thank you for sharing this, Karri. I'm sorry you're feeling stuck - I know that feeling well, and I hope that soon you will find that your steps have gotten you closer to the dawn.
What a sweet poem, Karri. I can identify so well with that notion of being stuck or in the "in between." It seeems like much of my life can be spent there. The creative practice seems like one step to being unstuck. I pray you keep finding the wisdom, honesty and courage to keep taking "one or two or three steps in the direction of the dawn." This lovely poem is a part of that movement!
This is such a good one! I was bowled over by the metaphors from the nursery: "It's a mother's spoon, / the time-bound mind. / Bringing milk then meat / a bite at a time" and the notion of linear time and seasons being a soft blanket we can snuggle into -- unless we are wide awake (like you!) and ready to capsize the cradle for more (or less, or both). I'm a bit more hooked into the Matrix myself I'm afraid, but every now and then I get glimpses of what I think you're talking about, and it's pretty special.
Haha, well I definitely wouldn't classify myself as wide awake . . . babies have a remarkable ability to fuss in their sleep! But thank you all the same. 🧡
Every offering from you is a treat! What a wonderful prompt--to look at contrasts. Work is ending today for me so my brain is focusing, slowly. I do want to say, the very end of your writing today, in the explanation of the prompt, describes this space and your writing and spirit quite well for me: a beautiful bright spot that illuminates my days—even the dark ones. Thank you for being a bright spot.
Dad was 94 yesterday.
But lungs,
encrusted with
2 packs of chesterfield kings,
and a liver,
stewing in jim beam,
wouldn't let him past 61.
It doesn't seem much different.
Except maybe on his birthday.
Winter comes early sometimes.
Thank you for sharing, Chuck! At the risk of sounding like a broken record of the comments already posted - wow, you just said so much and stirred so much feeling with so few words. Happy belated birthday to your dad. I hope he can still enjoy a few vices wherever he is.
Thanks. Needs polishing, but at least it is out of my head.
This really packs a punch with such an economy of words. Winter does come early sometimes, and sometimes it hangs on, too. Thanks for sharing your poem, Chuck.
Isn't it funny how we continue to do the math even after they are gone? Thank you for sharing Chuck.
So glad to see you here, Chuck! Your poems always say so much in such a small space. I hope the winter is kind to you.
✌️
Nice to see your poem, Chuck. I can hear in your words the push and pull of navigating a loss when the life lived is full of contrast and complexity. Love and light to you as winter unfolds.
Thanks Larry.
just pondering back at what all he has missed takes up some thought.
Avoiding sleep to write this poem, I expect one day it will be shorter and make a little more sense. But then, some days I don't make any sense!
Somewhere in Between
The sun makes its exit quickly.
Dropping like a ball from a barn roof,
it vanishes, leaving behind a brief array of colors,
rainbow symphony to light our way,
or a perplexing grayness thicker than
the vault to our hearts.
Then darkness falls, sudden and abrupt
in the deep throes of winter.
Night has fallen, spirits dance, dreams rise,
the mournful wisdom of the owls begin their rehearsal.
Watching the sunset from Mallory Pier in Key West,
or scrambling up to Cadillac Mountain to greet the morning sun,
our concierge star obsessive in its adherence to schedule.
Oblivious to the dances and songs shared below,
daily coming and goings the bookmarks in our lives.
There was that quiet meadow in Vermont,
just down from the house,
where bright orange moon jumped into view,
seemingly from some dimension unseen.
We tracked its fullness as it rose,
getting brighter and smaller as we wondered
whether we were in the light
or the darkness.
In this paper thin society where duality reigns,
light and dark seem to be at odds.
In the deeper wells, the wisdom ofEarth tells a different story.
Light and dark as siblings,
partners in creation,
full of shades and degrees and nuance;
The stunning song of twilight,
the beckoning beauty of dawn,
the shadow stillness of darkest night.
Our lives are lived in light and darkness,
and the bewildering spaces in between.
Asking not to be judged or burdened with our fears.
Asking, rather, to be held, to be welcomed,
to be journeyed with that we may come to know
the seeds of love placed
right between the shadows.
