dear heart of mine,

February 22, 2012 By 41 Comments

Dear heart of mine,

    I’m writing to you…..yes,  you
~especially that part of you I’ve draped over the line
suspended in time
dangling and exposed
like the rows of diapers I used to hang
from rough wooden clothespins
while my sweetests
clamored happily in the grass below.

Yeah,  the wildly stretched part
where I’m deep marked and lumpy around the scars,
not at all smooth
and, I used to think,
kind of ugly,
squishy,
an embarrassing,  easy to dismiss sort of heart,
worn too far out on my sleeve
(cover that thing up,  for crying out loud).

Or so I judged.

Today I see you through some clearly different eyes
and I’m done with the harsh hating
of your soft and fragile sides,
the parts that break easy and thump loud with wound
because they love so effing hard.

And I’m fiercely grateful
and glad to call you mine.
So stretch out free and easy,
make yourself at home
because,
you want a shock,  heart of mine?

I think you’re beautiful.

“Don’t give me fountains,  I need waterfalls.  And when I cry my tears will fill an ocean.
The pain of love I’ll accept it all as long as you’ll join me in that emotion.
Cause half of lovin’ is no fun,  give it all,  give it all to me.
I can stand it.  I am strong that way.”
-Carly Simon

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Can there be anything braver than love?

February 13, 2012 By 44 Comments

My son is  home from Afghanistan
for precious few days of leave,
hearts gathered near to love him hard
before he returns.
It’s sweetness so sharp it hurts deep
and steps heavy on my buried landmines,
the debris somehow beautiful
because it’s true.

There is so much pain in love
and I’m thick wrapped
and undone,
life’s lens turned in sharp,
the focus so crisp that I’m raw,
from standing in the clarity
with a naked heart,
not rushing for cover,
or for habit,
or for busy.

Just this fresh grated grace raining down all fat and gentle
soaking my soul bare through,
until all of me is showing,
the parts I’d rather tuck away safe
and here I am
all disheveled
and unraveled,
and awkward
and spastic
with love.

and full up with words that aren’t enough,
and with pain that shows through messy
and I’m squeamish at the weakness seeping through
as I lose the pretending,
and go all true and slow,
until I’m still enough
to let Love’s eyes meet mine

and,  once again,
the gentleness breaks me
and my hands and heart roll open
and I let the scared and trembling insides of me
take comfort and shelter,
and shamelessly love and be loved.

Can there be anything braver than love?

“We are so limited,  you have to use the same word  for loving Rosaleen
as you do for loving Coke with peanuts.
Isn’t that a shame we don’t have many more ways to say it?”
-Sue Monk Kidd
“The Secret Life of Bees”

 

 

 

 

 

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windows and walls…..

February 5, 2012 By 34 Comments


I want my life to be an open window
like the Irregardless of my childhood,
a Raleigh restraunt that became something of a cold frame
that warmed my spirit to sprouting
like the ones I munched on my beanburger

Winter sunshine poured in through tall rough hewn windows
lined with life in pots glazed with earthy whimsy.
To my young eyes,  it was a living painting
built by “artists and hippies”
with fresh flavors and fascinating fragrance
that seeped into every pore of my soul
and marked me.

The food was poetry …farmers market marries Van Gogh
and I marveled at every particle
as if watching a new color being born.
But the glory of the place,
where the creativity angels seemed to gather,
was the bathroom.

I’d slip away from the table and my lemon tahini
and fairly skip down the narrow hallway
to let my soul marinate
in the sanctuary.

 I loved that tiny room with the high ceiling.
Every square inch was splashed with a mural
so bold and daring and brilliant and expressive
it seemed to sing out loud
in it’s ebullience
…spirit wine freshly shaken and uncorked,
someone’s heart poured out on walls.
It made the rest of the world seem dredged in gray flour
and fried up cold and bland.

 But here, gardens blossomed and spilled
unconstricted down cinderblock and mortar
and became grafted into my sense of possibility.
I wanted this.
I want it still.

And sometimes now,
when headache and hassle and disappointment
feel like icebergs ripping into my hull,
I close my eyes and remember that herby, loamy smell of freedom
that got inside me then.

 And something wildly fearless pokes fun again
at the perfectionism dogging me,
gently stretching my vision-gone-narrow
until it begins to reach out again beyond walls
that seem to be closing in
and I rethink walls.

They are just walls.

(this is a re-write…. whisked and sauteed and served up fresh;
I send you love and bright hope
for open windows and fresh breeze.

 

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