Poems

Joy is a piercing note,
so sharp
it’s hard to catch.

But who would want to catch it?
Not me.

For it is that sharpness –
that instantaneous stretch for all,
that makes me
cry and laugh together.

When I can stop the flow of words –
        my day
        yesterday
        the shoulds,
When I can stop the casting about of my mind
        for the next thing –
that bit of forward pressure that thinks
        it is needed,
I might feel my body,
        the physical sensation of clothes,
        heartbeat, distant sounds,
        often the weight of me on my butt.
Ha – yes that.
Yet sometimes that feeling of physical me
        is not a stop in the stopping.
I pause, that’s what I do –
        I pause.
And when I can stop that pressure of forward –
        of you all, of me in my worry,
        of any last leaning,
Then, in that beautiful nothing, comes a warmth
        that is not physical – the spread of it melts
        any last doubt in the nearby.
It is simply not of this physical realm,
        which is the purest and greatest of comfort.
It is More.

We lobby for love
        in every second of our existence,
Wanting that contentment
Wanting that relaxation
Wanting love to be a kind of backbone –
A spine within that we are not aware of;
Yet everything runs through it
It coordinates everything
It holds us upright.
I want that backbone
Where love is such a given
That my posture is
        simply, unknowingly, Radiant.

Blue sheets,
dark navy blue flannel sheets,
don’t wake me
like white sheets.

Twenty-five years of
dark navy blue flannel sheets
and I finally asked myself why.

I wonder what other bits of caring
I’ve hidden
for years.

Everything matters.
What you say,
What you add to this world,
How you feel toward every moment
Matters.
If rushing around for any reason was simply gone,
How would you . . .
             breathe?