Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

Sweep the Threshold

3/31/2024

Riverbed Comforter
Painting by Duy Huynh

Sweep the threshold,
unlock the door,
put the busyness away--
what comes is far
too important.
Build a fire,
quiet the house,
all your sensing is required.
Hear the hoof beats?
The full horse breaths?
Mice may scratch in the walls,
spiders rattle the roof,
you've nothing to do
but be home.
Movements beneath your skin,
flashes of thought,
quickening heart,
allow them.
This is a welcoming.
You don't know who approaches
only that they must.
Freedom blooms
as we set
a place for everything.
What you carry in your blood
has voice--
Let her sing.

- Willow Annan Rose

The Purpose of Your Life

3/24/2024

Solitary Refinement
Painting by Duy Huynh

The purpose of your
Life
Is to be
Confronted
By a problem
You cannot solve
This problem
Is your soul's
Blueprint
It haunts you
And finds you
Again and again
You will try
Relentlessly
To resolve this problem
And in your trying
You will deepen
Into the primordial
Waters
Of wisdom,
Beyond understanding.
This problem
Is the Beloved
That won't let you
Get away
This problem only asks
That you live into her
This koan with no
Meaning
This mystery school
With one student
This repetitive question
This unsolvable
Problem
This riddle
Is your path
It is the way you walk the earth
Your life itself
Is the answer

- Maya Luna

Meeting Eros, for Equinox

3/17/2024

Windflower Reverie
Painting by Duy Huynh

Because after the snow and the rain
the redwing blackbird trills in the cattails
and the song of the inner life is born again.
And from out of our dark caves
we stumble and call to each other
wondering what has been transformed
in the winter months and who will now emerge.
We are like bears bounding
out of the mountain, slightly bewildered
blinking in the bright new light,
ravenous for the world.

This is eros unleashed--
the seduction of apple blossoms--
petals raining on wet fertile earth,
hummingbirds unzipping the cerulean sky,
the glint of streamflow and bare skin.
How the full moon pours Maylight
upon our upturned faces,
and the breezes carry the scent of longing
and melancholy, lilac and the spice
of all that is greening.

We have died a thousand times
and been reborn for this.
To lie back, even for a moment,
into the arms of the world--
to meet eros in every turn--
to be courted by you who stirs
the inner waters and tears apart
the old husks. Yes, you
who makes us want to eat fire
and lay down in every meadow.

We have been waiting for your arrival
and now you are here,
no longer a Stranger, but a Storm--
you, who strikes the bell of awakening,
so the whole body rings out
with Delight.

- Laura Weaver

I am soft today

3/10/2024

Photo by Jeremy Bishop

I am soft today. Soft as shortbread dough fresh off the mixer, liquored by an extract
of vanilla and spun with siftfuls of powdered sugar. And salt. Because when I say soft,
I don’t really mean sweet. I mean the feeling around a streetlight on a quiet road,
that miasmic halo that reveals the season’s lingering winged things aiming
for the bulb’s muted warmth. Or when the market vendor, handing me a sheaf of kale,
said it was so much better because of the frost. I’m not saying I am the frost, or the leaves,
purple-green and pliant, spread across the palms of our half-gloved hands, but whatever
middle it was that we met. Palm-soft. Air-soft. Truth-soft. Soft as whatever the sky
is doing right this minute, shedding the day behind it. And in-betweenness where
what’s next isn’t here yet. Or it is, and if I keep my breath soft enough, I’ll see it.

- Maya Stein

The Bull

3/3/2024

He stood alone in the backyard, so dark
the night purpled around him.
I had no choice. I opened the door
& stepped out. Wind
in the branches. He watched me with kerosene
-blue eyes. What do you want? I asked, forgetting I had
no language. He kept breathing,
to stay alive. I was a boy–
which meant I was a murderer
of my childhood. & like all murderers, my god
was stillness. My god, he was still
there. Like something prayed for
by a man with no mouth. The green-blue lamp
swirled in its socket. I didn’t
want him. I didn’t want him to
be beautiful – but needing beauty
to be more than hurt gentle
enough to want, I
reached for him. I reached – not the bull –
but the depths. Not an answer but
an entrance the shape of
an animal. Like me.

- Ocean Vuong

Sweep the Threshold

The Purpose of Your Life

Meeting Eros, for Equinox

I am soft today

The Bull

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Sweep the Threshold

The Purpose of Your Life

Meeting Eros, for Equinox

I am soft today

The Bull

Archives

Categories

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