I love your renderings of these diverse ways in which enlivenment visits you...and the idea of "falling awake" is a brilliant naming of the experience of abrupt wakefulness! My psyche apparently took this prompt as an invitation to mill some relational grist in a very rhymey way:
Oh wow, that ending! I love how each of those final lines was a little shorter than the one preceding it, like russian nesting doll doors, ever smaller, ever more interior, ever more tightly locked. This is a beautiful poem!
Ooooh, "the sanctity of interiority" -- I love this, and the rest of the poem. I didn't know interiority was a word, thank you for that! Can really relate with this in thinking of past relationships, one in particular. The more my alone time is perceived/treated as a threat, the more I need it.
Thanks, Rebekah - and thanks for letting me know you found it relatable Interiority is a place I visit frequently, still. And for much of my life, it was the only place that felt private and safe. Grateful that I've learned other ways to set boundaries for myself.
This is wonderful, Keith. I like the sweet flow you create with your different spacing, and the ending is quite nice "locking myself behind doors you will never ever see." The lines getting shorter and shorter works so well.
Keith I too like the ending and the shrinking that happens. The words describe but so do the visible movement of them. The big exclamation point on the end,
I love the contrasting images of windows and doors and the subtle irony of your choice of form - a small haiku for a poem that bemoans getting smaller.
This is exquisite, A! I love that you have carefully chosen such beautiful images in tribute to your experience of the magic of existence through each of your senses. And the recursion of "alive, alive, alive" did, as Lisa said, strike me as the pulse of life. Brilliant :)
This is a spectacualr poem, A. It is one of the most wonderful I have read in these spaces over the past 12 months. I love the refrain of "alive, alive, alive" and how you weave so many renderings, feelings and descriptions of magic so beautifully with imagery tied to nature and the sensuality of being human. This is an epic gem!
Lisa thank you for your poem! And I love this topic of threshold and the liminal. After all my substack is entitled Liminal Walker Musings! I wrote this poem awhile back, here it is for you all today...
Julie, this is very wonderful! Your poems often feel like painting as poems, so beautifully drawn and written. The rhyming here is excellent, flowing and smooth. The last stanza is magic!
This is beautiful, Karri! The idea of a respite room for the in-betweens of our lives is so lovely. It makes me think of a model that was used to describe change in the coaching program I was in (Martha Beck's) . . . first, there's the stage in which our old life or some aspect of it has dissolved. We're like the goop in a chrysallis - no longer a caterpillar, not yet a butterfly. Then comes the stage of dreaming and imagining and planning what might come next - "consider your choices before you move ahead," as you put it in your poem. And only after spending time in our goopy, grief-filled phase and our dreamy imagining phase are we ready to begin the work of breaking out of the chrysallis.
I love the bookending of this beautiful poem with the threshold of what was before and what is next and also the nod you give to Mary Oliver. I often mistake the familiarity of the known for comfort, until the part of me that yearns for more grows uncomfortable with the "comfort."
This is exceptional, Karri. What a beautifully honest, precise and evocative poem. You capture that intangible feeling of crossing a threshold, moving from one e place or phase, into another, so wonderfully well. 🙏🏻
Thank you Larry! Trying to embrace the unknown for a few more weeks. I have a couple of trips planned but after those are over I am going to have to get serious about a job search. Or something lol.
"It is difficult to understand the story / when you are in it." So true and so perfectly put, Larry! I love the prayerful ending . . . "may I be open/ to all that may be/ and all that could be." That's my hope, too! Being here in community with all of you warm, generous, big-hearted humans definitely feels like an opening in my life.
loved this Larry - "May I be opened and may I be open to all that may be and all that could be" What a beautiful blessing. I love this poem being about opening. I ponder, there are so many simultaneous openings and closings happening all the time. Closing making the opening possible, closing as the completion of an exhale.
Like Karri, the lines "It is difficult to understand the story/when you are in it" really struck me. This is both beautiful and so relatable, Larry. Thank you for opening yourself with us all here.
Before I even contemplate to write. I have had these feelings at various times over the years and i vividly recall one time in high school. It was almost like a Deja vu feeling but everything looked clear like actually vividly clear in my vision. It was so bizarre. Hasn’t happened in a really long time. I wish it would again!
That’s so interesting to hear you compare it to deja vu, Karri - and that totally fits for me. They share some sort of tingly, super-sensing, ultra aware quality.
I love this so much! Hanging on your very word. You describe a way in which I used to feel frequently, when aliveness would strike anytime. When the silhouettes of the trees right as the sun was setting would make my heart sing, or a beautiful textile would bring tears to my eyes. I am so glad I read this reminder, feels like waking up just a little. Thank you!