"The seeds of love placed right between the shadows!" Larry, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for taking us on this lyrical stroll through gradients of light and darkness and into the reality that maybe light and dark don't exist on a simple spectrum - maybe they are siblings, as you say. Maybe they are kin - more alike than different. Maybe if we go deep enough into our darkness, we will find light there. Maybe if we go deep enough into light, we will come to understand darkness, too. What a lovely, thought-provoking, heart-awakening poem.
Lisa, and I meant to say, I love your insightful reflections, on my and others poems. You are such a gift to us.
Thank you Lisa! You are a great teacher and leader and creator of this wonderful space. Thank you!
Thank you, Larry! I feel like I’m just sort of bumbling along here making things up as I go, but by some sort of magic, we all stumbled together as this lovely little community.
Lisa, I like the combination of bumbling and stumbling--I'll call it sacred bumbling and stumbling, and what a joy that we are all doing it together!
This is a gorgeous ode to liminality, Larry. So many beautiful lines and images. "Dropping like a ball from a barn roof," "this paper thin society where duality reigns," "the bewildering spaces between." The bewildering spaces in between (the "hell in the hallway" moments) are sometimes harder than those periods of dark. The not-knowing is a place of such potential and sometimes fraught with anticipation that can spill right over into terror. I really loved this poem.
These same lines stood out to me. Seconding all of this.
Thank you Keith! Your comments and perspectives are illuminating. And your kind and gentle insight lightens the sky.
Oh my goodness but this sections just has me in tears. I am doing that very thing. Burdening this space I am in with my fears of what is to come. This could be a poem in and of itself....thank you so much for these words. I am sending this to my mom who is having surgery on her broken arm in a few weeks (one of my stressors)....thank you thank you thank you.
"Our lives are lived in light and darkness,
and the bewildering spaces in between.
Asking not to be judged or burdened with our fears.
Asking, rather, to be held, to be welcomed,
to be journeyed with that we may come to know
the seeds of love placed
right between the shadows."
Thank you Karri. I am glad this resonated. I am also glad you are a wise person who lets their tears flow. Much of my life I just dammed them up. Now they come forth like floods, others as trickles. But they come more easily now.
My prayers and heart songs are with your mom and you as she faces her arm surgery. Light and darkness in all its beautiful mystery to you, Karri.
I love the liminal! Larry, I second what Keith said, "This is a gorgeous ode to liminality." And you elucidate this beautifully as the contractions between light and dark that we as a society construct. And the deeper truth that dark and light are "siblings, partners in creation, full of shades and degrees and nuance" The dusk and dawn. Ohhh my favorite times!
Thank you Julie! Here's a toast to deeper truths!
I went full cynical today with this one. I'm not exactly sure how "contrast" led me here, other than I guess the idea of gratitude, a word we would normally have only positive associations with, leaving a funny taste in my mouth. I was trying to share some of these dour thoughts with a friend yesterday and couldn't quite find the words, but they came along pretty readily when I plugged them into a poem.
I live in a grateful place
meaning like all the other
middle-aged white women
I have a gratitude practice
because we are just barely
not Karens. But more than
that, meaning I live in a
community that is very
grateful at you, peppering
every post, official statement,
prerecorded message from your
superintendent with assertions
of good fortune. We are the ones
who get to live here, praise be to
Manifest Destiny – wait,
was that on already? I mean
land acknowledgement blah-blah,
power of community, please
recycle, don’t forget to buy your
season passes, and of course
we’re not giving it back, we’re
not the ones who took it, not
really, but we will hang their art
and get choked up when they
address us, making the hour-
long drive up and over from
the nearest affordable housing.
We will say grateful when we
mean smart, we will say grateful
when we mean chosen, we will
say grateful but to me it will reek
of stump speech, of sermon,
of drawing curtains to avoid
actual witnessing.
I really am grateful, and I mean that
without a trace of cynicism. But
lately, with bombs falling
seemingly everywhere but in my
own home, where I haven’t locked
the door in months, where I
have food enough for a whole new
pandemic, where my Zestimate
only climbs, and all I have to do to
survive is shuffle over to my desk
and turn on my computer,
gratitude feels ill-fitting, skimpy
like something I should have
aged out of long ago.
I love this poem. It feels full of compassion and of genuine questioning - including self-interrogation. Maybe there's a sense in which what gets called gratitude can in fact be a type of cynicism because it's all about self-interest - about using gratitude to avoid action or responsibility or the kind of self-inquiry your poem engages in. I love (and hate) the image of gratitude as a curtain, drawn to avoid actual witnessing, which is also about avoiding actual change. I think that genuine gratitude can be an opening, a window or door that encourages witnessing and inspires change, but meanwhile, performative gratitude does real harm.
