​Assume it’s in the kitchen,
under the couch, high
in the pine tree out back,
behind the paint cans
in the garage. Don’t try
proving your love
is bigger than the Grand
Canyon, the Milky Way,
the urban sprawl of L.A.
Take it for granted. Take it
out with the garbage. Bring
it in with the takeout. Take
it for a walk with the dog.
Wake it every day, say,
“Good morning.” Then
make the coffee. Warm
the cups. Don’t expect much
of the day. Be glad when
you make it back to bed.
Be glad he threw out that
box of old hats. Be glad
she leaves her shoes
in the hall. Snow will
come. Spring will show up.
Summer will be humid.
The leaves will fall
in the fall. That’s more
than you need. We can
love anybody, even
everybody. But you
can love the silence,
sighing and saying to
yourself, “That’s her.”
“That’s him.” Then to
each other, “I know!
Let’s go out for breakfast!”

​    - Jack Ridl

​The Calling

In third grade I kept raising my hand
desperate to be called on
even though I had no idea what

the answer to the question was.
I only knew that to be called on
was the best thing. And isn't that still

the best thing--to be called on?
And all the days of uncertainty
and the lonely nights, the ends

of all the ropes, the whole house
of cards collapsed, now become
an answer to any question

that life conceives--like how the purpling
of dusk lingers between branches
after the sun sets, or whether it's better

to sit on the soil or eat warm, crusted
bread. How lucky to be chosen to answer
for the chickadees who stay all winter,

the daffodils that bloom too early, or a gull
tattered on the shore, wings half-buried in sand
each of us a grain, hands held high,

called on to notice it all, and answer.


Speaking in Tongues

It's funny what you don't have
to worry about--last night, after
a few warm Spring weeks,
the mercury fell to the 40s,
but today the corn shoots
poked their rolled green tongues
out of the garden soil. And while
the dryer we bought was a lemon
and in principle a ripoff, it still
works well enough. Which is
to say that, while my small
reactive and conditioned self is still,
more often than not, in the way,
the love that is living me and you
and the corn and the dryer--
the whole mercurial mystery
of it all--is already there, just
waiting to poke through the cold,
the unjust, the broken-down
garden soil of us with its playful,
green, giving and forgiving tongue.


Sky Writing

The wind dictates a memo,
fleet and legible, brailled
on the surface of the pond,
read by lilies and water shield,
telegraphed through stem, root, mud,
into the dreams of a turtle.

The message is clear and a little forlorn--
don't forget me, dear--I miss
the way we touched, moist and close
in summer. The pond itself is never lonely,
shows its moods skin to sky, sequined
in sunlit shadows, its depths unsecret,

transparent, receptive to a fault.
Whatever stirs the mud--turtles
reborn to spring, worms that burrow--
the pond takes note, allows, embraces,
the way the eye holds the world,
the way you might love your enemy.


Death Was Gentle

I asked Death to be gentle and she was,
knowing how terrified I'd been of her.
She took me to the soil, the bright womb where
all life is born from dun decay and rust.

And then I knew the one I'd feared was Earth,
whose every fold and wrinkle I adored.,
whose creatures were all siblings of my birth
whose beauty fed me still as through a birth-cord.

And so, to have been made of Death herself,
to sojourn on my mother, as matter--
nature, with no need to be another--
rock returned to beautiful rock in death,

from one whose terror told him not to be,
now I'm at home in life, myself, and free.

​    - Chuck Madansky

Come closer.

This fire will all too soon
be ash.

I would tell you the story the moth knows
for making peace with the night.

The story tears have for making medicine
out of grief.

The story for eliciting the purr
in the belly of the tiger.

If you listen to your blood
you can hear the story of the sea
pulled by the moon
in the open sky
pouring the water of rivers
into your heart.

You can hear the aria
of the wind that the birds
know by heart

singing the story of your body
a hundred generations
in the making.

Come closer:

This is the story that will be yours
long after I have left this place.

​    - Madronna Holden

​Nearer to the earth’s heart,
Deeper within its silence:
Animals know this world
In a way we never will.

We who are ever
Distanced and distracted
By the parade of bright
Windows thought opens:
Their seamless presence
Is not fractured thus.

Stranded between time
Gone and time emerging,
We manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always
Looking out from
The here and now.

May we learn to return
And rest in the beauty
Of animal being,
Learn to lean low,
Leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses
Feel the earth
Breathing with us.

May we enter
Into lightness of spirit,
And slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.
Let the clear silence
Of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts
Of corrosive words.
​
May we learn to walk
Upon the earth
With all their confidence
And clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds
Might be baptized
In the name of the wind
And the light and the rain.

    - John O'Donohue

So I can’t save the world--
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.

    - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

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

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

​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