I’m so glad, Lauren, and thank you for your kind words! This aliveness definitely waxes and wanes in my life. One thing I love about writing poetry (or any creative practice) is that it makes me more awake and attentive to the world - and that in turn helps inspire poems . . . which all feeds back into this feeling of aliveness.
Love the stanza 'the door is heat in your palm acid on your tongue', Lisa. Beautiful poem. I agree, thresholds are always buzzing with magic. With invitation. With 'should I explore or should I pass this one up?' energy. And thank you for the fun prompt. :)
Lisa, just realized that I neglected to post how powerful your poem is. Your poems, each time, resonate so strongly, because they are beautifully written and because you seem to have a wonderful gift of connection with heart, soul and spirit.
It's a spiritual practice to receive the unexpected joys of a dump run without expecting them or grasping to repeat! I loved this. "Yoohoo-hued" and "this shining door into my day" really grabbed me, the former for its playfulness and the latter for its shimmering.
Rebekah this is precious. Being open, available to the wondrous joys of the morning as the garbage tote is taken to its pick up site. Not as a chore, but a sweet expectancy of what this day is offering and delivering. No blinders buy open eyes.
I love your renderings of these diverse ways in which enlivenment visits you...and the idea of "falling awake" is a brilliant naming of the experience of abrupt wakefulness! My psyche apparently took this prompt as an invitation to mill some relational grist in a very rhymey way:
*
Please do not mistake
my closed door as a
display of disloyalty or a
referendum on your lovability.
It is simply a need
for privacy. Not a punishment
nor a luxury. A need
that if suppressed or denied
will, inevitably,
extinguish the last gasping embers
of true intimacy
between you and me.
Because the more you demand
transparency, the harder you push
against my boundary,
the faster and deeper I retreat
into the sanctity of interiority,
locking myself behind doors
you will
never
ever
see.
Oh wow, that ending! I love how each of those final lines was a little shorter than the one preceding it, like russian nesting doll doors, ever smaller, ever more interior, ever more tightly locked. This is a beautiful poem!
And I love the image of the nesting Russian doll doors! Thanks, friend :)
“Not a punishment or a luxury”. Totally agree. Necessity.
To understand it, and acknowledge it, instead of getting mad at it, and trying to break it down. my closed door. woof.
I relate to this need. It feels more like a need for solitude than privacy for me, but that closing off is so real.
Ooooh, "the sanctity of interiority" -- I love this, and the rest of the poem. I didn't know interiority was a word, thank you for that! Can really relate with this in thinking of past relationships, one in particular. The more my alone time is perceived/treated as a threat, the more I need it.
Thanks, Rebekah - and thanks for letting me know you found it relatable Interiority is a place I visit frequently, still. And for much of my life, it was the only place that felt private and safe. Grateful that I've learned other ways to set boundaries for myself.
This is wonderful, Keith. I like the sweet flow you create with your different spacing, and the ending is quite nice "locking myself behind doors you will never ever see." The lines getting shorter and shorter works so well.
Thanks so much, Larry :)
Keith I too like the ending and the shrinking that happens. The words describe but so do the visible movement of them. The big exclamation point on the end,
Thank you, Julie!
windows that open
seem half size to doors that close.
getting smaller sucks.
The small but mighty haiku. Love it.
I like playing with those little word nuggets
Me too :)
I love the contrasting images of windows and doors and the subtle irony of your choice of form - a small haiku for a poem that bemoans getting smaller.
Your doorway is my magic. (I am for sure one of the weird ones. 🧡) I can't figure out if I want to reorder the stanzas, so here it is:
I have touched magic,
felt its heart beat in my hand.
I've lifted its body from out of my own,
felt the weight of it.
I've dipped my toes into it and
felt the nibbles of life's hunger.
I've channeled it through my fingers,
felt it flow into thread, brush, and pen.
I've held my hand to my chest,
felt the thrum repeating:
alive, alive, alive.
.
I have witnessed magic,
watched it flit between branches.
I've been drawn toward its light,
watched it paint the world gold.
I've stopped in my tracks and
watched it run past into the woods.
I've seen it smiling wide,
watched it rest in creases beside eyes.
I've followed its dance with my gaze,
watched the movements repeating:
alive, alive, alive.
.
I have inhaled magic,
breathed in the day's bright beginning.
I've woken to it brewing,
breathed in the depths of its boldness.
I've scented it in salt air,
breathed in a bit of the sea.
I've caught it on the breeze,
breathed in its wild, changing nature.
I've welcomed and released,
breathed in and out repeating:
alive, alive, alive.
.
I have tasted magic,
savoured the flavours of love and home.
I've planted and watered and waited,
savoured the taste of my labour.
I've gone back for seconds,
savoured the nourishing of my self.
I've kept it on the tip of my tongue,
savoured its sweetness.
I've received its gentle kiss,
savoured the softness repeating:
alive, alive, alive.