Yes! I love that distinction -- thank you for that!
oooh, I love your full cynical, Rebekah! It seriously thrilled my inner teen, who is really my inner truth-teller. I read this as a sort of an anti-credo. The idea of privileged progressive folks being grateful *at* you is such a succinct and incisive way to describe the ways in which real sentiment can become warped into weaponry in order to protect privilege and deflect guilt about privilege. Perhaps I'm reading way too much into it, but I really felt that in my gut. And yes. bombs seeming to fall everywhere but my comfortable home. You make so many important points so beautifully here. I wish this could be mandatory reading at every possible karen gathering around the country (book clubs, yoga classes, you name it). And I'm with Larry. You are no karen.
OMG I'm dying thinking about all those Karen gatherings! Keith, you are too kind. I'm so glad this resonated with truth-telling (teenage) you. As with Larry's comment, I feel like you made my poem bigger and better. Thank you!
Every time I come here, I feel less alone. Your poems give words to feelings I've sometimes only vaguely been able to name myself. The whole poem from top to bottom is so good, but "gratitude feels ill-fitting, skimpy // like something I should have // aged out of long ago" sums it up so well.
And you saying that makes me feel less alone! This “anti-gratitude” sentiment I’ve been having recently is not something I feel I can share with very many people. It means a lot to me that it means something to you. ❤️
This is a fantastic poem, Rebekah. I like the deep, provacitive exploration of a notion we seem to hold up as an aspitarion for all: gratitude. It takdes a special and attunded person to be able to probe deeper into a seemingly good construct, and view it as others who are not in our circumstances or identities might view it.
I like how you term " the grateful place" thd place of your residing. Your beginning tells us right away, "hang on, this poem will be a wild ride. "
"I live in a grateful place
meaning like all the other
middle-aged white women
I have a gratitude practice
because we are just barely
not Karens."
Oh, this is exceptional. And these lines:
"We will say grateful when we
mean smart, we will say grateful
when we mean chosen, we will
say grateful but to me it will reek
of stump speech, of sermon,
of drawing curtains to avoid
actual witnessing."
Boom! You cut right to the way we can use these good and healthy practices, like gratitude, to hide away or avoid the real work of change and reformation. Your poem feels less like cyncicism, (I actually don't read it as cynical at all), and more like wisdom and prophetic.
witness.
I am not sure this is universally true, but I suspect one tell of being a "Karen" is that one doesn't know they are. You are no Karen, but you are a Rebekah! And I am grateful!
Oh wow, Larry, your comment made me tear up -- thank you so much for seeing me! Your reflections on my poem made it bigger and better. I love your open mind and heart.
Ahhhhh, as a fellow middle aged white woman who grows weary of performative activism, I say bravo! And as one who is also privvy to all the advantages and such described, may it give me the slightest kick in the pants to quit wallowing and move forward :)
Rebekah this is amazing. I feel the angst in this. This place between seeing the dysfunction and bypassing it. "because we are just barely not Karens." And yet I also feel a threshold that is beckoning to be crossed. One done consciously and authentically through the willingness of seeing this sham, fiasco and train wreck for what it is. To be transformed by it!
Lisa, I love your poem about longing. I think we so often are longing for things that are contradictory, or even not knowing what it is we're longing for, and you captured the essence of that so beautifully.
When I thought of contrasts, I thought of my parents' dog, Rival, who we lost a couple of weeks ago, though he was so so full of life right up to the end.
My puppy brother,
a German Rottweiler
now white-muzzled
and limping from the pain
and cancer growing in his
thick, massive shoulder,
still leaps, as best he can,
into the air when we arrive.
Though I can't stand the
feeling of his excessive,
rope-like drool on my skin,
soaking through my clothes,
today, I let him drool all over me
as I pet him, reminding him --
as he surely already knows --
that he is the best good boy.
For a few weeks, he will rally,
buoyed in part by medication
and his irrepressible spirit,
and all of the extra treats,
before going to sleep for the
last time, on an otherwise
ordinary Monday.
