I’ve become the person who talks to avocados.
Oh, look how ripe you are!
The one who talks to dust bunnies under the bed.
Oh, my goodness. How long have you been there?
I’ve become the person who narrates wind as it gusts,
the one who composes out loud while writing poems.
In short, I’m the person who once mystified me.
Does she really think lettuce seeds can hear her?
And I love being this woman who converses with stars,
with shadows, this person who notices feelings that rise
as I move through a day and takes pleasure in greeting them.
Hello shame. I say. Hello fear. Hello embarrassment.
How much easier life is when I join in the big conversation.
Then I am never alone. Not that the bananas talk back.
Neither does the mop. But that doesn’t stop me
from being curious about my connection with all of it—
the stain on the dishtowel, the pond as it melts,
the broken pot, the robin in the yard, the highway trash.
It’s not the talking part I love, but letting my attention
touch everything. Cracked glass. A lost glove. Tire tracks.
Mostly, I love the listening for what isn’t said back.
When was the first time you knew
you would never be loved for who you are?
The first time you knew you would disappoint
everyone when you dared to show up
as yourself? I think of Camille Claudel
in her white frock, the lacy one she was forced
to wear. Her mother’s anger when
young Camille would return from the woods,
mud-joyously smudged, after a day
spent forming skeletons in clay.
A decade later Camille would be the one
Rodin depended on to sculpt the hands
and feet of his masterpieces. He would put
his own name on her work. Decry her talent.
Disparage her truth. Have you, too,
had your gifts turned to weapons used against you?
Have you, too, had someone else’s hands
re-mold the clay of your life into a story
you cannot bear? Could you, too, like Camille,
carve your most painful moment into hard marble
and offer it to the world to see, a moment so raw
people would gasp when they saw it,
even a hundred years later, and filled with ache
they would say, oh, my god, it is so beautiful.
**
Oh friends. There are so many unsung heroes in the world. And I am so glad that during Women’s History Month (yes, it still exists and is still relevant), my dear friend Kayleen Asbo and I are hosting a two-week series on relatively unknown, remarkably talented women artists with incredible stories. The first week we learn about Camille Claudel, the subject of my poem above, who was first worshipped by and then vilified by Auguste Rodin. The second week we learn of the wacky, resilient Suzanne Valadon who was muse to Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Erik Satie, and more, who forged her own artistic path, recreating the feminine from object to subject. It is STILL a radical act to celebrate the lives and contributions of women artists. Join us, please. Both weeks we’ll have six writing opportunities inspired by these women’s lives and their art.
From Tragedy to Triumph: Writing with Great Women Artists
March 4 & 11, 11-1 mountain time
Zoom
$50/$80/$100
Join me and the incomparable cultural historian Kayleen Asbo for a two-week class in which we explore the lives of sculptress Camille Claudel (whom we briefly met in connection with Rodin) and the wildly unconventional and irrepressible Suzanne Valadon, who began her career as the favorite model of Renoir and Toulouse Lautrec and though self-taught, achieved remarkable success and renown in her own right as a painter. We will marry inspiring art with poetry and our shared creative writing practice. Join us!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged camille claudel, ekphrasis, history, tragedy, women | 4 Comments »
Each time the cat leaps up
onto the bed, she makes
a small bright sound.
I love this sound. Love knowing
that soon her warm weight
will curl into or on top of my belly.
It’s addictive as the chime
of an incoming text.
Seductive as short sleeves
and the firm curve of biceps.
My greatest achievement—
more prized than title or degree—
is when my cat finds me
worthy of being her resting place.
I soften then. Allow. I thrive.
Become creature. Become
purr-being. Trust-cushion.
A reverent stillness. I become
one who will still for love.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged achievement, cat, comfort, stillness | 7 Comments »
Tenderness pierces the heart
the way a bright stream of sunlight
pierces evening clouds,
the way the green stem of garlic
pierces cold spring soil.
It pierces the heart the way protests
for justice pierce silence.
If anyone asks, where does it hurt,
the truest answer is everywhere.
If anyone asks, where can I find
beauty enough to make me weep,
the answer is the same.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ache, beauty, tenderness | 4 Comments »
As wet loves the waves,
as dark loves night
as white loves snow
as a bell loves the strike
as a wing loves air,
as the shout loves the ear
as silence loves silence
let me love what is here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged acceptance, being present, present moment | Leave a Comment »
around my heart has come down.
Oh sure, I’ve rebuilt them with stones
of indifference. Stones of distraction.
Stones of unwillingness to see and be seen.
I’ve rebuilt the fortresses again. Again.
But then come flames of heartbreak.
Cannons of loss. The triple promises
of entropy, gravity and time. And at last,
too exhausted to lift the stones again,
I shiver with the cold wind of fear.
Sting from the sharp blades of betrayal.
But I feel, too, the gentle hand of another
as it holds my trembling hand.
Feel the body soften as I listen
to the music I could never make alone.
How present I can be when I no longer try
to rebuild the fortress. Present
enough to listen for the goodness
in the hearts of others. Present enough
to listen for the goodness in mine.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fear, fortress, self-protection, vulnerability | 4 Comments »
And then one day, while I read
aloud to my husband the news
and felt the widening hole in my heart,
he raised his hand to quiet me.
I followed his gaze out the window
to see in the yard a small fluffy thing
with black and white eyespots on its head.
A northern pygmy owl beside our door,
stout body slightly smaller than my fist.
It turned its neck a full half circle
to look at me with bright yellow eyes.
In an instant, I shifted from disgust
with the world to awe. Awe for this
fierce bespeckled miracle, this wonder
of feather and beak and claw, this
small being in the grass looking back
at me as if to say, Here is also the news.
How surprising the world can be.
How quickly, when I let it, amazement
overwrites my fear and makes
of the hole in my heart a home.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged awe, bird, disgust, falling in love with the world, news, owl, shift | 8 Comments »
There’s a place in my brain where hate won’t grow.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Jerusalem”
Sometimes a seed of compassion
slips into my brain and lands in a place
where before only anger could grow.
These seeds appear
when I stop seeing humans
as only our actions and start
seeing all of us as walking wounds.
They appear when I see others
finding ways to be generous, to be kind.
If I offer the seed the barest scrap
of attention, it begins to grow roots.
Then a stem. Then seed leaves.
More leaves. A bud. But what allows
for this growth is far beyond me—
rather some gift that comes through
when me and my story get out of the way.
This is how I sometimes come to find
a whole field of inner daisies thriving
in a place I once torched to the dirt.
At first, they needed my constant care.
Then they reseeded again. And again.
They spread into such unpredictable
places. Sometimes outside my inner world.
The same way the seeds arrived in me.
Through kindness. Through love.
It’s beautiful.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Dear friends,
Today was day 120 of the monks walking from Texas to Washington DC to bring awareness to mindfulness and peace, compassion and connection. Today, after 2,300 miles, they arrived. What an amazing way to shine light on what is good inside all of us. How do we embody peace instead of arguing for it? What a question to live into.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged compassion, daisies, humanness, kindness, love, monks, wounds | 6 Comments »
There, on the dream marquis,
in big black all caps
were three words:
DEAR PEOPLE DARE.
I stood on the dream sidewalk
staring up into the vast
dream dark and thought,
someone made a movie
about tenderness—
real people finding courage
to offer love and care
to those who are wounded.
Which is all of us.
That’s when I woke,
determined to audition
for that show every day
for the rest of my life.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged audition, dream, movie, tenderness | 6 Comments »