.
I have heard magic,
listened as its laughter filled the room.
I've turned my ear and squinted,
listened for its gurgles and babbling.
I've swayed tired as it fussed,
listened as the cries became sighing.
I've waited with quiet yearning,
listened breathless to the first I love you's.
I've returned to its shores again and again
listened to the rush and roar repeating:
alive, alive, alive.
A, this is gorgeous! I could feel the pulse of your words with each refrain - alive, alive, alive.
This is exquisite, A! I love that you have carefully chosen such beautiful images in tribute to your experience of the magic of existence through each of your senses. And the recursion of "alive, alive, alive" did, as Lisa said, strike me as the pulse of life. Brilliant :)
those first I love yous
That was amazing. The entire poem was alive with motion and well, magic!
Oooo love that you went through the different senses in how magic is perceived. Magical.
This is a spectacualr poem, A. It is one of the most wonderful I have read in these spaces over the past 12 months. I love the refrain of "alive, alive, alive" and how you weave so many renderings, feelings and descriptions of magic so beautifully with imagery tied to nature and the sensuality of being human. This is an epic gem!
Lisa thank you for your poem! And I love this topic of threshold and the liminal. After all my substack is entitled Liminal Walker Musings! I wrote this poem awhile back, here it is for you all today...
.
I am drawn to walk
shores of ebb and flow
Liminal tides that
wane only to grow
.
Two seemly opposing forces
in a death and birth dance
They morph and converge
as if in a trance
.
Matter now energy
energy now matter
Difference blurs
in an ongoing rapture
.
Deep in that opacity
appearances fall away
What is transpiring
is hard to convey
.
For behind the scenes
a masterpiece is painting
The landscape itself
is doing the creating
.
The strokes of Her brush
both shape and destroy
Its creativity’s playfulness
dancing with joy
.
It is in this liminal space
I am called to walk
To witness the magic
with the eyes of a hawk
.
For pure pleasure is unfurling
and it’s summoning me
Please join in delight
connect and you’ll see
.
Let go of the separation
take down the wall
I am coming to realize
I am that call
Landscape as a joyful, playful creator! What a beautiful image, Julie.
This is a lovely invitation, Julie. And I love the idea of the landscape herself doing the creating.
I love the invitation to “join in delight”!
I am that call! I love that!
Julie, this is very wonderful! Your poems often feel like painting as poems, so beautifully drawn and written. The rhyming here is excellent, flowing and smooth. The last stanza is magic!
Welcome to the Respite Room.
You have left What Was Before.
Come inside,
Rest your body,
Gather your thoughts,
Gaze out the window,
Dare to dream.
But be aware,
You cannot stay.
You have more to do,
With your wild and precious life,
Beyond these four walls.
I understand.
You like it here.
It is comfortable.
Familiar.
But everything you know was once unknown.
You still have some time here.
But one day soon,
The window will close
And doors of opportunity will appear.
Yes, of course, you may peak behind them.
Consider your choices before you move ahead.
Then, decision made, you will open one door fully and cross the threshold to
What is Next.
This is beautiful, Karri! The idea of a respite room for the in-betweens of our lives is so lovely. It makes me think of a model that was used to describe change in the coaching program I was in (Martha Beck's) . . . first, there's the stage in which our old life or some aspect of it has dissolved. We're like the goop in a chrysallis - no longer a caterpillar, not yet a butterfly. Then comes the stage of dreaming and imagining and planning what might come next - "consider your choices before you move ahead," as you put it in your poem. And only after spending time in our goopy, grief-filled phase and our dreamy imagining phase are we ready to begin the work of breaking out of the chrysallis.
That is lovely. I’m very much still in the goop lol
I have been there, and I’m certain I’ll find myself there again! ❤️
I love the bookending of this beautiful poem with the threshold of what was before and what is next and also the nod you give to Mary Oliver. I often mistake the familiarity of the known for comfort, until the part of me that yearns for more grows uncomfortable with the "comfort."
Thank you Keith. Mary Oliver is the reason I really started reading and being interested in poetry although what a cliche line to quote lol.
I really love her stuff too, Karri. And that may be an oft-quoted line, but for good reason...words immemorial!
And what a great line to quote, my favorite of hers.
Agree!
This is exceptional, Karri. What a beautifully honest, precise and evocative poem. You capture that intangible feeling of crossing a threshold, moving from one e place or phase, into another, so wonderfully well. 🙏🏻
Thank you Larry! Trying to embrace the unknown for a few more weeks. I have a couple of trips planned but after those are over I am going to have to get serious about a job search. Or something lol.
Prayers and blessings are with you!
As I wrote this, I thought of how each of you, and this beauitful space, have opened me in ways that I celebrate every day.
Openings
^
“Perhaps there will be an opening for me…”
I hear outside diner say to her companion.