I'm so sorry to hear about Rival! There is so much beautiful, painful contrast in your poem - your puppy brother, white-muzzled, leaping and bounding right up to the end. I hope your best good boy is in the best good place.
Thank you, Lisa!
Let me add my condolences for the loss of dear Rival. And thank you for sharing a little bit of him and your loss with us here. You really got me with "the best good boy" - something about the combination of best good struck me as the most loving high praise one could possibly offer. And to have offered it as he soaked through your clothes in a way you normally couldn't stand. My heart feels seriously stretched by that. Your ending is also just lovely in its powerful simplicity.
Thank you, Keith! I'm glad I got to have those moments with him.
Oh A, I'm so sorry for your loss of your sweet puppy brother! This is such a beautiful tribute to him. I love the contrast of his lively spirit with his pain and the end you saw coming, and the contrast of this significant day for your family with everyone else's "ordinary Monday." Sending you hugs and pouring one out for Rival.
Thank you, Rebekah! He was the biggest, sweetest mush. ❤️
A., thank you for sharingb this wonderful poem. I am sorry for th eloss of Rival, your puppy brother, and so glad you all had each other in Rival's short life. I love the way you encompass all the joy of dog loving--the drool and the bounding, the joy and the letting go. I love that you let RIval drool all over you, Drool on, magic creature, dancing spirit!
For such a big, heavy dog, he had the lightest, bounciest soul. ❤️
That comes bounding through!
May Rival RIP. He does indeed sound like the best good boy <3
Thank you, Karri! He was!
This is a beautiful eulogy to your beloved Rival. I am touched by your words of love &, sadness. My condolences to you and your parents.
Thank you, Julie. It definitely won't be the same without him.
Thanks Lisa, yes that longing as "I want to feel it. I want to know the frigid burning, the dark red rising dropping truth of everything at once." I deeply relate and resonate with this.
I have been wanting to participate more, but this month is my crazy work month out of the whole year. As I read your poem today, I recalled something I wrote recently so I will share this with you and everyone else here today...
.
Within life’s rhythms dance
the harmonies of many seasons.
Synergistic forces
calling to each other.
Winter beckoning summer,
so the shoots of spring arise!
Summer beckoning winter
so the withering of autumn begins.
A perpetual momentum,
of creational energies.
.
In this way, birth summons death,
life matures through the years.
An ongoing waxing and waning of the moon,
the continuous descent and rising of Venus.
My bodies blood and wombs fertility
following this innate dance
as I journey this exquisite life.
I am maiden,
I am mother,
I am wild woman,
I am crone.
I am all of them...
.
Ebbing and flowing
waves arrive upon the
shores of my being.
Pulling me inward,
then outward.
Tides residing outside of time.
Each day, a year of cycles.
Every moment a dying birth.
Am I a chrysalis, a caterpillar,
a butterfly?
Or imaginal cells, unformed
yet to be.
Also, I wish you extra reservoirs of energy as you navigate a chaotic season at work! And I look forward to more poems from you and to learning what the busy season you’re having now beckons into being.
Julie, thank you so much for sharing this! It’s beautiful. I love the image of winter beckoning summer and summer beckoning winter, as well as the idea of tides that reside outside of time. This all resonates so deeply with me.
Thanks Lisa! And yes I too am looking forward to having more space and time to write. Thanks for the support!
Julie, this poem is breathtaking! I'd like to print it and hang it up somewhere to read everyday. It feels like it could be a mantra for living, for aging, for keeping an expansive view as I go through my days and seasons. Thank you so much for sharing!
Rebekah, I am so moved by what you say here. From my deep heart, thank you!
I agree Rebekah!
So many lovely images you invoked here, and I love the cadence of this poem. I can feel the ebb and flow throughout, pulling me to sway as I read. As I read, I also kept getting glimpses of life viewed through time-lapse photography. Thanks for sharing this, Julie.
Ohh I love that, viewed through time-lapse photography! Thank you, that is exactly it!
I love this, Julie. You capture the cycles of life so beautifully. I love the various imagery. While reading, I could almost see a kaleidoscope of all these cycles moving one into another, into the next.
As I read everyone's comments, they are all amazing poetic responses! A., I love "a kaleidoscope of all these cycles moving one into another, into the next."
This is a special poem, Julie. I love how connected you are to your own jnner soul and spirit, to the earth, to the rhythmss of life, to nature, to the mystical force beyond ourselves. You portray the dance of moving between pieces so very well. You are a wisdom keeper.