A walk by, fleeting glimpse of a conversation,
led me to think about openings.
What am I opening to, and towards?
Am I opening, or closing?
Or is the door stuck?
Am I “ A dweller on the threshold
Waiting at the door.”
Life seems like a series of thresholds,
of openings and closings,
Of beginnings and more beginnings,
and of endings.
It is difficult to understand the story
when you are in it.
History always looks clearer
from a distance,
and just murky and mucky
when it is being created.
May in this day, this simple spring day,
In May;
May I be opened
and may I be open
to all that may be
and all that could be
when this very next threshold is crossed.
Quotation from Van Morrison's song "Dweller on the Threshold"
"It is difficult to understand the story / when you are in it." So true and so perfectly put, Larry! I love the prayerful ending . . . "may I be open/ to all that may be/ and all that could be." That's my hope, too! Being here in community with all of you warm, generous, big-hearted humans definitely feels like an opening in my life.
Thank you Lisa! You are the welcoming guide at the door to this special place.
loved this Larry - "May I be opened and may I be open to all that may be and all that could be" What a beautiful blessing. I love this poem being about opening. I ponder, there are so many simultaneous openings and closings happening all the time. Closing making the opening possible, closing as the completion of an exhale.
Thank you Julie! I like your expression of the perpetual nature of openings and closings. So true! Blessings to you!
Like Karri, the lines "It is difficult to understand the story/when you are in it" really struck me. This is both beautiful and so relatable, Larry. Thank you for opening yourself with us all here.
So difficult to understand the story when you are in it! Thank you for the invitation that we should all be open to all that may be!
Thank you Karri, and you are welcome!
"It is the knot on the top
of your left shoulder, that
hollow echo behind your heart."
Oh, man. What a poem. And I'm so excited to try this prompt when I get home. Thank you!
Thank you, Margaret! I’d love to read what you come up with!
Before I even contemplate to write. I have had these feelings at various times over the years and i vividly recall one time in high school. It was almost like a Deja vu feeling but everything looked clear like actually vividly clear in my vision. It was so bizarre. Hasn’t happened in a really long time. I wish it would again!
That’s so interesting to hear you compare it to deja vu, Karri - and that totally fits for me. They share some sort of tingly, super-sensing, ultra aware quality.
I love this so much! Hanging on your very word. You describe a way in which I used to feel frequently, when aliveness would strike anytime. When the silhouettes of the trees right as the sun was setting would make my heart sing, or a beautiful textile would bring tears to my eyes. I am so glad I read this reminder, feels like waking up just a little. Thank you!
I’m so glad, Lauren, and thank you for your kind words! This aliveness definitely waxes and wanes in my life. One thing I love about writing poetry (or any creative practice) is that it makes me more awake and attentive to the world - and that in turn helps inspire poems . . . which all feeds back into this feeling of aliveness.
Your poem is so lovely. I love how you weave words together.
Thank you so much, LeeAnn! That means so much to me.
Love the stanza 'the door is heat in your palm acid on your tongue', Lisa. Beautiful poem. I agree, thresholds are always buzzing with magic. With invitation. With 'should I explore or should I pass this one up?' energy. And thank you for the fun prompt. :)
Thank you so much, Petra! I love the word invitation to describe this.
Lisa, just realized that I neglected to post how powerful your poem is. Your poems, each time, resonate so strongly, because they are beautifully written and because you seem to have a wonderful gift of connection with heart, soul and spirit.
Thank you so much, friend!
What if every day were like
Garbage Day,
when I have to drive my tote
down the road to where it
jabs an elbow into the river
.
and, once there,
can’t help but notice
the cottonwood curtains drawn low
over all that snow cut loose and
Yoohoo-hued, hurtling past
to find the salmon?
.
When in its deepest knowing,
Apple Music shuffles forth
a song about a laughing river?
.
When the song stings my eyes
but only enough to clean them,
sharpening the lines of
aerialist swallows overhead
on their invisible trapezes
.
and that lone violet-green
on his 240-volt tightrope,
and I realize they are all here
for me, the only paying customer
in the big top?
.
It costs $6.50 to trade
a receptacle of trash
for this shining door
into my day.
.
But it’s a hair trigger transaction.
If performed too often, it would
surely collapse. So I grow my
garbage, waiting for it to
say go of a Thursday morning,
waiting for the next run.
It's a spiritual practice to receive the unexpected joys of a dump run without expecting them or grasping to repeat! I loved this. "Yoohoo-hued" and "this shining door into my day" really grabbed me, the former for its playfulness and the latter for its shimmering.
Rebekah this is precious. Being open, available to the wondrous joys of the morning as the garbage tote is taken to its pick up site. Not as a chore, but a sweet expectancy of what this day is offering and delivering. No blinders buy open eyes.