I love your phrasing, and these lines: In this way, birth summons death, life matures through the years. So sweet and clear. When I read this poem.,I feel connected and in tune, intact and hopeful for this journey between the years. Thank you for sharing such a lovely gift today.
I am both honored and humbled by what you say here Larry. In deep gratitude....
This is beautiful. Just lovely...the motion in the words is captivating.
Here's what came up for me around contrasts...
Sometimes, despite my best efforts
at purposeful forgetting,
I am reminded
that life is no simple matter
of right/wrong/us/them.
Today the reminder drove
toward me in a pickup
plastered with insults about Joe &
vulgarities about Kamala.
In the seconds before he braked
for the crosswalk,
I accelerated
into unabated hatred
for him and his truck.
Held my breath in anticipation
of the diesel fumes
his truck would surely
fart into my face,
steeled myself to the indignity
of pedestrian invisibility.
Then, against all odds,
he stopped. Fully.
Without gesturing impatiently,
without spitting out his window.
Met my eyes without malevolence,
returned my nod.
And only when I was entirely across,
He pulled away reasonably,
you could almost gently,
even as his rear window
silently screamed
FUCK BIDEN.
I narrowed my eyes at him
and wondered.
If I were I black or brown or flamboyant
in my queerness,
would he have stopped?
If I weren’t just another white guy with a beard,
would he have gunned it,
hoping to score a hood ornament or
perhaps a pelt
for the taxidermy collection
I pictured hanging in his probable tool shed,
right between his MAGA and Blue Lives Matter flags?
I wondered my way right through a haze
not of diesel fumes but
rhetorical questions, right into
the sanctuary of a quiet cemetery,
where I thought I might find peace.
What I found was
this guy, this truck, again.
He, kneeling at a grave,
prayerful and ponderous.
His truck obsidian in the dusk.
A pair of silhouettes
against the softly setting
winter sun.
The ending to this took my breath away, Keith! The sun sets, or grief strikes, and at least for a time, all our bumper stickers fade away. I love the honesty and rawness of your poem. I love that you used the word fart. I love that a person who seemed like he would be a jerk in all the ways turned out to be decent in at least some of them and an actual human in all of them. Thank you so much for sharing this! It feels like an invitation to notice my own knee-jerk judgments and be willing to entertain a little curiosity in their place.
And I love the idea of sunsets and grief and other universal and unifying commonalities that no sort of conflict or controversy or politics can extinguish!
I so related to this poem! These are my thoughts as well. "This guy in his truck" that should be a bumper sticker. And when I am all ready to hate, I am greeted with kindness. I feel deep down we are all love. Yet, it gets covered up by the diesel fumes of insults, opinions and judgements. And there we have the contradictions...
So glad to know you related. And I agree - we all come in as love, but it gets corrupted and obscured and sidetracked as we go. And every now and then the clouds part and we grasp and glimpse the love that is always there.
Whew....that was quite a ride. And it is sooooooo hard to find humanity when it is wrapped in such hate. But yes, we have to try. Thank you for the reminder.
Thanks, Karri. It really does feel so easy to overlook the humanity that's always there, especially when it's camouflaged by slogans and rhetoric that spring from and play to fear and separation. I think of that poem you shared, with the line about holding on tight to everyone you meet. That has stuck in my mind.
Ohhhhh this is so good, Keith! What a story, and what a way to tell it. I can so relate with big diesel trucks, bumper stickers, and taxidermy-forward probable tool sheds (ha! that tickled me) bringing on all my judgments. I love your passage into the haze of rhetorical questions, and the soft ending. Thank you!
Thanks, Rebekah...it's stunning to see how my mind is able to spin such an intricately detailed narrative in the blink of an eye. Stunning and terrifying to think that we all do that, and sometimes big and/or irreversible decisions are snapped on those narratives <cringe, cringe, cringe and throw in a wince as well>
This is so powerful, Keith. We all need this reminder sometimes. I, too, love the soft ending, and how you bring us back down from the "accelerat[ion] into hatred" back to the peaceful earth and the sunset and our shared humanity.
Thank you for your reflection, A. So grateful for support like this, and also for the curative and restorative powers of a sunset and other natural balms for the frazzled nervous system (and soul). <3
Keith, what a profound and searing poem. I like the way you pull us between outrage and sympathy, affection and rejection. Your honesty in responding to the triggers of symbols and stickers and the recognition of the kindred human also there; able to welcome you to walk across; going to grieve and mourn a loss. Your refusal to not only see this truck driving person as a caricuture but also as a person with inconsistencies, fears and also tainted by the toxic stew served to us daily. Allowing yourself to glimpse the other pieces of these humans, who can cause so much damage with their group think and mean mad leaders, is also an act of resistance, and a step out of the dichotomy we are so often pushed into. Thank you for your complexity and your depth; your willingness to be open even in the midst of rolling provocation; and your heart that sees beyond and beneath the surface, are flames of hope in the darkness.
Thank you for this very thoughtful reflection, Larry! I love the idea of glimpsing humanity as an act of resistance to the way we are herded (like sheep!) into dichotomous thinking. I feel heartened as I take that in. May I/we all have the space and grace to practice that resistance more of the time.
"The frigid teeth of winter wind," "the cold returning of light," "frigid burning"...so many delicious phrases and evocative images to savor in this lovely poem. Who knew cognitive dissonance could be so beautiful? I loved the big existential and metaphysical questions it led you to along the way, and that you tied it lovingly with red ribbon at both ends.
Thank you, Keith! I like the idea of red ribbons at each end. Even your comments feel like poetry!
YES - "Who knew cognitive dissonance could be so beautiful?" So agree!
Beautiful and descriptive poem!
This is exactly how I feel right now.
Just in between. Do I want more/less, yes/no, this captures some of turmoil in my brain today!!!
"It’s a soft blanket,
the swaddle of sequence and
seasons, though I try
to kick my legs and
flail my fists
in the colicked cry for more—
or less—
or both—
or I don’t know."
It’s sort of comforting to know that we are all afflicted in similar ways! Thank you, Karri.
I feel as if I am in a very liminal space right now because of various factors and just feel stuck.
In Between
I am stuck squarely in this space
Of knowing versus not knowing
Of schedules versus chaos
Of control versus mayhem
Of interaction versus isolation
Of living versus existing
Of light versus dark
All I know to do is take one or two or three steps
In the direction of the dawn.
Karri Temple Brackett
01/22/2024
Karri, I love the honesty and simplicity of this poem. I can relate to the stuckness of being pulled between so many different things/mindsets/demands/moods that you’re unable to just move deeply into any one of them. The ending is so beautiful and to me also feels really hopeful - “all I know to do is to take one or two or three steps in the direction of the dawn.” I hope all this pre-dawn walking leads you somewhere wonderful.
Thank you for sharing this, Karri. I'm sorry you're feeling stuck - I know that feeling well, and I hope that soon you will find that your steps have gotten you closer to the dawn.
What a sweet poem, Karri. I can identify so well with that notion of being stuck or in the "in between." It seeems like much of my life can be spent there. The creative practice seems like one step to being unstuck. I pray you keep finding the wisdom, honesty and courage to keep taking "one or two or three steps in the direction of the dawn." This lovely poem is a part of that movement!
“the colicked cry for more—
or less—
or both—
or I don’t know.”
Yes.
I'm so glad it resonated with you, Rebecca!
This is such a good one! I was bowled over by the metaphors from the nursery: "It's a mother's spoon, / the time-bound mind. / Bringing milk then meat / a bite at a time" and the notion of linear time and seasons being a soft blanket we can snuggle into -- unless we are wide awake (like you!) and ready to capsize the cradle for more (or less, or both). I'm a bit more hooked into the Matrix myself I'm afraid, but every now and then I get glimpses of what I think you're talking about, and it's pretty special.
Haha, well I definitely wouldn't classify myself as wide awake . . . babies have a remarkable ability to fuss in their sleep! But thank you all the same. 🧡
Lisa,
Every offering from you is a treat! What a wonderful prompt--to look at contrasts. Work is ending today for me so my brain is focusing, slowly. I do want to say, the very end of your writing today, in the explanation of the prompt, describes this space and your writing and spirit quite well for me: a beautiful bright spot that illuminates my days—even the dark ones. Thank you for being a bright spot.
Thank YOU, Larry! To use a word that we all now know and appreciate, you bring such apricity into this not-always-warm world.
You are way clever Lisa!